Twitter turned 20 and I really feel nothing

Twitter is formally 20 years outdated. In one other actuality, which may make me form of nostalgic. I have been lurking and scrolling and tweeting for 16 years; most of my grownup life. There was a time when Twitter was a spot the place some web strangers grew to become my IRL buddies, after I was excited to “live-tweet”. When my infinitely extra well-adjusted buddies would ship me memes, I might smugly say “I noticed that on Twitter days in the past.”

Twitter stopped being that place a very long time in the past, however I haven’t got any nostalgia for it. I do not actually really feel something in any respect, really.

As a result of I can already hear the feedback: Sure, I am nonetheless on X. I do not spend as a lot time there as I did a decade in the past, nevertheless it’s nonetheless numerous time, an unhealthy quantity, if I am being sincere. My job is to report on social media firms, so I maintain (doom)scrolling. That is what I inform myself anyway.

Just a few of my favourite posters are nonetheless round. Dril’s still got it. The memes are nonetheless, sometimes, good, although X’s advice algorithm appears to favor pointing me towards countless AI slop, boring scorching takes from thirsty mid-tier tech execs and blatant engagement bait. X’s algorithm — what little we can learn about it, anyway — now depends on Grok’s predictions about what you may like.The identical Holocaust-loving Grok that has spewed racism and referred to itself as MechaHitler and declared Elon Musk “the only biggest particular person in trendy historical past.” The identical Grok that allegedly generated hundreds of photographs of child abuse material. Hey @grok is that true?

X just isn’t Twitter nevertheless it’s additionally not not-Twitter. Final yr, an internet market startup purchased the 560-pound Twitter fowl that after adorned the corporate’s San Francisco workplace and blew it up in a Nevada desert surrounded by Tesla CyberTrucks as a part of an elaborate publicity stunt. Dumb? Sure. But in addition a someway becoming adieu for “Larry.”

It has been 20 years since Jack Dorsey despatched the first-ever tweet, which was by no means even a great tweet anyway. It has been 5 years, by the way in which, since he turned that tweet into an NFT (bear in mind NFTs??) and auctioned it for almost $3 million. It is now functionally worthless. One other chapter in Dorsey’s confusing, complicated legacy.