The Unexpected Consequences of "Quiet Quitting" Twitter
I thought limiting my Twitter access would be good for mental health--but there were some unexpected downsides.
After coming to terms with the fact that my Twitter addiction was bad for my mental health, I more or less “quiet quit” Twitter a few months ago. Initially, this meant a couple months of mostly only accessing Twitter on my laptop to post my articles, and then not really checking it otherwise.
But first off, why did I get so addicted in the first place?
I can thank Twitter (or as some might say, X, but I refuse to say that because it feels wrong) in large part for the success of this Substack. Many of my earliest successful posts were based entirely on Twitter discourse. Sometimes, this reliance on Twitter for topics was a detriment—at least once in every comments section, someone asks, “Is this a real thing that’s happening or just imaginary entities on Twitter?”
Anyway, I mostly found Twitter really fun! I have over 50,000 followers (TBD how many of them are real people) and reliably had a viral tweet every month, maybe even every week. I’m sure if I opened Twitter right now, something would make me laugh. And we used to have great apolitical Main Characters that were so fun to watch. Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Who could remember the day Trump got covid? The SLAP? The “fingering in the Turning Point USA conference lobby?” I could go on. Anyway…
When my Twitter account got hacked about a year ago (I wrote about that here) I considered getting off Twitter and gave the socially acceptable reason that I felt bad patronizing a website with Nazis on it, plus my customer service experience vis-a-vis my hacking was terrible, ameliorated only by the fact that I know someone who used to work there. But ultimately, as embarrassing as it is to say, the Nazis weren’t enough to get me off the site. First of all, they exist everywhere, but also, the worst people of Twitter kept me coming back, because for better or worse, the worst people of Twitter repeatedly say unintentionally hilarious things because they’re stupid.
For a while, my Twitter feed basically looked like this:
This is the way *photo of Rhodesia*
The flu is actually just low progesterone and you can cure it by guzzling bison testicles.
We found a pedophile online and stripped him naked in our bath tub full of nacho cheese 😂😂😂 watch here 😂😂😂
Anon, get a girl pregnant when you’re 19 and broke. Have 15 babies. Work four jobs and never see any of them. Die in a ditch somewhere. This is the way.
Elon Musk: me when the libtards are mad: 🤣🤣🤣
Seed oils are actually lindy. Your grandpa used seed oils. It’s not the seed oils making you fat and gay, it’s the Red 40. Stop chugging the GoyPigment
Pussy from an Asian girl in a Himmler costume > > > >
Tragically, this devoted and beloved father of three was inflated to death in the balloon factory. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE *video of a guy being inflated to death begins autoplaying*
And I…kept coming back for more. A lot more.
See, ultimately what I found so addicting about Twitter was not only the ridiculous content (which inspired jokes) but the fact that every time I logged in, no matter how little time had passed since my last login, I’d have 20+ notifications of people engaging with me. Keep in mind I did not enjoy all of these engagements. Some were nice, some were rude, and some were uncomfortably parasocial or just gave me the creeps. I didn’t know I could change my notification settings, so I was straight up rawdogging the most insane people on Twitter screaming at me (I guess on the bright side, I got so much of it that I couldn’t read every comment.)
I was, as a Twitter power user might say, swarmed with goymessages. And while I joke about Twitter being full of nasty haters, 95% of my interactions were positive, so it didn’t feel like that big of a problem. But of course, that 5% was interspersed with a few…not many, but enough…extremely rude goy-nasties. And while you might think such behavior would be enough to drive me from the site, I think the occasional rude comments—and the thrill of responding to them—are actually what felt so addicting about it.
