I use Twitter all the time. Most people I know don’t. I hear people say “Oh, Twitter is a cesspool!” and I wonder if they’ve never watched a finely tuned Facebook group club dissenters like baby seals. It’s all relative.
Yes. Twitter can be a dangerous place - - for women especially - - if they dare to use their voices and take up more space than their detractors think they have a right to. I’m reminded of that every time I reply to a national figure and suddenly become “visible” to a host of armchair critics. Like it or not, women are safer on Twitter if they keep their heads down. The platform has never fully addressed that.
But over the years I’ve been able to get information on Twitter that I couldn’t get anywhere else. The use of hashtags allows me to see specific slices of the flow of conversation that pertain to my interests. That’s especially true for local topics. That’s why, every morning and evening, I search:
#hoco
hocomd
#columbiamd
Howard County
Howard County Maryland
Howard County MD
Columbia MD
Columbia Maryland
Columbia
Ellicott City
Maryland
Elkridge
You’d be amazed what I learn in those daily searches. Some of it has been shared here. Some is unsharable but still informs my local research.
I’ve also stumbled upon many a sweet, clever, hilarious, whimsical, or insightful thread. When it happens it’s almost as though you have opened a door in your own house that you have somehow never noticed only to discover breathtaking miracles. If Twitter goes away it’s those moments that will prompt the most nostalgic reminiscences. It’s an experience that can lift your spirits and remind you of the goodness of humanity all at the same time.
If Twitter goes away.
Now that Elon Musk has really and truly bought Twitter and taken control, folks who use Twitter are concerned, and with good reason. I honestly didn’t think he’d go through with it. There’s nothing about Musk that would suggest he’s the right person to fly the plane. Or drive the car.
You get the picture.
Twitter user Ben Collins posted the following:
Okay everybody it's Zero Hour for this website, post your favorite tweets and give them a little kiss goodbye.
The thread begins here and it’s pretty amazing. I added mine this morning.
A lot of y’all don’t understand an ounce of what’s going on right now and it’s because you’re living/working in a community devoid of POC. - - Propane Jane, @docrocktex26
It’s not clever, witty, heartwarming, or inspirational. But it’s a symbol to me of all I have learned from being able to follow brilliant Black women on Twitter and learn from them in a way that my real life has never afforded me.
If Twitter goes away, everything else is gravy. This is the loss I would feel the most. It has been life-changing for me. And if Elon Musk runs Twitter in the way that he has hinted he will, it is those Black women who will be in the most danger. His attitudes put them at risk.
On Twitter I have an assortment of amorphous “friend groups” who are really just people I follow because we share common interests. I have my music ed people, my Columbia/HoCo people, my ADHD people, my early childhood education people, my Baltimore people, my journalism people. There’s nothing organized about it. Most of these people I will never meet in real life but we keep up with eachother, in a way.
Perhaps things will go on unchanged. Maybe folks will migrate to a better social media platform. Or maybe it will just be…over. I don’t know.
It seems like that’s probably a metaphor for something.
*****
Today’s Columbia Community Care Restaurant Week location is Po Boy Jim.
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