--- title: "Twitter, or social cowardice as a service" date: 2022-10-28T12:00:00-07:00 url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2022/10/28/twitter/ author: Les Orchard tags: [metablogging, writing, social, twitter] --- # Twitter, or social cowardice as a service **TL;DR**: Yeah, yeah, I'm navel gazing about Twitter over here. !["Crows on a wire"](IMG_0759.png) I've been on Twitter since October 2006 - 16 years, as of this month. It replaced the social writing I used to do here, to my great shame as a proponent of the DIY web. In the beginning, it was a watercooler for Silicon Valley folks. Being [a Silicon Valley transplant at the time](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2006/06/24/go-west-young-man/), this was handy for me. When [we replanted to the midwest](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2008/05/14/go-midwest-young-man/), it helped me stay in touch with distant acquaintances. Since then, it's become a place where I eavesdrop on interesting strangers and occasionally try to say something amusing. For a while, [it turned into a rage room](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2016/11/11/heartbroken/) to vent about the world's manifold fuckery. But, with the exception of occasional relapses, [I've tried to lighten up](https://twitter.com/lmorchard/status/1508492761690869760). ![Let the hot take float away](twitter-hot-takes.png) I often consider ditching Twitter. [Of course](https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-problems-speech-moderation), I'm considering it again. Like [Dread Pirate Roberts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHZGqBVBCRw), I say "Good night, Twitter. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely quit you in the morning." For lack of a better description, Twitter is a comfy place for me to be a social coward. I can launch missives into the ether and retreat. Sometimes, when I come back, responses have arrived. It's all very indirect and deferred, like [a play-by-mail game](https://www.wired.com/story/multiplayer-gaming-envelopes-stamps-play-by-mail-history/). Or like the discussion forums of single-line [dial-up BBSes](https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/category/computers/bbs-history) from when I was a pre-teen. I don't have to address anyone in particular or engage with [the exhausting phenomenon](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2017/02/02/operation-anxiety/) of having drawn immediate, in-the-moment attention. (It bears saying, of course, that this is a description of my experience from a position of privilege and luck. Mileage varies dramatically for others.) I don't have any particularly strong bonds via Twitter. How could I, considering my nebula of [~4,500 followers](https://twitter.com/lmorchard/followers) and [~4,900 followed](https://twitter.com/lmorchard/following)? This is not an achievement, it's just impulsive accumulation from over a decade-and-a-half on the site. What are all these accounts? How many are piloted by genuine people? How many care or know who I am? If pressed to perform an inventory, I could recall some details. In any case, it'd be absurd to say that I'm friends with 5000 people. There might be a few who'd show up for a party, even fewer who'd help me move a couch or pick me up at the airport. ([Not that I've thrown a party or been to an airport in years](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2021/09/14/in-volvation/), but I've heard that these are defining features of friendship.) So, what am I doing on Twitter? Social cowardice as a service sounds like a disservice. Rather than daily social junk food, should I reconsider my habits of social outreach with greater mindful intent? I mean, sure. But, that sounds like a lot of fraught work. I prefer to avoid it. I also don't know how to be social. Do I just: - go doomscroll [on Mastodon](https://hackers.town/@lmorchard)? - return here to blog into the silent void? - jump around a bunch of Discords and say hello before immediately ghosting? - review my contacts and embark on an old-school personal correspondence habit that I will also abandon with haste? If I knew how to be an effective social human, I wouldn't need to lean on Twitter. My social life has been mediated by computers since I first used a modem in the 80s. I don't think that, for me, making friends in the offline world is an atrophied skill. Rather, I think it's that [I've never really had the knack](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2005/03/22/online-social-skills/). Anyway, I have no conclusions. I just wanted to write into a different part of the ether for a change. Comment, if you like. I'll be here brooding over whether I feel like [rewriting my blog build system from scratch](https://blog.lmorchard.com/2020/05/24/easy-blog-oven/) yet again.