Twitter, once adored by writers, comedians, and businesses, became flooded with politics and its fate is in limbo, according to some. Politics ruin the fun of everything.
At the time of creating this article, there’s an uproar on Twitter that it is in the process, as we type, of selling out for money. Twitter users are losing their minds. Some angry, some neutral ‘let’s see what happens with it’, some happy. A lot of the opinions have to do with politics. Some users are saying it’s the ‘end of Twitter as we know it’. Twitter, which took off in 2006, has been a staple and go-to social outlet in some (eh-hem) lives. Where will the tweet-ers all go? Can Paula Cole answer this?
While doom scrolling in bed, we pondered this. Off the top of our Big head, the closest outlets that came to mind are Reddit or Tumblr. But wait…there are so many up and coming or new and hoping to be happening, social media sites out there. Thus, leading to our search for new avenues to discover social online text gatherings, but we found a lot more along the way.
Opinions vary, but some claim AOL Instant Messenger and bulletin boards were the first form of social media, while there’s mention of something called SixDegrees. I remember ‘six degrees of separation’ being a thing in conversations at one point, but it seems that that was right before MySpace, if memory serves me right. Oh, the MySpace days were filled with boozy nights. Wasn’t it cool how you could have a theme song on your home page?
Getting my head back in the present moment, I just checked and SixDegrees.com still exists today. An odd looking interface compared to the others, but it’s there. Hootsuite also claims six degrees to be the first social platform, in their blog on the history of social media, and we trust Hootsuite. Check out their History of Social Media blog although it’s from 2018.
A site called Are You Hot or Not in 2000, sounds like a plummet of self esteem or skyrocketing of egos. And if you had photoshop back then… Rumor has it that Facebook and YouTube stemmed from this idea, and if you think about it, it still is the idea behind influencers and many agendas on social media today. That being said, there is a lot of raw talent to be found, as well. Don’t forget Friendster and High-5 that were surpassed by Facebook.
Let’s stop dwelling over what’s history and think about the present. What are our other social media options? According to Wordstream, the top social media networks in the world are Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, youTube, Snapchat, and TikTok. I still don’t see the fun in WhatsApp. Hootsuite, the king of social information in our opinions, lists the most common channels in the United States to be YouTube, Facebook, IG, Pinterest, LinkedIn (Big Role has banned LinkedIn), Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok, Reddit and…Nextdoor(?).
Let’s look at some lesser known apps. Clubhouse, Discord, and Twitch are growing more today. Twitch was primarily for gamers, but since the pandemic, has made room for comedy shows, cooking shows, and more. It’s like a mini-YouTube. Yubo, Triller, and Telegram have grown since the pandemic, as well. Triller sounds like someone wearing a retainer trying to say Twitter. Polywork is an up and coming LinkedIn alternative, which we’re excited about. It’s still Invite-only, but looking like it will takeover, as many complain that LinkedIn has become more of a Facebook and not as professional these days.
Okay, to let off some steam…Big Role does not and never will use LinkedIn again. The amount of disability porn on that site is disgusting, and the LI moderators will tell you that they don’t see how it’s offensive. For the readers who aren’t familiar, the term disability porn is any picture, video, or someone promoting or saying in person, what an inspiration it is that this person who has a disability is doing basically anything. On LI, loads of users will post such video or pic to receive loads of likes and applause to say what a great, caring guy he is to post this, and the comments – oh, the comments.
Happy thoughts. If you want to fall down a rabbithole, check out this list on Wikipedia with all existing social networking services today. Holy Moly. We double-dog dare you to make an account on each one of them.
Twitter gave us the hashtag. Twitter gave us some great moments. Twitter gave us a place to unload, applaud, and for some, destroy others. Twitter has the Mute feature, where you can mute specific words to never show in your feed. This is one of the greatest things about it. Even if it’s something as mundane as ‘Coachella’. I have had many less irritable moments with that word muted. I almost forgot it exists.
For the moment, we’re keeping our Twitter. If you have a favorite social outlet or know of one that we left out, drop it in the comments. Also, if you’re a person with a disability who loves LinkedIn, please drop your defense in the comments. It might not lead us back there, but it’s great to hear another side of it.
#UntilTomorrow
