Something Is Missing from Bluesky: The Assholes

Bluesky might be nicer than Twitter, but that's the problem

Twitter is a beast like no other—the only place where you can hear “Bisexuality is the Israel of sexualities” and just kind of be like, “Okay, cool.” This craziness is the whole premise behind my free weekly roundup of Twitter drama, Many Such Takes. But Twitter is not without its faults—the bots, the groypers, the grifters, the disinformation, or the fact that the overall Twitter userbase is becoming more and more right-wing overall (I have some friendly mutuals with whom I disagree politically, but we’re getting to a point where 10% of my feed is just people accusing each other of being Jews. Speaking of which, I created a reply image for the next time someone asks me if I’m a Jew.)

For many people, the answer to Groyper Madness is Bluesky, a Twitter-adjacent app created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2019 but not widely adopted until several years later. Bluesky functions almost exactly like Twitter, but seems to attract a much more left-wing audience. It wasn’t necessarily built to be a safe haven for libs, but it has become one, in part because (at least so I hear) Bluesky doesn’t reward drama or rage bait. Speaking of which, find me there!

Bluesky has been around for years, but a mass exodus from Twitter (or so-called “X”) has driven wild growth for the app. Bluesky has doubled its entire userbase just in the last 90 days.

Although Bluesky is very similar to Twitter in theory, it’s presented as an alternative or replacement, not a complement. Many people are quitting Twitter and completely deactivating their accounts, while starting new accounts on Bluesky. I have to tell you, going from being a 36K follower Twitter account to a 2K follower Bluesky account is fairly humbling, even if 60% of my Twitter followers were pussy in bio bots (at least they weren’t lying about having pussy in bio.)

Because Bluesky doesn’t seem to reward controversy (at least not yet) it’s seen as a peaceful sanctuary for libs who want to escape the toxicity of Twitter.

And just to underscore my point, this is what my Bluesky feed looks like. Not an asshole in sight:

But that’s basically the problem with Bluesky. We weren’t on Twitter to feel peaceful and happy. We were on Twitter for the assholes.