You are leaving a place that has done immense damage to our society and culture. You and I both share in that complicity
Full Show Notes: https://www.thejaymo.net/2022/10/29/301-2238-10-tips-on-leaving-twitter/
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My feeds today are full of people expressing their desire to leave the bird site.
By quite some margin, the most successful Episode I’ve made so far this year has been 10 Tips for Creators in 2022.
Produced from my experience after making over 16 hours or 200 episodes of a different type of social media.
If you are new around here or listening to Permanently Moved for the first time, I direct you to that show. It’s a companion to this one.
10 Tips for Leaving Twitter
1. Have Some Ambition
Whatever you decide to do after leaving Twitter, I hope it’s ambitious
The average Twitter user spent 5 hours a month there. Just 10mins a day
Some of you are leaving after regularly spending 15 hours or more there a week
Remember, according to the place you are leaving, tweeting three to four times a week made you a heavy user
Posting just 1200 characters was apparently enough to make you a meaningful contributor to our collective culture
It did not
2. Pay Attention
Where and what you are going to put your attention on is currently the single most important question you have to answer for yourself
Cultivate and relearn the practice discernment
Attention is such a powerful a resource that humanity harvests it for profit
Humans create and consume culture just as the bees produce and consume their honey
Consider the quality of the honey
Consider the bee keepers intentions
3. Who Cares Anyway
Next time you go out for coffee or dinner, take note of how long it takes for the conversation around you to turn to something that happened on social media
Twitter is only the 15th biggest social network on the Internet
Talking about your pinterest collection is actually more relevant to more people than any event that occurred on Twitter
It is likely no one cares more about Twitter than you did
4. People Stop Playing Games All the Time
Do not feel remorse or regret for putting Twitter down
Nine out of 10 people do not finish a game they have bought and paid for
Twitter was a terrible game
Followers, likes, retweets and replies. A big chat room with added metrics
Wherever you’re going next, that old scoreboard has no relevance now
5. Play a Different Game
There are two types of players. Uploaders and downloaders.
Don’t get sucked into short form videos, unless you’re making them.
Otherwise it’s pure downloading and penny theatre.
Write, think and create in more than 240 characters.
Level up
It’s check out my Tumblr, not check out my Tumblr post
Create and curate content to be consumed in aggregate, not isolation
For the love of blarg start a blog, a newsletter, a Youtube channel
Whatever
6. What Do You Want to Do Instead?
I’ve changed my mind. Uploader and Downloader player types are a bad metaphor
And a bad metaphor, Tyson Yunkaporta reminds us, is a curse
All of the web is viewed through the metaphor of the window
Take this good metaphor seriously
You move horizontally across the web, not upward into abstraction
Tip the gnostic up and down of cyberspace outward into the field.
Ask yourself: Are you looking in through the window of the web browser or are you looking out?
7. Subscribe to My Newsletter
Twitter metrics have pickled your brain
An audience of 7 is not disheartening or pathetic
7 people in your living room is wonderful – if a little crowded
If all of you listening right now were together in person we’d need a local theatre
Twitter made you lazy.
Up and down created hierarchy.
It’s the to-ing and fro-ing that creates the relationships
If you choose to play a different game, tell people. You can’t take your network with you
If someone decides to play a different game, like and subscribe
Follow them wherever they are headed, you might make new companions on the journey
8. Create Something (Every Week)
You’re not on Twitter anymore, there’s so much extra time
Create something meaningful to you
Spend a few hours doing it
Do it regularly
Don’t get mad if others are doing it too
The publish button is the same for you as it is everyone else
9. What Are You Willing to Pay For?
Creating anything more ambitious than a tweet requires graft not craft
These 5 mins of social media right now are the result of multiple hours of my life, in both effort and time
If you come across something online that is meaning–full, consider paying for it
Remember: You never spent a penny on Twitter because it was all meaning-less
10. Read the room
You are leaving a place that has done immense damage to our society and culture
You and I share in that complicity
Wherever you decide to go, whatever game you decide to play, it is likely there are other people already playing
New worlds have different norms and different cultures
Check the date when you arrive, it likely reads Eternal September
Consider that you may have brainworms and may need quarantine
Watch
The script above is the original script written for the episode. It may differ from what ended up in the edit.
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