It’s about time that I finally use this blog to post my word dump.
If you regularly keep up with artists, you’re probably well aware of how the slow and dreadful suffocation of Twitter has many of them wondering where they’ll go next. It’s funny really; Twitter from the beginning really wasn’t meant to be an art platform.
And despite all its changes since its inception, from a technical point of view, Twitter is still a poor choice for art. It sucks as a gallery and archive, you’re limited to four images that are subjected to often unfavourable cropping, and the elusive “algorithm” supposedly nerfs tweets with hashtags or really any text at all. The only real thing going for it is… reach.
Twitter may not be as big as Facebook- excuse me, Meta, or Tiktok, but what makes it fascinating is how internationally interactive it is. You will inevitably find folks quote retweeting memes in either Spanish or Portuguese, Japanese artists, and crucially, international journalists. That last one is very important considering that Elon Musk, notable fraud going through a midlife crisis, has a known disdain towards journalists as they’re the ones actually exposing his numerous instances of fraud and OSHA violations; though in fairness, disdain for journalism is just a right wing thing.
Funny how the Facebook comparison was made earlier as Twitter in its current state can really rival Facebook in terms of disinformation and Hitler Particles. My personal conspiracy theory is that Elon wants to beat Zuckerberg’s score of having a hand in at least two genocides, and with yet another war breaking out and getting viral, he might get an early start on that.
But what does this have to do with artists? Personally, I think relying on Twitter from the start solely because of its function of instant sharing and reach was just a flat out mistake. This reliance on volatile platforms, lulled by the false sense of security in access to an audience, has the “art community” (however you define that) at the mercy of these platforms who are themselves at the mercy of credit card companies.
This choke hold is why many people reasonably suspect the recent trend of websites with large user bases cutting down pornographic content because…. well porn bad, I guess. Though with Twitter, I’d say that advertisers simply do not want their ads to share the same space with vitriolic groypers. And Twitter is obviously bleeding money right now if its high quality ads and technical issues didn’t make that obvious. I make it no secret that, as much as I love it and hold it dear to my heart, I would rather see Twitter just outright die than see it slowly suffocate.
And I get it, a lot of artists and journalists absolutely do not want that considering how important Twitter is for their careers. But I really think there’s no harm in preparing for an exodus, the only question is where to. Bluesky may be a Twitter clone imitating the exact same features that made Twitter a poor place for art sharing, but its lack of reach signals to me that it will never fill its place.
Perhaps the younger generation’s fascination for decentralized web of the pre-2010s will bring in a new web revolution, but that’s just me being delusional.