I joined Twitter in 2007ish, and deleted that account in early 2023, and I felt like I had experienced a personal loss. It’s a platform that allowed me to make a life in a temporary home, and eventually welcomed in my old home. Get that 💯
I’ve had a thesis for a while that Twitter mattered so much to academics because it the last frontier of professional development with low buy-in, and one where institutional prestige didn’t count as much.
Thanks for acknowledging this. I have been wondering about how to forge a path ahead without those connections. Excited to rebuild here but feel this too.
I am right there with you. I literally would not be where I am today, professionally or personally, without it. Closing that door was necessary, but it still made me sad to do it.
I grew my freelance editing business through Twitter and will always be grateful that it exists for that reason. I will still engage there occasionally, but the app is gone from my phone. I can't even with all the MAGA in that space anymore.
not silly at all. my first paid writing opportunity came through a random DM. That experience gave me the confidence to believe i could maybe write other things.
I think I had 10 papers that came out of twitter. That said, it was a sunk cost long ago. The only advice that I have is not to get wedded to your social media platforms.
I feel you! I’ve migrated my posts and I keep almost taking the last step, but even though it does feel silly to say it, I feel like Twitter stopped working right when it was actually starting to help me and I’m still kinda resentful and anxious. But we’ll rebuild here!!
It once was so good. I can hardly overstate how much the real-time information (even if just claims) on there helped me and my teams with situational awareness and contributed to our crisis management. So much value and valour in that. That it's a shit show today won't change what it was. Onwards!
Not silly at all. Twitter has allowed me to read and engage with some amazing scholars that I wouldn’t have been able to connect with otherwise. I’m on Twitter because I'm also interested in hearing perspectives from the other side. However, one defines that side.
Same. It was an important place of conversation and community and idea-generation. It stopped being those things, so leaving was no great hardship, but I don’t think it’s silly to remember when it was useful and meaningful for our work 💜
It’s hard to imagine I would have gotten a TT job this year if I hadn’t been able to write and think publicly over there for all that time. I also nursed two babies for years and could only scroll for all those hours 😭
I got a book contract from a tweet, my first Washington Post op-ed and Harvard Business Review article. It quite literally changed the course of my career.
Twitter was a fabulous platform for public intellectuals, academics and policy analysts to share our research and writings with a broader public. It got us out of our niches.
It's the least silly thing in the world. I have so many amazing IRL & online friends from that place, and it was big career-wise as a freelance writer. So we mourn - but then we move on!
Things die. It's okay to celebrate things, Even things that are objectively terrible, because that is not the sum total of their existence. Congrats on killing your Twitter account.
Not silly at all and incredibly valid. The app you used to make a career no longer exists. We all chose to delete what no longer serves in value or purpose.
It's not silly. No one likes dedicating so much time and effort to something that ultimately doesn't pan out, especially when you know it could, if things had worked out differently. The dunces who ruined Twitter are the silly ones.
It's not silly at all. We must honor and celebrate the good always and Twitter was once a tool that could affect good growth and change. Looking forward to witnessing your new chapter here.
Many folks made their academic careers on Twitter. Not silly. Totally understandable to mourn the loss of scholarly community and not knowing if it’ll be reproduced here. So far the folks I’ve found are wonderful but they’re also not all the same people here.
Same here, it has been huge in my academic career. It allowed me to build such a great network around the PhD and it’s been invaluable for promo. Not that it didn’t have its problems, it certainly got worse. Glad to see the best parts of the community rebuilding here!
I'm also proud, friend, that after I reached out to you about printing our 2021 Haiti earthquake article in Made By History - it was cited by the Haitian Del Rio plaintiffs suing the Biden Admin. We organized & acted there & tried to make a difference, not just kibbitzed! And you facilitated a lot!
Totally life changing. interacting with, meeting people there, got me to podcast, pushed my politics, helped me realize my value as a human (led to my divorce), got me thru it, figure out who I am, what kind of people I want to be around. Met wonderful people, including the very best person
Not silly at all. Twitter was an amazing promotional tool for personal brand building. Even users with nothing to promote are finding it difficult pulling the plug because we've put the time in to build meaningful communities. But I trust that Bluesky will fill the void left. And quickly.
It's true, though. Social media has influenced a lot in the ways in which we communicate and get things done in general. That's why Musty Musk taking over eas such a low blow for people.
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Speramus meliorate.
(We hope for better things)
Musk destroyed something of value. It's good to remind people of that, IMHO. ❤️
We will rebuild.
So, I feel you. This is a good change tho 🦋
And somewhere.... could we influence its AI by pumping woke stuff around ? 🤔
Here's to clear skies ahead
Now there are many newspapers.
At least we are forewarned of where this space is headed so we are aware to avoid the traps coming up 🤞