Back in 2013 I joined a website then called “twitter.” I was not an early adopter (I rarely am) but I new I would be traveling and many of the folks with whom I wanted to be in touch were almost exclusively (anti)social-media-only communicators.
Folks I knew had fancy-schmancy pocket computers from Apple and Samsung that had built-in cellular telephone capabilities, but never used them as phones. Their mode was all-text, all-the time. Preferably on one of the two major (anti)social media sites: Facething or the Twits.
Some time ago I left the former, as it was simply, too much. I was never too much of a user of the latter site, for which I kept my account alive primarily to be able to access posts of others – some can only be seen from within that particular sphere. In the intervening years the site was purchased by a very wealthy megalomaniac and transformed into the service of another, far less wealthy megalomaniac, arguably playing a role in getting the latter re-elected to the highest office in the land.
My account counts. Not much, but it’s a tick on the grand tally of accounts that allows the owner to say: “I’ve got so many accounts…”
So many minus one now, Bub. The flood of lies, disinformation, and misinformation that are the “X” content stream are not something I can in good conscience be a part of – even a passive one. So I am leaving, deactivating my account, and turning my back. I shall no longer be counted as one of the millions that make the site whatever the hell it has become.
It’s a small step, but if every like-minded person (and there are tens of millions of us out there, based on the Nov. 5 tallies) took the same small step, the collective leap would be impressive.
Meanwhile, it’s been a rough week. There is still a giant media channel to which I remain a member, and it is through them I can offer this needed distraction:
And if you like that, there’s more!
And for those looking for wallpaper, you can catch the boats in Portsmouth harbor here:
Peace – Eric
It was quite a step for me to delete a Twitter account — not my own personal one whatsoever, but one called @mbtAtrophy, an account I started when I was commuting from Nashua NH to Boston for five years while working at Berklee. It chronicled one small corner of problems of the MBTA: not on-time rates, not “slow zones,” not lack of parking at the end of this line or the other. Its focus was 100% on infrastructure problems at the T, from ceilings oozing goodness knows what at Copley to large chunks of concrete parking garage ceilings falling on parked cars at Alewife to a “Welcome to Boston” sign at commuter rail entrance to South Station that was covered in pigeon shit and hadn’t been cleaned in years.
The account had fewer than 1000 followers, but we’d really become a community. People would send in specific reports of 100-year-old (oft-rebuilt) switches failing on the Green Line and I’d pass it on. I’d frequently tag state-level politicians and push their faces in the pile of problems brought on by decades of deferred maintenance. Hell, there was generally plenty of time to post due to delays, so why not?
THAT was hard to let go — but whether it was because the account had any actual value or because it was so emblematic of a specific time and place in my life, I’ll probably never know.
Thank you, Twitter. Go to hell, X!