A while back, I decided to leave X, (the platform formerly known as twitter). At that point, I’d been on twitter for eleven years. Elections and presidential administrations, PitMad and WriterWednesday, I played and participated in 140 characters, (280 in the last couple of years). Along the way, I made friends, like 18K friends.
“It’s money that matters,” -Randy Newman
But twitter had the most friends—368 million users in 2022. And, what started out as a meet–and-hang-out spot, (but online, where you don’t have to put on pants) turned into an underperforming business venture. But hey, who builds a wildly successful social media platform with international reach and doesn’t take care of it? I mean the guys a genius, right?
If all you knew of Musk was his dollar-changing hustle or death wagons or his rocket racket, you’d think textbook Austin Powers vil nerd. However, Musk is also a child of brutal privilege who has never suffered real consequences, (means “eat his own words” at a minimum) for ill-conceived schemes. His (purportedly) drug-fueled ego was the worst possible tone for one of the most influential platforms on the globe. But, yeah, money talks.
Moving on…
At the time, the big question for me was not “if?” I don’t do white-supremacy, vile misogyny, or LGBTQ-hate. So, it was only a matter of time until I noped out of that…morass.
Still, the work of writing is solitary and writers need community or discouragement sets in. My own work drives me but the work and success of others inspires me. So, once a week I engage in a promotion for writers called #WriterWednesday.
I do a blog crawl, (sharing links to blogs I find informative, topical, or just of interest to writers). Additionally, I promote fellow writers with new books, poems, or posts, and I post memes. So many memes.
Somewhere in there, I also promote my own posts. Yeah, it’s a lot but I don’t get out much and it’s cheap entertainment. Big lag between those MCU events, yo. But where to go?
We’ll look at my initial assessments and my one-year-ish-later results.
First, the non-starters.
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| Probably not my junior high school yearbook photo. |
HIVE Social is a mobile-only app. I can barely see my phone, much less use a small-screen interface. So, it may be the greatest thing since coleslaw and cottage cheese but I’ll never know it because I can’t see it.
Facebook, great for posting your lunch photos, your vacay photos, but for promoting writing and writers, it’s the equivalent of your mother telling you that your book “is very nice,” and she likes it.
Without furhter delay, the contenders...
Now: Same ol’ same ol’... I post some of my memes there but not often. It’s still clunky and the new “Post or AI” option continues to annoy me.
Then: Lots of early buzz for Mastodon. No waiting list, no invitation necessary.
Downside: it is a community of special-interest silos. You stay in your writer silo (or political silo, or music silo) or you have multiple user profiles.
Now: I dropped off after about eight weeks, (hours?).
The platforms that made the cut.
Counter Social:
Then: They have the right ideas. It’s easy to sign up and the community is strong with a lot of good-hearted interaction. Posts are up to 500 characters, with hashtags, links, and polls. While mostly user-friendly, the interface is BUSY. Every square cm of real estate is in play and it can feel claustrophobic.
Downside: did I mention three columns? One column is the main feed, in real time, the second is friends/follows posts, and the third is your notifications…I think. If not apparent, you will still likely miss notifications, replies, etc.
Now: I dropped off CS after three months, went back, and then dropped off for keeps two-months later. My stats are underwhelming to say the least: I made 1K posts, followed 280 people, and I got maybe 140 followers. Not terrible, not great, not enough interaction for the time I tied up in it. Your results may vary.
Post.News:
Then: while Post News is not as polished as CS, the interface is simpler and closer to twitter. There is no character limit. There is some kind of points/money thingy I have yet to understand.
Downside: PN is still a bit buggy. It may take two or three attempts to post something, especially with a link. More than once I simply could not share a link/post at all. The notification alerts are not ironed out yet. Notifications I saw—and cleared—in February still show up as new but none of that is a deal-breaker.
Now:
“Post News” is just that—news. Ninety-percent of the folks are there to discuss news. There is very little writer-interplay. My Writer Wednesday antics found NO traction. Like, at all. Ever.
I dropped off after two months. For 800 posts, I followed 130 people, and have 80 followers. I’d say PN is not my bag but I think it’s the other way around.
Blue Sky
Then: Jack Dorsey headed up development on bsky and therefore the interface is the closest to twitter. It is very user friendly. The character limit is 300 which is more than generous.
Downside: There can be a lag for your posts to show up in your profile/log and a longer lag for notifications. The engineers didn’t add hashtags, (which hampered building communities around an activity or event, e.g. #WriterWednesday) until August-ish.
Now: Traction was slow at first but growth is steady as more human beings leave Xitter to the toxic. In the ten months-ish since I joined, I’ve made 3K posts, followed >600 people and have almost 1K followers.
All-in-all, bsky is a good alternative to X.
Threads:
Then: Threads is the least like twitter, fitting as the platform was developed by the folks behind Instagram. With that stated, the interface is clean and simple to use with 500-character posts, hashtags, and links.
Upside: if you’re on Instagram, everyone who follows you there will follow you on Threads. There is even a handy toggle to move between Instagram and Threads.
Now: The writing community is civil and supportive. I have engaged with a number of writers. I’ve also discussed politics, movies, and food. The King is there now, too.
I’ve made, probably, >2K posts. I follow >600 people and >300-ish follow me.
Downside: some of the more and more…passionate elements of twitter have found their way there and bringing some of their crappy behavior with them. But the community is strong. The writing community is growing by leaps and bounds.
I enjoy my time on Threads and I continue to post.
Spoutible:
Then: As they say in the Army, Spoutible is easy to use, easy to clean. Like bsky, the interface closely resembles twitter with a 300-character limit. The notifications are relevant and near real-time. The community is diverse and I’ve had the greatest interaction here with both new authors and even some of my old schoolies from twitter.
It’s not perfect. The upgrades are not entirely seamless but don’t impede use. You have to click-to-post photos, (no drag-and-drop). Additionally, seeing your responses often requires refreshing your screen.
Now: I’ve made >3K posts, I follow >700 people, and >800 people follow me. However, the interactions are the greatest reward—and still the biggest surprise. Writers, politicos, fandom, there is a lot of feedback on just about every front I’m invested in.
Tone means a lot so does mature responsibility
Spoutible founder, Christopher Bouzy is engaged and active on the platform but not as…inescapable as Musk is on X. Mr. Bouzy’s enthusiasm for discourse permeates the platform and the tone is optimistic. I have not seen the same Xitter ~ahem~ “detritus” on S as on other platforms.
Obviously, I’m not going anywhere.
I may explore other platforms but with a new understanding that replacing a social media platform is just as easy (or as hard) as finding your people. Twitter is gone and honestly, it wasn’t the thoroughfare of ideas we presumed anyway. We were. We are and we take our ideas with us.
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| Just between us, I think that ship has sailed. |
Musk is late to the fact that he owns the platform, not the people.
The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can build (or build upon) something better. BTW, if you want to connect, I'm EliasJMcClellan on all the above evaluated platforms. Stop by on Wednesday and we'll talk books, or any other day and we'll talk cats or Star Wars or something.
I have no further need to discuss "X." It's done.
I own none of the images here. All images are used for educational/instructional purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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