It was just a short while ago when I would wake up in the morning and have coffee- very shortly after I would light my first cigarette, sit down at my computer and scroll through Twitter. This was my ritual, but it is also practically everyone else’s- perhaps, minus the cigarette. There was somebody who said “Nowadays, you have two choices when you get up in the morning- You either check your phone before you pee, or you check your phone after you pee”.
And during this time, the scandal of the day was Claudine Gay- the internet, especially Twitter, could hardly get over itself. People who had never heard of this woman were instantaneously electrified with concern about the future of Harvard, academic standards, etc. I know she plagiarized- I get it. Not my point.
Sometime before that, of course, it was outrage over the attack led by Hamas.
Countless photos and videos circulated at the speed of light; nobody could have missed it. Nobody could hardly look away. And don’t forget that in the not-so-distant past it was the war in Ukraine- blue and yellow flags went up in the profiles of sympathetic Americans- who knows why or how much these folks knew about the conflict there. It just seemed it was the thing to do. It was something to do. There was a team and you could be on it. I also remember something about Russel Brand being in trouble for sexual assault- and then, poof- it kinda just faded away.
As for now, I mean, right now, Claudine Gay is old news- she stepped down, it faded away like everything else does. The war in Ukraine is not irrelevant, but much of the online verbiage about it has dampened- in a way, people have moved on from that, too. It seems that people want to get their first digs in- they want to throw a punch, weigh in on the matter while it is still fresh- but a month in, nothing about an ongoing war is necessarily obvious- there are fewer and fewer fresh takes to be had. The nuance takes some effort, and bite-size tweets must give way to more in-depth coverage- but of course, there will be fresh bait on the horizon soon enough- still fresh enough to be captured by a puny word limit, and perhaps, a corresponding emoji.
It is interesting to see the world’s concerns laid out in algorithmic form. For a moment, it felt like Twitter had all but prohibited any content that did not concern Claudine Gay. I could go for full page scrolls before finding a Tweet that did not mention her. I got sick of it. I am sick of Ukraine, too. I am sick of Jews, Arabs, Hamas, Christians, black people, white people. I am sick of myself, to be honest- at least the part of me that is mirrored back to myself through algorithmic calculations.
And what has made me sick, really, is that goddamn thing we call Twitter. I believe that scrolling through Twitter is the technological equivalent to being stuck in a traffic jam-
an endless, suffering, sweltering traffic jam- similar to the one Michael Douglas was stuck in at the very beginning of Falling Down. Scrolling through it feels like sitting in gridlock- occasionally a bumper sticker may make you chuckle- but bumper sticker wisdom won’t get you where you need to go.
When I started to become more familiar with Twitter, I began to notice how language was often of a copy and paste type- I cannot tell you how many times I read this or that was “not on my 2024 bingo card” or “I will take things that did not happen for $2000, Alex” in response to a post- not for nothing, but that is not how either bingo nor Jeopardy actually work. But more to the point, you could feel the urge of certain content and accounts- seeking approval, becoming an archetype of sorts- writing in the style of the algorithmic slot machine. The content of the Twittersphere can be so circular, so much like itself, it may take more than a look or two to notice- is this a simpleton, or a bot?
Speaking of bots, my Twitter handle was JudsonVereenArt- and because the algorithm caught in my name the word “art”, for weeks, every one of my post garnered instantaneous likes or follows by single women with flirty profile pictures and bios that read “looking for love” and “here to find my soulmate” and “just looking for a sensitive man” etc. Hard to believe how many there were- this went on for weeks. With so many fake profiles, scammers, anonymous accounts, it is hard to find yourself feeling genuine about the whole affair.
I think at the height of my twitter efforts, I reached three hundred followers, which is a relatively low number. But then again- I didn’t live on Twitter, and it became increasingly obvious that many folks do- and that is exactly what the algorithm wants. Having a large follower base on Twitter is similar to getting a tattoo on your face- if it just means that much to you- oh, you just have to have it!
Something about the whole experience did not feel right- something about it made me feel pathetic. I came up with clever, humorous or even insightful things to write- but I would often get half way through a thought, with an attempt to post, and think- “what the fuck am I doing?“
Every morning, when I went to my feed, I would see the same people, over and over. They must tweet 30, 40, 50 times a day. That is not oversharing- that is a drug. And the feeling that the population of a small nation is salivating over your next thought is quite the intoxicant- one gets the feeling that if Twitter were to crash for more than a week or so, bodies would fall from office windows like it was the Great Depression. If some big-name accounts woke up one day with my number of followers their last tweet would be “…goodbye cruel world”.
After a long break from the site, I had just gotten in from dinner with my wife. I logged onto my feed and began to scroll through Twitter, re-connecting with familiar accounts, looking for something, anything of interest. And it may seem odd- but what I found was slightly disturbing. Momentarily, I had a deep, profound sense of anxiety. Something about a female rapper and her trashy video- another was a post about a prankster who threatened to slit a guy’s throat. The same ol’ same ol’ from every account I had ever known, riding their bête noirs into the dark of night. I know how I sound. It seems silly- but I felt like I was digging into the bottom of a trash heap. I felt like I needed a shower. When I laid down, I told my wife about it. She said she understood.
“Maybe, you should think about deleting the account at some point”.
“No”, I said. “Delete it now”.
JSV
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
X is like alcohol. Some people can use it wisely, some can't.
Thank you, Judson. Well thought out and written. I've tried on multiple occasions to manage my Twitter/X accounts. But I just don't have the patience or temperament for social media. None. Also, I couldn't care less. So all of my social media accounts are consigned to languish from neglect the moment I create them.
Re your morning cup of coffee: A decade or so ago I sat down with the original CEO of the digital NYTimes. Among other things we discussed the demise of the great metro dailies. He cited all of the usual suspects: the costs of labor, paper, ink, distribution, etc. All true enough, I told him. But I suspected a different, more fundamental culprit: that fewer and fewer of us were sitting down for half an hour in the morning with a quiet cup of coffee.
In other words, sitting down with a cup of coffee and a morning newspaper (or Twitter, in your case) is a lifestyle decision. The newspaper was less about the news and more about offsetting the caffeine rush of the coffee -- the same reason we unconsciously mix coffee and carbohydrates in the morning: one picks us up while the other calms us down.
The morning and evening newspapers (once upon a time) were less about the news and more about succor and comfort, a serene and leisurely connection with those people and things outside the immediate circles of our family dinner tables and the sabbath day of rest (by far the more authentic sources of actionable local news). Now, however, the family dinner table and the sabbath day of rest are all but gone, replaced some decades ago by a pernicious default addiction to all things media and all things digital.
Of course, mixing coffee and Twitter first thing in the morning is a pretty high-octane/high-anxiety lifestyle choice. My suggestion is to stick with the coffee and -- in lieu of an actual morning newspaper -- seek out alternative meaningful rituals that satisfy one or more of your spiritual, social, emotional, and/or physical needs. Needless to say, electronic media (with the possible exceptions of music appreciation, yoga, or exercise) fail in all regards.
For what it's worth, here's my morning schedule: Feed the cat, make the coffee (I hand-grind it to enhance the ritual effect), sit down with the cat in my lap, pray, read scripture, and sip my coffee, then go for a walk or bike ride -- almost all before the sun (or my wife) rises. I never check my email or go online for any reason (except the occasional hurricane watch) until the above meaningful rituals are satisfied.
But that's me, and largely because I was raised in the 1950s and 60s and remember how much freer and more carefree life was before cable TV and the Internet wrecked the joint.
Social media are pure addiction madness. I applaud your decision to protect your sanity against the hordes. Thanks again for sharing your epiphany.