I loved Twitter. I hated Twitter.

Meditations upon the deactivating of a social media account

First thing Wednesday morning, I did a thing I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time. 

I deactivated my Twitter account. 

I’m not alone in having done this in the wake of the presidential election. My intentions weren’t entirely politically motivated. Not really. I’m embarrassed at the way I handled my anxiety about this year’s election, and this seemed like a small but necessary step to reclaim a healthy relationship between my time, my attention, and the news.

Twitter’s not dead, but there’s been a large exodus over to Bluesky and Threads. There will be plenty of time to see how the social-media space once called “microblogging” will play out.

This week, I want to write about my experience on the platform. 

The classic Fail Whale. Photo dlebouef/Flickr

I started on Twitter back in either 2008 or 2009, when I was covering the then-Binghamton Mets for the Press & Sun-Bulletin. I had seen the Mets beat writers at the New York papers starting to use it, and I was intrigued. That account is still online, so you can see my clumsy attempts to use and make sense of the platform. 

Funny story about that PSB Twitter account. I got in a bit of trouble in the newsroom for starting it. See, I didn’t go through our paper’s online staff or Gannett’s proper channels to start the account. I just did it on my own. Now, the “trouble” was a stern talking to, not any real consequences. But in my origin story, this is always a key moment of asking for forgiveness instead of permission, of jumping in to try a new platform instead of reflexively opposing it.

I started my personal account shortly after I started grad school in the fall of 2009. That’s the one I nuked Wednesday morning. 

The truth is, I loved Twitter. 

I was pretty good at it - or as good as anyone could reasonably be. I learned a lot. I met a lot of crazy smart people who’ve become incredible friends. I got readers for my blog (now this newsletter) and listeners to my podcast. One of my family's core memories happened because of a Tweet. 

It’s strange, in a way. Even at its peak, only about a quarter of internet users were active on the platform. For sheer numbers, Facebook has always been much larger. But journalists used it in a way that made the platform indispensable. On a pre-pandemic episode of the 538 politics podcast, Nate Silver said that for media members, “your job is to read Twitter.”

Twitter just fit journalism — especially sports journalism. The original 140-character limit is about equal to the journalism school length of a lede (35 words or so). The chronological feed allowed for real-time reporting. When you had a scoop, you didn’t have to wait until the next morning’s paper and hold your breath that your competition didn’t have it either or hope people found the news on your paper’s website. 

In a lot of ways, it made journalism better. At its absolute best, Twitter amplified voices long ignored by traditional media. Me Too and Black Lives Matter started as hashtags on Twitter. Reporting in real time is also a good thing, giving readers news as it happens rather than holding it for publication at a time that would economically benefit the news organization. Mistakes could be corrected in real time, and bad faith coverage could be called out. Journalists like Michael Hobbes could critique columns or articles the same day, providing a much-needed fact checking on stories that needed it. 

At its best, Twitter really did feel like the digital version of Habermas’ famed public square. It was the one place we could all go - journalists, readers, academics, fans - and talk about everything and anything we wanted to. 

And it could be fun. When I taught at SUNY Oswego, I ran the #MoritzMemeWar at the end of every semester. For extra credit, students would post two memes/gifs — one that connected to the course material, one wild card - and I’d share them all. The meme that got the most engagement earned that student a few extra extra points. My pal Nick Koberstein, whom I borrowed stole the idea from, and I presented a paper at an academic conference about our meme wars and the idea of latent engagement. 

It was so much fun. 

Truth is, I hated Twitter. 

A lot of times, I didn’t like who I was when I was on Twitter. I ignored my family too many times to check in on what was happening on my screen. It enabled my worst pick-me instincts and led to desperate, try-hard behavior I’m ashamed of. 

It’s easy to look back and remember only the good stuff. But there was plenty of bad stuff on Twitter, both individually and collectively.

That’s the thing that I think a lot of people don’t remember. Twitter was often chaotic, messy place that often had weird, gross energy about it. The whole “don’t be the main character of Twitter today” thing was cute, but also underscored that this was a platform that could get very ugly very quickly. This isn’t just an Elon thing, and it’s not just a Trump thing. Remember, Gamergate happened in 2014, the glory days of the Obama administration. 

Real-time journalism is great, but the accelerated nature of the news cycle on Twitter definitely impacted the types of stories and coverage that was incentivized. Being constantly exposed to incremental story updates made it easy to be overwhelmed. Commentary on how journalists do their job contributed to a growing distrust in news organizations and in the institution of journalism as a whole.

A reporter I interviewed years ago made a point that has stuck with me — on Twitter, everything comes through at the same volume, whether it is breaking news about an insurrection at the capital, the results of a school board election, or two friends sharing bad opinions about candy. That’s a feature, not a bug, and it meant that it became harder and harder to sort real news from fake stuff meant to score some quick engagement dough.

Also, all that energy is exhausting after a while. 

At its worst, Twitter was an ugly place filled with racism and misogyny and doxing. The #MoritzMemeWar that was so great? Imagine a woman professor, or a professor of color, trying that. You instantly see how that would go wrong, and that’s the point. 

Being on Twitter always came with a weird sense of obligation. A lot of times, I wasn’t there because I wanted to be there, becauseI thought it was a good or productive use of my time. I was there because I had to be there because of my job and my research. Because I had to know what was going on and how reporters were reporting on what was going on. Because Nate Silver thinks a reporters’ job is to read Twitter. 

Because I had to be there.

Well. Because I felt like I had to be there. 

That word really does make all the difference. 

Sports journalism and sports media remain intertwined with Twitter. 

I did see an influx of sports writers and commentators to Bluesky this weekend. I have not seen a lot of the top ESPN commentators and reporters making the move to the new platforms yet, which is … telling, I think. The leagues have not left Twitter in a meaningful way. Because of this, so many video clips that sports reporters use in their stories remain Twitter embeds, and often you need to have an active account to view them.

I get it. There’s still an audience on Twitter for sports content and commentary, and in media, you go where the audience is, even if that means being on a site that has become primarily a platform that enriches dollar store Tony Stark and his right-wing grifter agenda.¹

Truth is, Twitter had become less useful to me professionally. The engagement wasn’t there anymore. People weren’t sharing this newsletter, my podcast, or really anything. I never had a really that much of an audience there anyway, but given the technical and philosophical changes that have happened there over the past year or two, even that little audience had basically vanished. 

In the end, it was an easy decision. 

It’s not so much that the bad outweighs the good so much as the obligation has been lifted. Social media has become even more split than it was before. There’s no single digital public sphere anymore, and so it doesn’t feel like I’m missing anything. 

It doesn’t feel required to be on Twitter anymore. 

So I’m not. 

1. I said my leaving wasn’t entirely politically motivated.