The bird is dead

I first joined Twitter all the way back in 2012. At least that’s what my account says. I remember having another account before it, then making a new one when I switched email addresses and wanted a cooler username. Throughout the years I used Twitter to keep in touch with some of my friends (this was moreso a thing back in the day) , keep track of news and politics and mostly follow streamers, youtubers and other content creators that I like. Now I won’t pretend like Twitter has been a great platform up until Elon Musk took over. We called it a toxic place long before it was turned into the abomination it is today, but it was still very much a usable social media website. That changed last year.

To give you some insight into the bad changes that have happened in case you’re not on Twitter let me give you a list:

• Verification can be bought, so it’s impossible to know who has actually been verified
• Verified accounts get boosted to the top of the comments, creating an environment in which those who pay for the service are much more seen. The people who pay for this service are people who tend to be fans of Musk and often seem to be selling their next crypto scam.
• To combat the rampant scams appearing on the website due to verification check marks becoming meaningless, accounts were locked from changing their names, causing people to be stuck on a temporary name for months in some cases.
• After – allegedly – failing to pay for server space, Musk limited the amount of views that an unpaid account can see to only 600 which sounds like a lot, but multiple people ran into the limit.
• Recently they added a limit to the amount of Direct Messages an unpaid account can send in a day to “combat spam.” It is super easy to make new accounts if spam is your only goal and all it does is impair people who use Twitter to communicate a lot. This is not a problem I run into, I use Twitter fairly casually.
• And finally, we get to the most recent developments, in which the website has been rebranded to x.com. Amidst rumors of signs being put up without getting the right permissions from the local government, people losing their accounts with X in the name because Twitter needs them and rumors that Musk wants to turn X into a “WeChat” of sorts, the website has been freefalling down a cliff. WeChat is a Chinese app that does everything from messaging to social media to banking stuff. The concept of one app to cover everything is interesting, but I wouldn’t trust someone like Musk to run it.

That was a pretty extensive list. But why is Musk so obsessed with changing to X.com? Twitter is an incredible brand that has so much recognition throughout the world. Why would you throw all of that away? The answer can probably be found in Elon Musk’s past. He once started a banking app called X.com which eventually merged with what is now known as Paypal. Musk was eventually taken off the board of directors due to – alleged – terrible decision making that endangered the company. He also – allegedly – didn’t properly report financial decisions. The project eventually failed. Speaking of failed projects, Musk is often credited for Tesla but what a lot of people don’t realize is that he only bought into the car manufacturer after someone had already done the groundwork. He then went on to make big promises like cyber trucks and underground tunnels that have yet to be delivered on it. To make a long story short, a lot of Musk’s “success” is generally more due to other people where his failures tend to be much more the result of his own actions.

Elon Musk is an incredible example of someone who was born into money, invested into some successful projects and then presumed himself much smarter than he actually is. It’s proof of meritocracy being a lie in the clearest way possible. Twitter has halved in value and with the change to x.com, alongside the rise of Meta’s threads, I don’t think it’s going to get much better from here on out. I am enjoying the memes of people making “xvideos” on x.com. I like that people are calling tweets “xeets” as a joke, knowing there is a non-zero chance that Musk will want to call them that eventually. But I am sad that a platform I have been using for well over a decade has become a much worse experience than it once was. I’ll get over it, but I did like it to share my blog posts on and due to the API changes that’s no longer as convenient as it once was. But to pick up a new social media at my age feels bad too. I’m 30 and I just don’t know if I have the energy to get into it. Maybe I’m better off leaving more and more social media behind until eventually the only way you can reach me is by fax machine. Perhaps the Japanese had it right after all.

But until then, I think I’ll watch this ship go down from the center of the deck for a while longer. And if Twitter/X really goes down the dumps, just know that you can always find me over here on Opal Kaharis. Thanks for reading!