the secret isn't that twitter 'isn't real', it's that everything on the internet is extremely real but luck of the draw is a truly, deeply random thing. No one could have ever predicted I'd break into the game industry by tweeting fanart at a twitter account, or that I'd get jobs by posting on the right PHBB forum, or attending the right party
you can try to strategize around that, but you're never guaranteed anything, not the way you are when you simply have friends among the rich and powerful. I think it's true that twitter has a vastly inflated sense of self-importance. But also, something can be often unimportant and be real. Sometimes importance comes from the most unexpected places.
Sometimes you meet a game industry luminary in an innocuous IRC for a webcomic in the early 00s and have no idea who she is and end up innocently asking her only the rudest questions and she very, very patiently walks you through the process of gender transition in a time when most people would never dare admit to being trans.
That, too is real. It's the realest.
There's no place that isn't.
