For the twelve of you who might not have heard already, everything over at the hot take factory that is Twitter is melting down. Advertisers are fleeing, verification is a complete shambles — though that did lead to some amusing back-and-forth about Chiquita’s role in overthrowing the Guatemalan government! — and academics are in a tizzy, fleeing the platform in droves in favor of something, anything else (even something named Mastodon).
I joined Twitter by accident, at first because it was established enough in early 2012 that I thought it was worth a shot. I used it infrequently before slowly being sucked into the convenience of being able to fire off a quick tweet with the latest interesting or entertaining thing I had found in the archives. I stayed because I started to build a community, making connections with academics I’d never met but whose work I admired. I got invited to write articles and contribute to panels all because I happened to spend some time (too much time) sharing thoughts on the internet in bite-size pieces.
I think that’s a pretty standard story for a lot of academics. Hence, the sadness and the mass exodus to find somewhere to try and recreate the same thing, except preferably not in an actively on fire trash dumpster.
I just can’t be bothered. I don’t want to try and recreate what Twitter was in all its weird, terrible, and sometimes glorious oddity. If Twitter collapses, so be it. I also loved AOL Instant Messenger back in the day, but I somehow managed to shed the teenaged impulse to use song lyrics as away messages, so I think I’ll figure out how to live in a world without Twitter just fine.
Like many, Twitter’s catastrophic fortnight made me reflect on what I liked about the platform and what kind of content I wanted to keep sharing in some form. That quickly boiled down to two types of regular Susan content: amusing things I’ve found in the archives and, on occasion, some thoughts about what the past can tell us about the present.
So, here I am. I’m going back to an old technology that’s still fit for purpose.
I don’t promise regular posts — I do have a day job and keep promising I’ll write another few books — but you’ll find me here every once in a while, sharing fun finds from the archives and historically-infused takes on some of today’s headlines.