I am not a social scientist, data analyst of any kind, established media-facing academic, or even a real web developer. On social media, I am nothing more than an early adopting End User, but I'm beginning to wonder if you should start listening to me, considering the results produced thus far by those mentioned in various efforts to understand why the Social Web became what it is today. If my overwhelming astrological bent toward precocity holds any meaning for you, all the better. Twitter's recent formalization of the requirements for verified accounts would certainly have been praiseworthy five or ten years ago, but isn't really much more than absurdly tardy documentation in 2021. If the full document is too verbose for you, the new in-app Verification request questionnaire (Settings → Account → Verification request) provides a systematic breakdown of your account's worth. In my case, it provided a thorough explanation of why @NeoYokel will never be verified in a definite sense I never knew I was seeking. Barring a future journalism job under a Big Boy masthead, I have been, am, and always will be nothing but a regular Twitter user. Nothing I could reasonably do within the service itself will ever change this. I have accepted this wholly, which has freed me from wasting time and intellectual energy indulging any other possibilities.
https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1378110306199642114
I would like to think my empathetic muscles have become significantly more supple, toned, and uniformly grown than they've ever been, as a direct result of my significant, intentional intoward efforts to exercise them in the past eighteen months, but of course, such suppositions must consider how conveniently in-control I would sound in that narrative, and the power of my innate, primal human obsession with convincing myself and others that literally everything I do is part of a grand plan... That I exist in a state of utter self-mastery to such a degree that my blatant mistakes could be interpreted as a problem solving methodology from the right social vector. I am so clever that even third-level conscious later-based decisions are part of a grand plan so certain I don't have to worry about it at all! You only happened to catch a screenshotted glimpse of the terrible, absolutely disgusting shit I blurted out at my ex in what looked like runaway spite because I'm writing about it. I was genuinely furious, yes, but ultimately 100% under control for the duration. It has absolutely nothing to do with a total inability to handle actual rejection... I just thought I'd nudge the yoke over a bit and explore existence as a overwhelmingly toxic, emotionally abusive young man... I needed that experience to truly empathize with the course, relentless virulence of the boilerplate working class white guy my core being is trained to despise. You know, I'm writing about this right now.
Fuck no, dude. My current understanding is virtually nothing I have ever made, learned, achieved, ruined, overlooked, or destroyed... None of it has ever been the result of any sort of actual premeditation. I am
Any loud-sounding departures from the white, subuirban, upper-middle-class subur
If you're struggling with anxiety about what you should Tweet and when, I'd suggest creating a throwaway account, setting its posts as private, and attempting to establish as pure a stream of consciousness as you can manage. Think of it as a prototype feed, if you'd like - a social space with absolutely zero consequences. If you find some relief in this practice, go back and reflect on what you have wrought privately and consider how you'd feel if it'd been posted to your main account, instead.
https://twitter.com/TheSmokingTire/status/1398287589493198848