It’s been decades since I attempted any meaningful New Year’s Resolutions. The last serious one I made—to give up smoking—lasted only days (or possibly hours).
Back then, I decided that any future resolutions should be governed purely by my own resolve, not the calendar. I gave up smoking permanently soon after.
But New Year’s Day 2023 is coinciding with a resolution I’ve been contemplating making for a while—to get off Twitter.
For years, I’ve been what @LOLGOP calls a “weirdo”—or what Twitter (and The New York Times) might call a “power user.”
Says The NY Times:
Power users find Twitter notoriously hard to quit. In July 2021, the writer Caitlin Flanagan published an essay, “You Really Need to Quit Twitter,” in The Atlantic; as of today, she remains on the platform. And many of the prominent Twitter users who have created accounts on alternatives like Mastodon and Post are still active on Twitter.
On a personal level, my power user weirdness has allowed me to build three moderately sized accounts—@richardhine, @TheDailyEdge and my Trump parody account @RealDonalDrumpf—which currently have a combined 370,000 followers.
Since joining Twitter in 2010, I’ve enjoyed the fact that many people have responded favorably to my contributions (and attempted humor) and I appreciate the many friends I’ve made along the way. I’ve enjoyed the times my tweets have “gone viral,” been quoted in the news, and the times when list-makers have said The Daily Edge had some degree of political influence. I’ve enjoyed being followed and retweeted by celebrities and journalists.
But it’s not nearly as much fun anymore.
Without rehashing all the reasons Elon Musk has given—and keeps giving—Twitter users to quit, the main reason is he’s simply a bad person. And I don’t want to help bad people succeed. As @LOLGOP put it in our recent conversation, staying on Twitter means “enabling this guy.”
One reason to stay, of course, is to keep fighting. But there’s no indication that Elon Musk will allow anything resembling a fair fight.
Another reason to stay is that, around the world, many people rely on Twitter to organize and share information. But Elon Musk is so fundamentally dishonest and so beholden to foreign interests that it’s hard to imagine Twitter remaining a safe place to speak truth to power or share one’s real-time “assassination coordinates.”
Maybe there will be a bankruptcy and a reorganization that gives Twitter new life—even, possibly, a new owner.
Maybe there will be reasons to return in the future.
So I won’t delete my accounts.
I do have some clients for whom I will continue to use Twitter as long as they wish to stay on the platform.
But as long as Musk is in charge, I won’t be tweeting on a personal level.
Things I might normally tweet I will share instead on Mastodon or Post.
Things that I might have once put into a Twitter thread will likely wind up here on Substack.
You can also find me on other platforms like Facebook an Instagram through the links in these pages:
Thanks for reading. I wish you a very Happy New Year!
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