This week I made the decision to mothball my main Twitter account, despite everything I owe to it. I may as well, having checked some statistics. I'm shown so few tweets now, unless I go through clicking profiles individually. My own tweet views are currently at around a tenth of what my tweets even six months ago received, despite a steady if gentle increase in followers over that time. I'm not seeing people, they're not seeing me.
Links posted are getting fewer clicks for this reason, and considering I would like people to actually see the Bad Ancient and Working Classicists posts that I write (as well as my posts here, of course, which are less important,) that is a huge concern. I'll keep the account open to keep posting them, but resign myself to fact that the links will simply not be seen by many, and clicked on by even fewer. The grass is greener where you water it, but only if no billionaires decide to hack at the lawn with a hoe, and so I throw my lot in with Bluesky which is enough of a direct Twitter clone that I don't have to relearn how to operate it. Already I'm at 25% of my Twitter follower number and about 50% of my following number, and yet I suspect I won't see my old link-click statistics for a while on Bluesky either. I suppose the people that run the excellent sites I contribute to should be even more concerned about this than I am, for the following reason: not only were there several historians of varying levels willing to produce content for the public and share it via Twitter, there was a large, largely silent, group of people there ready and willing to consume it. There is never enough decent public history content going around, but Twitter was an excellent resource both for those creating it and those craving it. Now both the public and public historians are rather in the doldrums, prevented from connecting because of beta testing on one side and a bone-headed billionaire on the other.
Of course, ClassicsTwitter was a different network for each person in it. We each compiled our feeds to include tenured academics, ECRs, public historians and those in alt-ac, students of every level, secondary teachers, enthusiasts, artists, novellists, podcasters, museum staff and those who just really like Assassin's Creed/Percy Jackson/Simon Scarrow novels. We each cherrypicked from these accounts, in different amounts and combinations, and so my ClassicsTwitter was as unique to me as yours to you. I built mine with a profusion of all the categories mentioned above, and that, for me, was the absolute joy of it. Diverse people with diverse interests, experiences, opinions, identities... at no point was I just talking to slight variations of myself. Some of the above categories are (were, rather) more vocal than others. Some were for spectating, others for conversing. You might find mutuals in each category, but friends in only a few. The point is, logging on was to never step in the same river twice. This is why Twitter at its best was so rich, so vibrant. One of the reasons I've been so vocal about Bluesky there is because I want to believe Twitter shattering doesn't necessarily result in losing that beautifully manifold community, the river doesn't have to dry up if it can be rerouted.
Bluesky, at the moment, appears to be a rather elegant ornamental pond in comparison. I am thrilled and thankful that so many academics are building up accounts there, but where is everyone else? Where once invitation codes were a highly sought after prize, now we literally can't give them away. The academics have made it over, but everyone else are few and far between, and half of them with an account don't post. AncientBluesky is conflict averse, cordial and polite, and ever so slightly superficial. Shitposting, controversial opinions, and speaking out about thorny issues are rarely to be found, as if we were so intent on creating a safe haven we accidentally created Stepford. It's new and shiny and unblemished, but I find myself missing younger voices. Where are the fellow students with whom I can celebrate and commiserate, depending on the assignment? Where are the nerds with enviably stable 'normal' jobs for whom Classics is a hobby? Where are all the people who couldn't/wouldn't progress past an A level, or BA, or MA et cetera but who really love to keep one foot in the field?
Twitter is not an essential part of an academic career. But it felt pretty essential for a lot of people without one. Two very wise women reminded me this week that "there's way more people out there that love history and wish they could study it more than those who actually get the chance to do so." For those people, being able to share in the ClassicsTwitter community is (was) an accessible way to keep informed, have discussions and voice opinions. ClassicsTwitter was as enriched by their presence as by the academics who drew them there. For whatever reason, those same academics have yet to tempt anyone in to AncientBluesky. Perhaps this will change when people will be able to see the content without an account. Perhaps not.
I don't have any answers, but I miss the melting pot. Twitter's melting pot is gone, replaced with a maelstrom. Bluesky is an oak-panelled academic library where everyone has impeccable etiquette and never raise their voice. A middle ground would be great, but that will only come with the inclusion of more diverse voices primarily from outside of the academy - what will bring them here? I do not know. But any Bluesky academic who cares about Classics outside of university walls should probably be sparing a moment or two considering it.
Forgive me if I'm being a smidge hyperbolic; I wasn't around to see how ClassicsTwitter began nor how it developed - my guess is that it was gradual and haphazard. I'm being unreasonably impatient in hoping to have a functioning, diverse facsimile spring fully formed in such a short space of time. The fact remains, ClassicsTwitter was an iceberg but AncientBluesky has only salvaged the tip. Non-academics/enthusiasts may have been a largely silent majority for much of the time, but it's only now do I find the silence of their absence deafening.
Just in case it's more than requiring invites that's the issue, might I suggest that we consider how we navigate the transition period, to make AncientBluesky worth signing up to even for those for whom antiquity is a smaller facet of their life?
Individual enthusiasm and effort in this endeavour depends, I suppose, on how much one considers interaction with the public crucial to the health of the discipline, but I rather do. I have no answers, but I'm not enjoying sitting on my hands waiting for a kaleidoscope community to redevelop.