Something something death of social media. I think an underestimated part of the internet collapse is what it will do for niches.
For instance, I'm big into PUBG and play in all the fantasy teams. The issue is, as cool as Cohost is, this place is way too insular for anyone to even know/care what that is. Outside of that bubble, there are millions of PUBG fans, but here? Zero. When I joined, I was literally the first person to use the PUBG tag. That's how empty this cup is for me here.
Twitter was like the general, global watering hole. No matter your interests, people congregated there with that interest. They're there for a multitude of interests. No need to join a questionable Discord and hope that this impenetrable walled garden doesn't have someone pop up with opinions that you can't get rid of. Twitter communities are kinda like how TikTok has "gametok" or "beantok," except not in a shitty, RNG video format that sometimes shows you a live execution. At least, until recently...
"Just wait for PUBG fans to join, dummy!" That will literally never happen. No one in PUBG eSports is looking to join a Tumblr-like platform. They want to shit out 240 characters and look at frag montages. It's a very meat and potatoes kinda crowd. Even so, in that ideal situation, the boon of Twitter is that PUBG pros are also directly in that ecosystem. Pros deadass don't even have the time to check a Cohost feed. They got scrims to play. There is simply no viable solution, outside of Twitter miraculously getting its shit together.
I already wrestle so, so much with being able to have a conversation with someone, so now that yet another place is imploding and people are scattering to the four winds, I lose one of the few things I had left. That's, you know, sizably depressing. It's hard to compartmentalize how to deal with this kind of isolation that's fully out of your hands. You just kinda gotta take it in the teeth and my teeth are already in bad shape. Is that a metaphor or not?
Anyway, the European lobby is playing now and, after that's over, the American continent will play their six games. PUBG season is back and it's a good time. They just merged public and competitive modes, so now pros have parachutes, P90s and mortars. It's pretty crazy.
