Dan has written a lovely post about his mixed feelings about Twitter these days. It says everything I would like to say about the topic more eloquently than I would be able to but basically it comes down to this for me →
My corner of Twitter is lovely. I have a great community that has grown over the eleven years I have used the platform. It has opened my eyes to new ideas, introduced me to other wonderful people, supported me through rough times and basically gave me the career I have today.
The problem it is no longer possible to ignore what a cesspit the rest of the platform has become and that Twitter leadership seems unwilling (because they are actually clearly able to some extent) to clean things up.
I’ve been wondering about this for a while — I’ve been using Instagram a little more, enjoying peoples email newsletters, looking for another place to lay down roots on the network.
In quick succession I saw people like Roo and Simon talk about taking a break from Twitter. I came across the whole campaign to ditch Twitter that was growing more widely and then Twitter suspended Stormzy (who I don’t even follow but do admire) for some bullshit and I decided that was enough for me to make my first changes to see if I can make a move away.
So I am going to give Mastodon a try. There are things I don’t really like about it, more that I don’t understand about it and for now at least it is a bit like a Western Ghost Town.
The thing is it is until it isn’t. Unless we make the move nothing will change.
I’ve never followed any brands, celebrities, sports personalities or even big name tech folk. I liberally use the Mute option and often unfollow people if I decide they are annoying! There is no doubt I live in an online bubble for Twitter — but in my defence elsewhere my world is much less sheltered — but I do think because of all this it might be possible to recreate something that looks like my community elsewhere with a bit of elbow grease.
So from Monday I am going move away from actively using Twitter for the rest of August (which isn’t long I know) just as a trial. I’ll still auto-post some blogposts there but I’ll be removing all the apps from my phone, closing down the pinned Tweetdeck deck on my Pixelbook and spending my time trying to grow a community on Mastodon.
Join me on the liferaft → https://mastodon.social/invite/Zb6MJ935
