(2022-11-13) Simmons After Twitter

Brent Simmons: After Twitter. For writers, artists, podcasters, journalists, and people who make things in public, Twitter was the one social networking site we all had to use.

The internet’s town square should never have been one specific website with its own specific rules and incentives. It should have been, and should be, the web itself.

I resented Twitter because it had become mandatory, because it had become the one place. And I resented it because it seemed to subdue the creative energy of the web. You built a thing? How nice. Well, there’s Twitter, so we don’t need it. Or: how’s this going to replace Twitter? It’s not, so save your energy.

With the fall of the Twitter consensus I am energized. I remember what it was like in the 2000s; I remember the liveliness and sparkle of those days on the web.