Goodbye to Twitter and Its Toddler King

I’m joining the ranks of those voting with their feet

Matt Savener
5 min readDec 16, 2022
Photo by John Duncan on Unsplash

I joined Twitter in January 2011 to gather travel info. I was planning a seven-month round-the-world trip (#RTW) with my new wife, and I’d heard it was a good way to get firsthand intel and chat with travelers.

At the time, I didn’t understand how Twitter was different than Facebook except that it was faster and full of strangers. Turns out, that’s exactly what made it so good, so bad, so …… everything.

I haven’t been able to look away since. I don’t understand people who “never got into Twitter.” How can you not want to look at a real, live, beating heart? Why wouldn’t you want to know everything before anyone else does?

When Twitter was good, it was good. I’m talking @dril Twitter, live-sports Twitter, Election Night Twitter, earthquake Twitter. (If you don’t live in earthquake territory, imagine feeling a jolt and no matter where you are or what you’re doing, jumping on Twitter and within seconds feeling both affirmation that you did, in fact, feel that, plus a sense of everyone showing up at the same surprise party all at once.)

The bird app holds value beyond that new-new, too. I did meet #RTW friends on Twitter way back when. And I’ve met legit IRL friends there since. I’ve found…

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