Unpublished tweet draft: “so far, people tweeting about Elon buying Twitter have ruined my Twitter experience more than Elon buying Twitter.”
I.
I have this friend. He’s thinking about breaking blue. That is, paying the $8/m (or whatever it ends up being) for Twitter Blue, which guarantees him as-yet unspecified preferential treatment in search, as well as the coveted blue check.
No brainer, he thinks. Organic reach has always been iffy, but Twitter is still undoubtedly valuable for him as a marketing tool. He has $8/m. He’ll try it out. What’s the harm?
This guy is not an “Elon bro”, but nor is he an “everything billionaires touch turns to ashes” anti-capitalist Bernie type (believe it or not, kids, these aren’t the only two options!).
But the problem is, he’s worried about what that blue check next to his handle is going to say about him moving forward. He wonders whether or not he’ll be “soft-blocked” by members of his community, who read a little too deeply into his motives and sort him into a tribe they want nothing to do with.
He has a conundrum. On the one hand, he is willing to try a paid feature of a tool he already finds useful in an effort to expand his reach and grow his audience. On the other, he’s worried about cultural norms, often implicit, but, nonetheless, ruthlessly enforced.
Violation of these subtle community norms also seems to come with a pretty strict “no returns” policy. Once violated, it’s very difficult to change your mind if buyer’s remorse sets in.
In short, upgrading to Twitter Blue has become a moral decision for this friend. It promises the possibility of an advantage (albeit, an as-yet unproven one), but the risks are also quite costly.
The problem is that the advantage may not materialize, and then, he may also find he has nothing, no community, to return to afterward. That blue check becomes a scarlet letter; it signifies a dupe who should have listened to the community, and now lives on only as a cautionary tale.
Here’s an early twist. My “friend” here isn’t just one person. In fact, probably half the creators I know are in some version of this moral quandary.
You don’t know it, because we’re all talking about it via text, or GChat, or DMs. Very few of them will say so publicly because the other half of the creators I know are constantly tweeting or retweeting about how evil Elon Musk is, how horrible Twitter has become, and coordinating doomed efforts to move their audiences to Mastodon (???), Tumblr, or Discord.
If you’re in this latter group, the former group isn’t telling you about their quandary because they’re afraid of you. They’re afraid you will disavow them if they stay on Twitter, or, God forbid, if they try Twitter Blue, they’re afraid you’ll run to your own whisper networks and tell other people you both know that they’ve joined Comicsgate or something.
The saddest thing they’re afraid of is the thought of not being your friend. That is so painful that they’d rather invest in a shallower relationship with you than create a new enemy.
That’s how much power this tool has given you. That’s how toxic it has made our community. And both of these things were set in stone long before some dumb troll billionaire bought the building.
Listen, if you’re deadlocked in your position on Twitter Blue, then what I have to say here is probably not for you. I fall squarely on the “touch grass” side of the issue.
My reasons for this are many. I think the discussion on this topic in the comics space is imbalanced and unhelpful. It’s artificially heated and unnecessarily pitched.
I also think that a lot of the criticism I’ve seen is mere centimeters deep, and more than a little hypocritical in some places.
But I’m tired of “gotcha discourse”, so I’m going to avoid exploring that stuff and attempt something else.
Again, my north star with the “TAKES” lane of the newsletter is to tell you what I am for, not to rant about what I am against.
So what I want to do here for those of you still reading is set you free. I want to assure you that you’re not alone in thinking the Twitter discourse is a little kooky. I also want to assure you that it’s perfectly okay to do the following:
Continue to use Twitter
Try Twitter Blue if you want to
Cut your losses if it doesn’t work out (guilt-free!)
If you’re in the other half I was talking about, jump to the end. I have something I want you to think about.
II. If you think Twitter is a useful tool, keep using it
As of publishing, there is no clear consensus on what to do about Twitter in the comics community. I’ve definitely lost a few dozen followers who have jumped ship. I’ve seen a handful of folks announce that they’re leaving (though they haven’t done so yet). I see yet more saying that the principled thing to do is stick around, “fight the power from within,” etc.
But really the critical mass seems to be stuck in a “wait and see” mode. Wait and see if people stick around. Wait and see if people they respect give Twitter Blue a try. Wait and see if Elon drives Twitter into the heart of a dying star on a dick-shaped rocket (or is that the other annoying billionaire?).
The loudest voices are groaning about the death of Twitter, but most folks are sitting around with their fingers in the wind waiting to feel the cold on one side or another.
But both of these factions have something in common. In fact, we all have this in common; it’s why we’re stuck where we’re stuck.
We all agree that Twitter is useful.
In fact, it’s undeniably useful.
I’ve already seen two-dozen people quit for Mastodon and come ambling back. I’ve seen connections say they’re spending most of their time on Instagram now, only to DM me on Twitter to ask what’s up. I’m also on IG, DMs are open there, what are you doing here still, weirdo?
So my question to you is this: Is Twitter a useful tool for you?
That’s really the only relevant question here. And if the answer is “yes,” then I think you should continue using it.
Why? Because most of the reasons not to don’t hold up, and we all know it. Twitter’s usability hasn’t noticeably changed. It still confers the same benefits and access points it did a month ago. Sure, they’re having problems in the board room, but what does that have to do with you? At the end of the day, it’s still a useful tool for you, and, here’s the clincher, there is no viable alternative.
That’s why you see people who cast Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter as a society-ending apocalypse bending their principles into a pretzel (“I’m going to stay and fight the power from within!”) to justify staying. Because in that battle between personal interest and, broadly speaking, ethics, at the end of the day, one thing wins more than the other thing.
And at the bottom, I don’t think a lot of people are being very honest about what they believe is under threat here. It’s not society, it’s not democracy, it’s not marginalized communities, it’s not free speech.
It’s self-interest. The potential loss of a valuable, alternative-less tool. That’s what is being threatened.
But that’s okay! I’m not here to shame you for it. It’s okay to admit that.
It’s okay to factor your self-interest into your decision-making process. We all make complex decisions every day balancing competing interests, we all make self-interested decisions in that matrix somewhere, and we all have a pretty mixed ticket when it comes to which decisions are ultimately good ones and which ones are bad ones.
“Hey man, you’re wrong about me. It is about ethics!”
If that’s really true, and you really do live your life with more moral clarity and consistency than your average joe, then I congratulate you on your moral fiber, wish you well in your retirement from social media, and hope you find a sustainable recycling receptacle for the smartphone you were reading this on.
For the rest of us who are sticking around to live in the uneasy matrix of complex decisions, let’s not lie to ourselves about what we’re looking at here.
It doesn’t matter which billionaire gets your credit card information, or monetizes your data with advertisers. It doesn’t matter how much a genocidal China owns of this platform or how much a homophobic Saudi Arabia owns of that one.
That is to say, it does matter, but it doesn’t suddenly matter because Elon Musk bought Twitter. It either always mattered or it didn’t.
There are no ethical justifications for using social media platforms. There never have been. You have always been participating in a soul-sucking, attention-fucking habit that is bad for you, probably bad for democracy, and definitely making bad rich people richer. Debating which one is less evil than the other is like debating which brand of cigarettes will kill you the slowest.
And let’s not give social media, much less Twitter, any special dispensation in our complex decisions matrix. The truth is, there is preciously little you can do each day to change the ethics about anything you do. About the food you eat, the clothing you wear, the TV you watch, and truly, the origin of literally any product or service you use.
It’s all tainted.
I join you in hoping and voting for a world that is constantly improving the tides for all. But I’m not a Luddite. I live in the world that we have, and so do all of you. You’re reading this post using an internet connection that not everyone has equitable access to. You’re probably reading it on a device with questionably sourced minerals, or that is the product of predatory labor practices. Whatever you’re using to heat your house this winter contributes to climate change.
Now, I’m not trying to flatten everything into some nihilistic moral equivalence.
What I want to do is create context so we can hit the reset button and change how we should be looking at this thing we all agree is a useful tool. And an important step along that path is realizing that whether or not you continue to use Twitter simply will not rank in the top 1,000 most important ethical decisions you will need to make in your hopefully long, rich, and rewarding life.
When it comes to Twitter, I want you to have a permission structure here to treat in terms of value.
If it helps you do something, anything, you enjoy, and it’s still the best tool on the market for that, you should keep using it.
Now, this very lengthy framework doesn’t only apply to using Twitter for free. Which is why I also think that —
III. If you want to try Twitter Blue, go for it!
[Yes, I understand that Twitter Blue has been placed on hold, but let’s assume that some version of it rolls out again at some point]
If you’re curious about upgrading to Twitter Blue, I think you should give it a try.
Yes, it’s unproven. Yes, Elon might run Twitter into the ground (I’ll get to that).
But if you already think that:
Twitter is a useful tool that provides you with value,
there’s a possibility that a premium option will confer more value, and
you agree that $8/m is an agreeable price for that value…
Then I don’t see why giving it a try for a few months poses a moral dilemma.
I pay $14 a month for a tool that only does one thing: it tells me what hashtags to use on Instagram.
That’s all it does. Deciding whether or not to subscribe did not send me into an existential abyss. It didn’t have any implications for my identity. I decided that it was a tool I found value in, and that I was willing to pay $14/m for it. That’s it. That’s all that went into it.
If the tool is no longer giving me the benefit I expect, I’ll cancel my subscription. Do I have to worry whether or not doing so will put me in the bad graces of my community?
Yes, it’s a drag when you have to pay for something you were getting for free for a long time. But if Twitter was simply the new kid on the block and promised all this value, would you really have a hard time trying it for $8/m?
Only if you were conditioned to not expect to pay for social media. Whereas nobody bats an eye at paying double for Netflix. The “ethics” of the subscription model here are completely arbitrary.
If you’re struggling with whether or not to upgrade to Twitter Blue, I encourage you to stop worrying about what the community thinks and simply see the decision for what it is: A strategic business choice for a small business owner (that’s you).
But maybe it won’t work out. Maybe Twitter Blue can’t deliver the goods and isn’t really worth $8/m, and maybe the whole network is doomed anyway, so what’s the point?
Well—
IV. If Elon runs Twitter into the ground, that’s okay
What happens if the Instagram hashtag tool I use loses its C-Suite executives, half of its support team, and files for bankruptcy?
Either it shuts down, and I find something else to use, or it gets acquired, service is pretty much uninterrupted, I sleep through the entire story, and continue using it, blissfully unaware.
Whichever thing happens, I’m not really worried about what it says about my moral character, or my standing in the community (more on that later). Because that would be ridiculous.
Like I said above, I think the decision to give Twitter Blue a try is just that: it’s purely a self-interested business decision for a small-business owner to try a premium version of a product that they already find extremely useful and valuable.
It’s okay to admit that Twitter is too valuable a tool to lose, and that unless it’s run into the ground and loses that value, that you’re going to continue using it.
And as I’ve argued, the jump from just using the free version to trying out the paid version to see if it confers a benefit to you is just not the moral dilemma it’s being made out to be.
You can still hate billionaires and capitalism. You were doing it when another asshole billionaire owned Twitter, you do it for a lot of other things, and you will probably continue to do both tomorrow. Twitter is not a special case.
If Elon runs the place into the ground, or a better alternative pops up, that’s okay. Whatever choice you make here is hardly a matter of national security, so stop investing so much of yourself into it.
Ten years ago, we would all just … move to a new plaform. My troubled friend(s) would conclude that Twitter Blue wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, close up shop, join us over at the new place, and nobody would bat an eye. No scarlet letter.
You should still be able to do that.
“I hear you, but, is it really worth potentially alienating myself from the comics community?”, you ask.
Well —
V. Stop turning mundane choices into purity tests
Maybe it isn’t.
But, the fact that you have to worry about that is bullshit from top to bottom.
If anyone is forcing you to choose between Twitter Blue and their support, then my friend, their support is garbage. And you never really had it.
Those voices are theoretically acting according to some principle, but in practice, they are making our community weaker. If we listen to them, then we won’t have tools or platforms at all. Only assholes will.
Don’t believe me? Then what is the reason for the embargo on Indiegogo?
We almost lost Kickstarter last year as well, except that the alternatives sucked (or were already surrendered to assholes).
And this is hardly the first time people have threatened an exodus from Twitter because of assholes which, again, is gift-wrapping a tool you find valuable and GIVING IT TO ASSHOLES.
Friends, I beg of you, we need to get out of our own fucking way, here. We should not be holding each other hostage like this, forcing everyone to lock arms and step on the same giant rake together.
This is important, because all of this is about what kind of community we want to be.
My troubled friends up top are worried that a choice to use a premium version of a tool we all agree is valuable will somehow hurt their reputations in the community.
Shame on you if you’re making people feel that way. I simply cannot find a sane justification for cutting out a friend, or someone I admire, for trying Twitter Blue. Not if I want to continue calling myself a stable person.
Au contraire, if this sounds normal, then you have sleepwalked into some dangerous social norms here, fella.
We’re not gonna cut fellow struggling creators out over this, are we? This is the test of our support and friendship? Twitter Blue?
Listen. There are a lot of very passionate voices in comics that eat up about 99% of the oxygen. That’s not their fault, it’s an engagement-driven platform, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
But even if you disagree with most of what I’ve said here, I ask you consider this, at least.
There are a lot of normies inside the comics community who mostly keep their heads down and do the work, but are absolutely put to fucking sleep by every wedge issue designed to draw battle lines and drive the community apart. To them, the fight over Twitter Blue is just today’s thing.
And if you’re one of those normies, I hope after reading this you feel comfortable saying something like the following:
“I’m probably going to stick around and maybe even try the premium Twitter option to see where it goes. Maybe Elon will drive Twitter into the ground. Maybe he will prove his critics wrong, deliver a more valuable Twitter, usher in a new era of free speech, blah blah, whatever. It’s only been a week, I have no idea. And, I don’t care which thing happens. I’m not an Elon bro, and I’m not a ‘capitalism is evil’ bro either. I’m purely a ‘try it out and see what happens’ bro. And I can do that because beyond $8/m, I have nothing invested in the success or failure of Elon’s Twitter, and definitely no part of my identity or character hinges on it. Maybe we’ll all organically move to an upstart platform in a year. If that’s where the community goes, I’ll probably go there too. Hopefully we can still be friends there.”
Not everything has to be cast into some fatalistic good vs. evil battle. Some of the choices we make, well … they’re just business.
I’m not sure what if any reach my voice in this community has, but I want to use it to say that I think it should be okay for you to stick around, and even pay for Twitter if it helps you.
You can still hate Elon Musk, billionaires, and capitalism. I won’t tell.
Big reminder folks that if you like this post, hit the ❤️ up there to let me know, or leave me a 💬 down below, I’d love to hear from you.
*Thumbnail image via Elisa Riva on Pixabay