Long Live Long Form
I deleted Twitter in 2021. I came back in 2022. I'm completely indifferent in 2023. Long form is better and it looks like other writers are starting to figure it out.
I caved and went back on Twitter last year after making a big ruckus about deleting it in 2021. I’ve talked about that platform here on this blog many times but the truth is, going back to Twitter has been a bit like going back to the old college town in one’s late 20’s. Some excitement leading up; you’re gonna bro out with your old roommates and party like hangovers aren’t a thing!
But in actuality it just can’t live up to expectations. Why? Because it was never really about the setting, more the experience. Going back to the old stomping grounds years later usually isn’t the same experience from the glory days because the people don’t all return with you. And those who do return are different, possibly even exhibiting something resembling maturity.
This has been my experience since rejoining Twitter. The little blue bird just seems to be missing something right now and it’s not because Mastodon has taken all of the fUn people - that’s been fine. There are still plenty of great follows on Twitter. But there is a new-ish phenomenon that I think is really making the platform much less interesting as a microblogging site: the emergence of “threads” as a discovery mechanism has jumped the shark. I get the allure of threads. I’ve written them in the past and even done the obligatory “if you liked this, read my newsletter” link at the end…
I hated even doing it but you have to try different things and see what works in this game of life. I won’t knock the hustle of those who can pull it off. But it just isn’t how I get down and it feels inauthentic when I’ve done it. Those shameless marketing threads though aren’t even the worst examples of problem threads. It’s threads like this one that iritate me more:
A thread of 49 tweets. 49 picture-less, link-less tweets with replies turned off isn’t a Twitter thread, it’s an article. This is a perfect example of how Twitter users have turned Twitter into something it wasn’t designed to be. Even Sam Bankman-Fried finally stopped messing around with Twitter threads and got himself a Substack after leveling up from the clink to the ankle bracelet. No, I have not given him my email address in case you’re wondering. But you should give me yours if you haven’t already…
And I’m not just picking on Harrison for his Twitter-native novel. All of the evergreen SEO-hack WordPress bloggers have turned their “10 things” and “how to” blogs into Twitter threads. Because of course. ‘Fintwit’ users who used to post charts and graphs have resorted to engagement farming posts like “what’s your favorite stock for 2023?” Twitter has officially become a giant attempt to game the algorithm rather than a place for great curated UGC. A couple months ago I shared four people who I think are great follows. Somehow, I very rarely see any of them in my timeline even though they all still post regularly and I have engaged in the past. That seems like a problem.
Is Social Media Played Out?
This whole ‘social media’ experiment might be closer to the end of the “glory days” than the beginning. Twitter somehow becoming even more stupid than it was already started long before Musk took over. And it’s just the natural progression of a social media platform on display yet again. I feel like after 15-20 years with social media, we keep seeing the same patterns play out. These platforms all start off fairly fun and then they turn into something that looks and behaves like a toxic digital flea market where dopamine addicts get small hits in between their arguments with pictures of people who they barely associate with being real humans. And that’s if the platforms even make it.
We’ve seen an enormous amount of Twitter alternatives come and go. I’ve tried some and even shared some here. There is no staying power though because the Twitter users who have complained about censorship in the past have largely continued to use the platform anyway - I’m now guilty of this too. Because so few people upset with Twitter’s content policies ever seriously efforted using something else, the ‘free speech’ alternatives to Twitter were too niche and too fragmented to meaningfully scale.
Beyond that, most of the platforms just aren’t very good. Even if these fledgling “free speech” platforms were growing, which they’re not, their site metrics are generally poor, the content becomes an echo chamber, and the commitment to anti-censorship (like Twitter under Musk) is usually debatable. Gab, Gettr, Parler, and Minds have all seen usage decline to close out 2022. As has Flote. Flote legitimately had an “anything goes” attitude, but never could quite overcome exclusion from the app stores and some fairly large self-inflicted wounds.
I doubt any of you even noticed, but I took my Flote hyperlink out of my email footer a few weeks ago. Not because I question the company’s commitment to a truly free marketplace of ideas, I do not. But because the business of a free speech social network just doesn’t seem to have any legs. Turns out Flote is completely changing from a social network to a social management platform. From a late December post:
After much consideration, our team has made the decision to shift our business model from a social network to a social media management platform. This will be similar to sites like Hootsuite and Buffer in nature, but with a focus on alternative social platforms and distributed technologies. Our goal is to deliver many of the same features that Flote was originally planning on providing, but we will be approaching them from a different direction.
I have no interest in that. I also have no interest in starting over anywhere else. Turns out, I’m happy right where I am. And Substack is building a marvelous platform. The best part is it’s less social network and more newsletter SaaS. Users pay, so the current model is potentially sustainable and not as corruptible. Here, it really is about quality over quantity rather than hacking some sort of reach boosting formula. Turns out, long form is better as a blog. Not as a series of 50 microblogs. Sorry, Twitter, but you’re just not that interesting anymore.
I think Elon Musk knows this too. Twitter is in a transition phase. And I think what is going to ultimately happen with that platform might look a lot more like Linkedin but with micro-tipping. Where users have to pay to get full access to everything and it turns out to be a platform for ‘verified’ professionals who want to pitch each other. That’s fine. That’s where I think it’s destined to go and I’ll keep a profile even if I don’t interact with it all that much. But the day Elon wants my driver’s license is the day I say goodbye for good.
With Flote on the way out, I’m not in the market for another “free speech” microblog platform. I’ve tried it. It ain’t gonna happen. And that’s fine. Long form is much better anyway. And I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way.
Doug Boneparth is another great follow on Twitter. He’s funny, smart, and generally entertaining. He has roughly a quarter of a million followers on Twitter - a channel he’s built since 2010. He recently started a Substack called This is the top. I want to share an excerpt from his first post because I think it speaks to what I’m seeing on social media broadly as well…
During the darkest days of the pandemic, I found an audience in desperate need of comic relief. My Twitter community grew through consistent joking about the economy, crypto, world events, and more. I used humor to cope with my own anxieties about the uncertainty we faced. I connected with thousands of new people online and gained many friends and a fair amount of business. For a while, I thought I cracked a code: Doug makes a joke; Doug gets laughs; Doug gets followers. The dopamine felt like a warm hug. It still does.
In truth, I’ve leaned too heavily on that instant gratification. I have not been creating thoughtful, original content like I used to. Sure, my tiny headshot still pops into your feeds, and you might hear me as a guest on someone else’s podcast, but I have not been leading the conversation. Some followers don’t even think I am a real person.
That doesn’t sound like someone committed to Twitter does it? And Doug is one of the better follows. He’s not the only high profile Twitter user who has started a Substack in recent months. I count ten high profile members of ‘fintwit’ starting Substacks since September. Including but not limited to…
Doug Boneparth
Tracy (Chi)
Tony Greer
Mike Green
Scott Melker
…and these are just the people I follow. I’m sure there are way more. Raoul Pal launched one early last year and just yesterday repurposed it to be his GMI Newsletter expert feed - a feed that was previously on Revue (a Twitter product that is now being shut down). Strangely, his Substack blog post about buying a bored ape NFT for $400k is gone…
The point of this entire post, which has probably read like a giant rant (sorry), is that quality is better than quantity. Social platforms come and go. And I think humanity needs to step away from the screen a little bit. When you do engage with user generated content, make it a meaningful experience. I guess I had to go back to Twitter to find out I didn’t really miss much after all. I just missed the experience from the glory days - odds seem against that experience coming back.
Finally, I say this fairly regularly but it’s been awhile; I truly do appreciate those of you who subscribe to Heretic Speculator - paid or unpaid. I just like the paid people more but the rest of you are cool too ;)