Like many people I’ve been watching as Twitter sinks like the Titanic after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic (A Muskberg?) wondering if, through some miracle, it’s able to start the bilge pumps and right itself again before it cracks in half and falls to the ocean floor.
In many ways I’ve been hoping it does right itself– for several years since I quit Facebook it’s been the only social media I’ve participated in. Even with all of its problems (Even before Musk’s takeover.) it’s still been a great space to discover new writers, get late-breaking news and to see funny memes and cute dog pictures. I’d argue it’s probably been the best space for writers–primarily text based but fully capable of sharing pictures, GIFs and videos. It was almost as if it had been designed with journalists and authors in mind. I’ll be a bit sad if it fails and every day that goes by it looks more and more likely that failure will be the most likely outcome. I just don’t think Musk has the ability to set his ego aside and make it thrive.
As that potential failure looms I’ve been looking for another digital home and there are lots to choose from. For one, I’ve dusted off this blog, spruced it up a bit and got rid of some old posts that don’t really fit what I want it to be in the future. I’m just about ready to pat it on its head and send it back out into the world (Maybe with this post, who knows? I guess I probably should.). I’ve also started using Instagram again, but it’s owned by Meta–the same company that’s parent to Facebook– and I have the same concerns about it that prompted me to quit FB several years ago. Besides, as a vehicle primarily for photos and video it’s not really the social media platform best suited for writers. The same is true of TikTok (Not to mention security concerns due to its companies connection to the Chinese government.) though I know some writers who have really made BookTok, as it’s colloquially called, work for them.
But beyond the existing giants in social media there are a multitude of wanna-be replacements. There’s Mastodon, Counter.Social (a forked, independant instance that started out as a Mastodon server.), Tribel, Post, Hive and probably others that I haven’t even heard of yet or that aren’t yet ready for public use (Like BlueSky, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey’s next project.). I’ve signed up for most to see what’s going to work best for me and others like me.
Many of these new platforms are very Twitter-like but, as it is with all new things, they all have their differences and their limitations. It will be interesting to see which, or if, some of these new spaces will be able to adapt, overcome their limitations and possibly become the “new” Twitter while still differentiating themselves and being their own, hopefully better, thing.
What I’m looking for is somewhere where writers and fans can gather, share our love of books and maybe the occasional cute dog pic (It also has to be stable and well-managed and well-moderated.). Which platform will it be? I have no idea. That’s not really up to me. Or at least not me alone. At some point a community will coalesce around one of them, much like it did on Twitter, and that’s where I’ll be. And, besides this blog (If the recent Twitter drama has taught me anything, not keeping this blog going was a mistake.), that will be the only social media site I plan to be on. I don’t want to manage 137 social media accounts thankyouverymuch. As I stated in the headline of this blog entry: There can be only one. And I think one will be enough.