This week marked the twentieth anniversary of Twitter’s public launch. In its first decade or so, the San Francisco-founded micro-blogging site often felt like the white-hot center of the internet, the place where people went to share breaking news, jokes about how dogs might wear pants, theories about dresses, and, once in a while, spur democratic uprising in the Middle East.
Twitter was once seen as so essential, Mark Pfeifle, a former deputy national security advisor to President George W. Bush, went on Fox News and declared that the site’s founders should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize since, as he put it in a followup op-ed in The Christian Science Monitor, it “laid the foundation to pressure the world to denounce oppression in Iran.”
Anyone who spends five minutes on it today knows that X, as it has been renamed following Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover in 2022, is itself a site of oppression, a failed state that would benefit from its own Spring, Colour Revolution, or Umbrella Movement.
At the very least, X needs serious Palo Santo smudging.
I joined Twitter rather late, around 2010 at the urging of a former colleague. It was a noisy place then, full of subcultures and affinity groups, in-jokes and secret handshakes. I spent a lot of time — so, so much time — on Journalism Twitter, which was like high school with less money.
Every day (every god damn day), aging teachers’ pets raised their hands to answer any question, popular kids passed notes back and forth, and the class clowns shot spitballs from the back row.
By the time the class bully bought the place and turned into a real life version of The Wave or the shower scene in Porky’s, I knew it was time to drop out. It had been a little over a decade; it was time.
I felt like one of the knuckleheads in the bar fight sketch on Mr. Show with Bob and David: I’d been so invested in the pointless daily tussles, I’d totally wasted my life. I closed my account and never looked back.
Anyway, that’s my Twitter story. If you wanna share yours, you can find me on Bluesky, which is a lot like a high school reunion attended entirely by the earnest dweebs from the environmental awareness club. (Go follow us there!) I’m not nearly as invested in it as I once was with Twitter, but that’s OK. Eventually, you gotta graduate and move on.
Only on Gazetteer SF
FLOCKING HELL: Eddie Kim on the technicality that could bring more SFPD cameras.
SICKENING NEWS: Olivia Peluso on the coming wave of cyclosporiasis.
HOT DOG…THE SHOP: Cydney Hayes checks out Yardsale, Cole Valley’s new ski-themed outpost.
DEGENERATION GAP: Joshua Bote on the retailer’s uncanny nostalgia.
DANGEROUS STREETS: Joel Rosenblatt on another pedestrian killed by a driver.
RECOMMENDED: READING: Jess Paiz’s guide to SF’s indie publishers.
FINGERTIPS (PT. 2.0): Maker can’t understand a journalist’s fixation on his bot’s sexy fingers.
Just a reminder: Your tips can go a long way at Gazetteer HQ. Got a good scoop? A fun bit of tea to spill? A nugget of gossip you’re dying to share? Send it our way. We can assure anonymity.
Dispatches from the fog
LOCALS ONLY: Zac Posen has explored every part of San Francisco, from the Ferry Building to North Beach. (Condé Nast Traveler)
BONFIRE OF THE INANITIES: Steve Hilton survived his second visit to Oakland. (Oakland Review of Books)
ROUGH WATERS: A harrowing report on the sinking of the Volare. (San Francisco Chronicle)
UNDER HIS EYE: An SFPD drone probably spotted you peeing between cars at least once. (Wired)
DATED: Finding love was easier when Mary Ann Singleton could meet men at Safeway. (Good Work/YouTube)
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