Living through decline is not fun. I should know, I'm an elder millennial who has lived in Britain her entire life. Two years ago, I posted my 'Encomium of Hellsite,' back in the days where the worst thing to happen on Twitter was a bit of academic bickering or punching down at undergrads. Twitter was always imperfectly perfect for many of us seeking a community of like-minded individuals. I'm not sure if, two years ago, I could have predicted Elon sodding Musk buying the site and immediately starting to smash it to smithereens.
A few of my favourite follows have vowed, like Dido, to go down with the ship. This will end their social media experiment. I'm the complete opposite, running around the deck in a panic investigating every lifeboat available. I've signed up for Post, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Discord and even Tumblr (linktree above!) The accounts are largely placeholders, as I wait to see which ends up victorious (and I'm predicting Bluesky, once it opens up fully...) Some jumped ship without a backward glance months ago, and all of our past conversations, both public and private,have disappeared, just as the door to our future conversations has been closed.
I know I'm not the only one dreading losing Classics Twitter. It takes a long time to build up each of our individual, overlapping networks, to forge meaningful friendships and, if you're lucky, build up some name recognition beyond the academe. I have perhaps more reason to panic than most. I'm currently studying entirely online as a distance learner; I have no classmates. I don't work in a history or Classics department; I have no faculty lounge. Every opportunity I've had: writing pieces for websites, speaking at academic conferences, writing journal articles... it's all thanks to the network I built on Twitter. When I wrote that Encomium I didn't think of tweeting as labour, and I'm not sure if I really do now, but it's undeniable that I would have achieved far less if it weren't for the hundreds of hours I've put in developing relationships with people I'd never meet otherwise. I know some people do tweet 'professionally,' I certainly never have. Nothing on my feed has ever been tactical, and if I had a recognisable brand it'd no doubt be as the gobby gatecrasher who has no filter. (It's not exactly unwarranted.) Somehow, even given my tendency to speak my mind (read: unwisely complain loudly and often,) I've still managed to get to write. I've always wanted to write. Soon I'll get a hard copy of my first academic article, which I never anticipated happening. The thought of losing these opportunities to write further and to grow a reputation that will allow me to one day write something bigger is terrifying.
I'll have to start afresh, except several times over. We all will. Each alternative site will be a silo, except Mastodon which will be a silo made of silos. We'll have to repeat our every thought multiple times, hoping that we'll reach each group of Twitter refugees. We'll like each other's identical posts on each site. When we finally hear Twitter's death rattle, the community will be well and truly shattered at last. It's unlikely that we will ever be able to fully reconstruct it. Something something archaeology something sherds.
So we must prepare to lose our peers, our support network, our mentors, our readers and potential opportunities. Our People. Who amongst us hasn't felt less lonely because our phone is full of friends? Twitter is the only place I've found friends who share my incredibly niche interests. Friends whose accounts have been the collateral damage of Musk's disastrous dictatorship are devastated, they haven't had enough time to prepare to leave the sinking ship. They should serve as a warning - we all need to be working on our escape plans. Find some flotsam, cling on for dear life. More importantly, make some room on the bloody door, so that as many of us as possible can meet again. Preparing for Twitter's final moments should mean concentrating on salvaging everything that we can.
Why? Personally, I can't help but fear that all that I've done on Twitter will be for nothing. I already feel this in a lot of ways, I've spoken before how my being working class with the pockets to match has rather priced me out of a PhD. I will lose institutional access in about a year. If I seem like I've been piling a lot of projects onto my plate (and I have) it's because I already feel like the sand in the timer is running out. I need to achieve as much as I can whilst I can because otherwise, what was the point? (The true answer is that I've reclaimed self esteem, but therapy would have been a hell of a lot cheaper than two degrees.) I have to make all of this mean something, I have to leave a mark to prove that I was indeed here and occasionally, I said or did something that mattered. With Twitter now likely to die before I graduate with my MA, the sand isn't so much of a steady drip as it is a bloody avalanche. No purpose, no opportunities, no access, no audience, no friends. All at once, gone. I began my BA and joined Twitter to leave the solitary confinement of armchair interest. I can't go back.
Take a moment to consider what Twitter has given you. I don't mean the fights, the subtweets, the frivolous memes. For me, it gave me a voice. But it also gave me anonymous care packages when I was at my lowest, unexpected Christmas cheese, my name in actual ink(!) a bear hug in a park that took my breath away from someone I was meeting for the first time but felt like family, invitations to private events for Proper Historians, a signed book from across an ocean, Proper Historians considering me to be worth consulting... the list goes on. It's easy to make jokes about the Hellsite until it's on life support.
I don't know who reads these blog posts, to be honest. But since you are, I'd like to simultaneously thank you for being a part of my network and for allowing me to be a tiny part of yours. I'd also implore you to start building your rafts now, so that we can meet again on the other side. Even when I've been at my most apoplectic, it's been an honour and an absolute pleasure.