the decline of Twitter
twitter really has rotted, huh
every time I glance back there (mostly to check on artists who still owe me work) I’ve seen the tone changing, and for some reason it suggests me mostly three categories of tweets:
* drama about people I’ve never heard about
* some kind of… trans 4channer demographic where people are screeching what looks… vaguely shaped like self-loathing filtered through a thick layer of incomprehensible jargon?
* general aimless, non-specific despair
…like, none of these are who I’m following, or related to who I’m following. it has gotten *bad*
the decline of Twitter
I keep seeing this slang term so disgusting that I refuse to repeat it, but today I finally broke down and googled it to figure out what the hell they’re saying, and it refers to a specific genre of, like, mushy romantic story-post of dubious veracity
*normal* fucking people would just call that a goddamn *romance story.* you can admit to yourself that you’re into romance! you don’t have to coat it in an inch-thick layer of self-loathing first!
for fuck’s *sake*
the decline of Twitter
unfortunately, I now completely understand what drove someone to make the “I think whatever website you’re getting this jargon from is hurting you” comic
the decline of Twitter
@gardevoir Like, even when Jack was still running it, I was calling it a misery engine after they started using The Algorithm to sort things (it's almost hard to remember the site didn't start that way! Time organized stuff was great!). Seeing actual studies lately did not improve my opinion.
People aren't made to be bombarded with that much negativity, sorted by most effective, all of the time. I'd be concerned if disaffection _wasn't_ common there tbh.
the decline of Twitter
@gardevoir But yeah, it's an abusive relationship that site has with its users, and I'm still internally hoping folks can build the will to move.
Because social media sites don't really just... die anymore, they get mergered and acquired to worse entities looking to capitalize on the downward spiral for ad revenue (as a best case, compared to say, LJ). So.
the decline of Twitter
@Goldkin honestly, it feels less like people have moved, and more like people are just *gone*. like most of who’s left here are just crossposting from other platforms or wailing souls stuck in the torment pit
but that’s my purely anecdotal experience
the decline of Twitter
@gardevoir Yeah. I do know a lot of folks came off of Twitter and just... stopped posting. Myself included to some degree (at least to public timelines)
Still there, still working on their own projects, but much more active down private channels now.
Which I suppose makes sense: we trusted corps with the public square and they blew it up for clicks and ad revenue. That distrust isn't easily forgotten, even if smaller platforms lack the same incentive.
