Help, how do I quit Twitter?
Social media users look to alternatives for X...again
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You have many options when picking a social media platform to use.
Lean more toward photos? Instagram and Facebook might be for you. Videos? Pick TikTok or YouTube. Text-based? Ask me a week or so ago, and I would’ve jumped straight to X. Now, that answer’s getting a little…muddled.
Quartz reported that “on November 6, more than 115,000 web visitors in the U.S. deactivated their X accounts.” According to The New York Times, alternative social media platform Bluesky saw one million new accounts added since the U.S. election. Instagram’s version of X, Threads, currently has 275 million monthly users.
“X, formerly known as Twitter, set a U.S. web traffic record while also seeing its largest wave of deactivations on the day after the election, according to data from digital market intelligence company Similarweb,” Britney Nguyen wrote for Quartz.
Mashable called Elon Musk, the current owner of X, the “real winner” of the 2024 presidential election.
“Musk bet big on Trump and spent millions to back him,” Matt Binder wrote. “However, Musk wasn't just doing this out of the kindness of his heart. Many of Musk's companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), xAI, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, heavily rely on government contracts and subsidies.”
It’s not just people leaving the app. It’s companies. U.K. news outlet The Guardian announced it would be leaving X earlier this week.
“We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere,” the outlet said in its release. “This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform.”
This isn’t the first time X/Twitter has had a mass exodus.
When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, some public figures, media companies, and everyday users had the same reaction, citing concerns about misinformation or a “toxic environment.” NPR left last April after being tagged as a “state-affiliated media.” Blue checkmarks turned from verification to pay-as-you-use.
Now, celebrities leaving the platform in 2024, like former CNN anchor Don Lemon, cite similar concerns about “honest debate and discussion, transparency, and free speech,” as well as potential legal ramifications.
But is it realistic for audiences to leave the Elon Musk-owned platform, or is it another fad?
There are different schools of thought. In one, you’re partaking in harm to the online ecosystem by being apart of it, and in the other, you’re sticking it to the man by remaining somewhere that is becoming undesirable to be.
I joined Twitter in 2015, almost ten years ago. (Mind=blown). Checking the platform is a habit just as common as I assume reading the print newspaper used to be. Morning, night, I get my little scroll in, catch up on the latest happenings and laugh at the latest memes.
As much as I would love to move on to another text-based platform that prioritizes my content and leverages my algorithm, I’m wary about starting over. We’ve tried the Bluesky thing before (if you want to follow me there, you can #shamelesspromo) without much traction, and posting on Threads (which you can also follow me on) has been like screaming into a void. Though, I would argue it’s pretty much the same on X nowadays.
We can get into the classic “can you separate the art from the artist?” debate – anti-X sentiments usually have something do with its ownership – but I don’t think it would be that productive. Despite the “largest exodus since Elon Musk takeover,” X still has millions upon millions of users and a cultural chokehold on the internet. What’s comfortable is safe.
It also depends on where you stand with what you want to accomplish on social media. If you want a place to share your perspective (or a picture of your salad), you can go just about anywhere. But if you want people to engage with your perspective – like, comment, subscribe – it’s getting harder and harder to find a place to do that successfully.
It’s more difficult to gamify social media by spamming hashtags, posting one-off comments, and thirst-trapping your way to stardom. The reality is, there’s just so many other people trying to do it, too. Call it oversaturation, call it content fatigue. Whatever it is, we’re tired of feeding the digital beast.
What is the point of being on X, then? You avoid FOMO1. You’re in on niche jokes and breaking news. Occasionally, you get that sweet, sweet rush of dopamine from a post that takes off. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who never joined X and never will. Their lives go on without it. I imagine they’re quite content.
Still, for me, there’s something about the platform I just can’t quit. An inability to stop scrolling can definitely be seen as a moral shortcoming but alas, what’s a social media addict to do?
Read my last story: Funny social media moments interlude
My weekly roundup:
😇 What I’m Doing: “State Champs’ self-titled album is enjoyable, quintessential, predictable pop-punk”
🎶 What I’m Listening To: “hot girls in hell” by LØLØ
🎞️ What I’m Watching: Tell Me Lies
🔎 What I’m Reading: “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” by Ottessa Moshfegh
⚠️ What’s On My Radar: “Vanity Fair retweeting Pop Crave's tweets…is like the queen debuting her successor in the grand ballroom.”
Read the full Gen Z Dictionary here.
FOMO: Fear of Missing Out