The death of Twitter
The people at the microblogging benefit corporation “Bluesky” have done that rare thing. They have simultaneously created a congenial online haven from the rising fascism of social media, and they have kicked Elon Musk’s porky little ass. Musk’s 44 billion dollar boondoggle, the social media platform once known as Twitter that he bought and absurdly rechristened “X,” is going down in spectacular style. X is haemorrhaging users by the millions defecting to Bluesky, and I am pleased to say I am part of the, er, “X-odus.”
Exactly six years ago today, as I write this, I joined Twitter. I was warned that it was a toxic place even then, but I found it less so. To be sure, there were MAGAs galore back then, including Donald Trump, tweeting out their hate. But it was an equal place for good guys too, and I was content.
Things went downhill palpably at Twitter after the self-anointed “champion of free speech” bought the place, just as the corporation itself changed for the worse. Twitter quickly became putrid with bigotry and generic intolerance. Then, bizarrely, and with his typically tone deaf lack of fashion sense, Musk changed the name from Twitter to “X,” a name as ugly and aesthetically unwieldy as a Cybertruck. The media rejected it the way a transplant victim rejects a bad heart. More than a year later, the media still signals its disdain by referring to it as “Twitter-X.”
I have now joined Bluesky, and, as with its name, it is like emerging from perpetually foul and dreary weather into welcoming and radiant sunlight. I was greeted there warmly by old friends greeting a refugee to the Promised Land. If you want to join me, I have retained my Twitter handle. I can now be reached at “raharrington.bsky.social.” Please stop by to say “hi” and follow me. I will follow you back.
I don’t know what role Musk will assume in the Trump clown car known as his “administration,” if any, nor do I know how long he will last there. But I suspect it will be something like a sinecure and his tenure will be short. Trump cannot tolerate a competing colossal ego, and Musk’s ego is absolutely titanic, to say the least. Recall Steve Bannon’s short instantiation in the first administration of the insect overlords.
Musk is also an evil bastard who enjoys hurting people. He loves to fire people and he often does so in cruel and humiliating fashion. Nothing has given him more recent pleasure than to tell the American people that we must first go through economic pain before things improve. In other words, MAGA, if you voted for Trump because you’re unhappy with the price of eggs and gas, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
It ought to be frankly terrifying to anyone of modest or poor means to know that things are going to get economically worse because a smug, cruel asshole with more power than he could ever justify says so. Musk has no formal education in economics, and he is wholly unqualified to speak of such things. But the Dunning Kruger effect isn’t just for people of humble means or circumstances.
In the tradition of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, I have remained behind enemy lines at Twitter-X and retained my account there. For the time being. I want to keep an eye on what the enemy is up to. For one thing I want to have cutting-edge information about the latest blunders by Trump and Trump Junior. Their blunders have always been spectacular and I don’t expect them to stop any time soon.
Meanwhile I am going to enjoy a little Musk schadenfreude as his own personal social media playpen turns into a ghost town. He makes himself unpopular wherever he goes. Elon Musk is the ultimate loser with money that everybody sooner or later learns to hate.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.