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Why Was Twitter Addictive?
🕑 Added 2025-01-24 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
In 2015, a friend and colleague I've known since I first got a "break" on YouTube via a community channel called "GXPTube" were talking about Twitter one day. I can't recall what the conversation was about, but I think it was about how pointless, silly, and obtrusive the website was.
So, we both signed up on the same day with a challenge. We were going to post once a week, and see whoever the long run would post something that'd get more "hits."
Now, if I had a time-machine…
Well wait, let's not get ahead of ourselves, I haven't decided my conclusion just yet.
Though there's multiple obvious truths about Twitter throughout its entire history.
It's not popular.
It's not smart.
It's not sophisticated.
It's not curated.
It's not well-made.
It was extremely confusing at first, and in some ways still is.
Like, why the fuck can't I just view my most popular tweets within my homepage itself like I've always been able to on YouTube? Instead, I have to check Twitter via an incognito tab that's not signed in to sort by popularity?
So often the workarounds for basic actions on this website is like repairing a leaking gas-pipe with blu-tack.
And don't even get me started on how it handled media!
Pictures would load slower than Steam Workshop. Gifs couldn't be paired with anything other than text. The video couldn't even run beyond 144p for the first eight seconds even if the video was no more than seven seconds, assuming it even loaded to begin with.
It was somehow even more annoying to post videos than watch them due to how hyper specific the website was about formats. It better not just be MP4, it must be this X type of MP4.
Like somebody who'll drink Diet Coke, but punch you if their handed Coke Zero.
The worst thing about Twitter was easily the posts themselves though.
I don't mean that they're all bad, I mean, the bad ones are…
Bad.
Bad.
The sort of shit that genuinely gives you pause, even in this age of Post-Post-Ironic-Post-Modern-Meta internet consumption where you've seemingly seen everything, except Firetruck37's take on Halo 3 ODST via a thread of 140-character limited posts.
I know the question though…
What's special about that?
Isn't this exactly the case for Reddit? Youtube? Tiktok? Facebook? Isn't the overwhelming majority of what's seen on these websites the exact dystopic brain-rot that Japanese Sci-Fi predicted in the 90's and 00's?
And the answer to that is yes.
The reason I think Twitter was addictive though, is because unlike these other websites…
It didn't need to be.
One of the earliest lessons I learned in my time on Twitter was to almost never follow any actor you liked.
Regardless if they're a Hollywood A-Lister or Z-List 90's Cartoon Boy, they're going to copy-spam the exact same links, gifs, and "owns" about whatever news is found on CNN, spending more time pretending to relate to their fans instead of talking about the art they're doing that made those fans to begin with.
So I didn't follow them.
I rolled my eyes at Gaming Journalists feeding trolls and grifters seriously debating with zoomed in images of Lara Croft's pants to satisfy their own insecurities.
So I didn't follow them.
And before giving a third example, I know the counter to this is what about Reddit?
The two websites do share a lot in-common in this regard. That whether you're wanting to know the latest about the biggest mainstream AAA game, or the hyper niche of a community dedicated to exploring abandoned mines, tunnels, and underground facilities, you'll find something.
The difference is Reddit is about communities, and the posts, while often short, can be enormous.
Reddit's mostly replaced old-school Forums, but I find in functionality for the user, it's actually more like a community blog, with posts being ordered by a default in a linear chain of interest, and with a consistent theme.
Twitter was ironically, more flexible.
Twitter accounts could be community formed like a Reddit page. It could also be an individual or a company, and your opportunities of interacting with them were on a far more even playing field because of its built in-character limit.
I've found Youtube Channels, Podcasts, Artists, Directors, even entire Games because of the website's efficiency that you could configure based on who's followed.
I could specifically curate my own endless chain of trash-talking a friend, learning a science fact, watching the latest game-trailer, going awooga, responding to a fans question, asking an artist a question as a fan, getting a response from them almost immediately before they do the same thing for somebody else, going awooga again, discovering a game-studio, saving a dumb gif, etc.
It's just a bunch of things I like, that can always be accessed, quickly, and consistently, yet with surprise, and genuine interaction.
If Tinder is speedrunning a date, then Twitter was like speedrunning social-media… or maybe just the internet as a whole.
I didn't need twenty websites for each specific niche I hold a passing interest in, or following a specific artist or journalist via whatever decides to load on their Y2K-ass website, or dig through a fucking Reddit.
I'd just use Twitter.
And that's why it was so addicting.
Unlike so many other addictions I've had or have, there are things I miss about Twitter when I used it, mainly the interactions with for lack of a better word, my "circle." The interactions with people, the things I hear and find, or exchanges had that just don't happen on Discord, Email, or Forums.
However, the reason I haven't gone to any of its alternatives, is because just like Tinder, there's things that are lost in the speedrunning process.
Do I really need to boot up Twitter to @Sparky when somebody posts a Shark Car?
Do I really need @BOl to supply me with Friday Monster Energy Drink Memes?
Do I really need to tell the world I think Ubisoft is stupid in text form for a thing they do everyone agrees is stupid?
This isn't really interaction, content, and personal writing of any value, at least, not enough to stick with me, or not easily be replaced with something else that probably has more depth?
More to sink my teeth into.
More to write about than 140-characters.
Comments
NephyrisX
In my short time using Twitter (I refuse to call it 'X'), I find the users there to be bafflingly proud of their lack of knowledge and wouldn't hesitate to accuse things of stuff they have little knowledge of to begin with. Being active on Twitter must be a soul-crushing affair.
