Twitter turned 20 and I really feel nothing

Twitter is formally 20 years outdated. In one other actuality, which may make me sort of nostalgic. I’ve 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 turned my IRL mates, after I was excited to “live-tweet”. When my infinitely extra well-adjusted mates would ship me memes, I might smugly say “I saw that on Twitter days ago.”

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.

Because I can already hear the feedback: Yes, I’m 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’m being sincere. My job is to report on social media corporations, so I hold (doom)scrolling. That’s 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 suggestion algorithm appears to want pointing me towards countless AI slop, boring sizzling takes from thirsty mid-tier tech execs and blatant engagement bait. X’s algorithm — what little we will find out about it, anyway — now depends on Grok’s predictions about what you may like.The similar Holocaust-loving Grok that has spewed racism and referred to itself as MechaHitler and declared Elon Musk “the single greatest person in modern history.” The similar Grok that allegedly generated hundreds of pictures of kid abuse materials. Hey @grok is that true?

X will not be Twitter nevertheless it’s additionally not not-Twitter. Last yr, a web-based market startup purchased the 560-pound Twitter chicken 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? Yes. But additionally a one way or the other becoming adieu for “Larry.”

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