Performative defiance - Twitter
There's been an influx of Substack Notes of people declaring that they finally have deleted their presence on Twitter. What the fuck took you so long?
There was a phenomenon back when I was active on Facebook. I was in a handful of atheist and groups that made fun of the antivax douchiness, and it seemed like once a week, someone would make a huge post about how they were leaving the group.
Uh, you know you can just click the “leave” button, and poof, you’re gone. No need to pen a screed as to why. I have a meme about this but I can’t find it.
I have noticed over the last 4 days or so (post election) a tidal wave of people in the Substack Notes feed declaring that they were done, they finally left Twitter1.
I have two questions.
First, really, you were happy to be there or you felt compelled to remain because of some tie to that increasingly toxic community, but all the aiding and abetting that Musk did to help tilt the election to Trump and MAGA was enough to get you to boldly leave?
Second, why the fuck do you feel that you need to advertise that you left. I mean, this has all the feel of virtue signaling — especially in the aftermath of the US Presidential election — and feels, well, performative. Its as if all the other fuckery that Musk has done, the tuning of the algos to ensure his posts and reposts get placed front and center, and are interleaved with the worst possible ads, for doomsday prepper suppliers, gold bugs, and get rich quick scams, for just $49.95 a month.
Oh, and all the porn. When I deleted my last account in early spring 2023, I was getting a lot of amateur hard-core porn (both straight and homosexual) in my feed with videos that autoplayed. While that wasn’t the prime mover for my departure and account deletion, it was a strong influencing factor.
I mean, as soon as it was (hackily) renamed to x.com, you should have fled.
I also hold a separate level of disdain for journalists who remain there because that is somehow needed for their information gathering and vetting. Look reporters, your willingness to remain on and engaged is probably the only reason that it hasn’t completely become the toxic cesspool that Musk so desires.
STOP GIVING MUSK ANY ATTENTION!
Sorry, I will always deadname it as Twitter.
Not trying to virtue signal, but I couldn’t figure out Twitter from the start so I’ve never had an account. 😬 Makes it so much easier to boycott.
To be fair, Martin Niemöller did leave us a screed. Just pretend he was on Xitter:
First they came for the immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an immigrant
Then they came for LGBT citizens
And I did not speak out
Because I was not crooked, but “straight“
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then the MAGAs came for me on X
And there was no one left
To speak out for me, because all the thinking people had left X a long fucking time ago