Going to try to keep this short, but it's the seventh-or-so time I've seen people claim they're going to move to other platforms or methods in response to the latest stupidity, and I'm once again having some feelings watching people not address their Twitter addiction. I'm going to try to take it from a different angle this time, because of recent changes with the site.
Do you know how hard it has become to look at the website Twitter if you are not a Twitter user? I'm usually greeted with a sign-up screen now (they clearly haven't been able to turn that feature all the way off since implementing it) but if I do manage to actually get a tweet, I no longer see the thread it's a part of or the replies to it. If I manage to reach someone's profile, I no longer see their most recent posts, just a random assortment.
If you've had something happen in your life or accomplished something special to you and not talked about it elsewhere, I have not heard about it. Half of the time, I cannot access tweets people share on Discord without reaching a "Sorry, something went wrong." page and I've stopped asking what has been linked because I can only stand to trot out "I'm not on Twitter" so many times. You're writing notes on a sinking ship and then asking me to put my scuba gear back on, but I'd rather just keep breathing fresh air.
They had something like 300 million users at their peak, right? We know they have less now. And everyone outside of that is having this experience. So I hope the art you're posting has tons of winks and nods to dying 2023 Twitter specifically in it, because that's your audience. And even if I did have an account, I know that algorithmic shit is still there, right? So I'm still extremely unlikely to see you. But despite all these barriers and the rapidly narrowing appeal of the platform, this is somehow still the place where people are putting out their most urgent, passionate and true feelings--the online space where "it counts"?
I'm not going to act like deleting Twitter is an easy thing. I pored over analytics for months and got used to the other communication methods I had with my listeners before deciding to deactivate mine. For months after that, I had fears about my outreach that were only put to rest with my recent album release going fine without a Twitter. But what it came down to for me was, even with my comparatively small following, I did not want to be part of the draw for people continuing to use a fascist micro-blogging site.
If you're there posting your stuff without also putting it elsewhere, you are creating a reason for people to stay and look. And because you're reading this on cohost, chances are that you have people close to you who are either trying to use Twitter less or have left it behind entirely. Help them out. Stop letting it be your everything. Look at your online footprint, hell, your existence outside of what you put on Twitter. Ask yourself if it's really detailed enough to define you for people you want to connect with. If it's not, then I have bad news, but it's the part of you a lot of us are limited to seeing.
I just wanna' dogpile in on this one and just address the hard truth of that related question which I keep hearing.
Have you considered continuing to create whatever it was that created that following to begin with? Just... elsewhere? If your following is really something that is a result of your continued creative process then it'll show up wherever. Finding and maintaining an audience is part of the business of art. We all struggle for it.
The reality of the situation is that if you're creating something that is enriching or engaging to the people that are consuming it then they will find it. If you aren't creating something sufficiently meaningful to garner the attention you need to keep making it, then you might consider why you're making your art and who you are making it for, and even what you're making.
Are you really making these weird little shitposts just for yourself and perfectly coincidentally you simply must have an audience to consume it? Or are you making an ultra niche product and you are unsure where your consumer base is going to relocate to? Are you actually a niche sub-creator whose audience is not truly their own but tags along to some kind of other major centralized interest group? Are you posting exclusively for the benefit of assholes who get upset when you don't post about your sub-niche and instead do things that are meaningful to you? Do people care about you or do they care exclusively about your contribution to some monolithic thing you have no real agency over?
Are you an artist building a brand and producing a unique piece of art or are you part of the unpaid media wing of a multi billion dollar international brand? Are you super removed from your own posting? Is your page only a "Gallery page" where you present your hard sweat and tears to recreate characters from popular media? Is that exclusively what you are to your audience?
The websites we post on are ultimately filehosts for the things we are producing. You get to choose what table you're putting your stuff on. Folks that won't leave the neo nazi table probably aren't the ones driving your business. You do not have to care about them. Most importantly they are not your audience. They are twitter's audience. The people you should be focusing on are your creative peers and your vocal supporters.
I use this website because people like 2Mello are here. Cool creatives with vibes that I like, making things I think are cool. Folks doing things adjacent to what I'm doing. There's insight and expertise by the truckload just laying around and it's good for me. I'm here because I'm chasing content that is good and enriching. I'm not just sitting in a chair with my mouth open hoping an algorithm puts something tasty in there today. I have agency, I have value, and most importantly the folks who find value in what we do will find it wherever we post it.
Eventually the content scraping AI article hellsites will start stealing posts from here and repackaging them like they did with all the popular sites. There's gonna' be an article that says "THIS COHOST ARTIST HAS BEEN PLAYING TURN BASED PONG WITH REPOSTERS AND YOU AREN'T GONNA BELIEVE WHO'S WINNING!" and the kind of guy who wants to be first in line on the next hot thing will make an account, and they will find you.
tl;dr: If you want people to care about your work, make things worth caring about and they'll find it. You're not a victim, you're an artist, and this is the job.
