Post-Tweet
I’ve been off Twitter for three weeks today.
Being off Twitter is like any diet or exercise that has a name brand: you didn’t do it unless you talk about it. But I promise that this post won’t be like that one time I stood in a wedding buffet line with a guy who was on Whole30. I’m just trying to evaluate how my life is different without that sky blue bird.
Let me count the ways:
First, there’s so much less garbage in my life. It’s like I used to live next to this giant garbage dump. Every day I would wake up and the first scents wafting across my nose would be garbage. And the garbage was also a racist who had like assaulted a bunch of women and put actual children in actual cages and couldn’t spell anything. And even if I could go nose-blind to that scent, all the people in my neighborhood (whom I really liked) were always talking about the garbage dump. All of us, just pouring our energy into discussing this garbage dump. And you can’t not talk about the garbage dump! It’s irresponsible to ignore the garbage dump! But you can’t do anything about the garbage dump. Even the head of your HOA isn’t starting the proceedings to get rid of the garbage dump… okay, this metaphor is falling apart.
Three weeks ago, by getting off Twitter, I feel like I moved one neighborhood away from the garbage dump. I can still see it. I still smell the general stench, and I’m still recycling as much as I can to get rid of it. But the unique flavors of garbage stench no longer follow me around. They are no longer my first thought each morning. If there’s a really big new smell, I get to it after my first cup of coffee. But I get to what I can deal with, garbage-dump-wise. I learn the important stuff. And I fight in the ways I can, in the ways I know how and in the ways my friends can teach me. It is… so much better than how I was living.
Second, I enjoy movies more now! Listen, you know me. I’ve seen four new movies in theaters since I got off Twitter (and I’ve seen one of those twice). And I’m not a substantially different person than I was four weeks ago. I still like just about everything. I really don’t need much from my media. But even in these three weeks, the way I watch movies is different. I’m extremely guilty of spending my time in a movie trying to compose my take on it. What’s the cleverest thing I can possibly say coming out of this movie? (Just ask kind and dear Alyssa, who always has to be my test audience for that thought as soon as the first credit pops up.)
Without Twitter in my life, there is nowhere for me to put that thought. Therefore, I do not spend time in the movie trying to compose that thought. I just watch the movie, anticipating and laughing and crying (in four of the five showings I’ve been to, and three of those were serious waterworks, and two of those were in the same movie). I do not need to feed the Hot Take Machine before I’ve exited the parking garage. It would be so cliche and annoying to say that being off Twitter is forcing me to live in the moment… but it’s mostly true!
I just got out of Toy Story 4, which was the aforementioned third waterworks movie (seriously, I was crying within four minutes of the Pixar lamp). Now, did I text Mike afterwards to share what would have been my exit tweet? Yes I did. Was that tweet “Bo Peep thicc”? Yes it was. But I also stayed until the very end of the credits. Like, the very very end, all by myself. I stood with my arm on the exit rail to listen to the score that sounds like an old friend, and I thought about all the Toy Stories I’d seen. I thought about going to college at the same time Andy did. I thought about growing out of some old friendships and back into some others. I thought about whether I’m enough like Woody in the good ways and about whether I’m too much like him in the bad ways and about the Bo Peep doll I had as a kid that I finally don’t feel guilty for losing track of and about how lucky I am that the massive fear of abandonment I shared with Jessie in 1999 only took 20 grueling years to whittle into a whisper. These are Big Things, Personal Things, Scary Things that don’t fit into 140 characters, or 280. They don’t even fit into this blog post! But they fit perfectly into Randy Newman’s score, and as a result, they mostly fit into my head. What a pleasure it is to not feel the urge to condense all of that into a tweet.
Third, I am so rich in friendships! When I got off Twitter, I issued a general request for friends to send me tweets that they felt I’d need via text. And oh did they deliver. Vanessa and Zach keep me posted on movie news (Black Lady Bond!!!!). Mike aggregates Weird Twitter just for me. My siblings give me only the most hilarious of political tweets. Alyssa sends me the Nicole Cliffe threads I need the most. David hooks me up with the goofiest content. Libby delivers unto me essential Moses memes. Katya hits me up with all things Fleabag. If I want to join the discourse about a show (Fleabag and Stranger Things and Fleabag), I listen to a podcast where I trust the voices. If I want to talk about a current event, I talk to my friends about it. Imagine that!! I have the smartest, funniest, most caring crowd of people around me to keep me posted on the world, and they don’t exactly make me want to go running back to that grumpy crowd of strangers on the internet.
Fourth, for transparency’s sake, I am bad at hanging out with my friends! I’m sure you know that I’m an extrovert, but I am also an extreme homebody. I would rather be at home on the couch than just about anywhere else. Going out (at night?!?) has basically no appeal to me, and I am only ever coaxed into the wide world during the evening by that boyfriend I adore or, more often, by a deep and abiding sense of FOMO. When I am at home, on said couch, I open Twitter and feel surrounded by people. Sometimes that’s good! On Twitter, I have found some incredible depth in friendships that were previously tangential, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. But Twitter feeds my interaction engine without actually giving me interaction, which has often left me sputtering into a feeling that was unidentifiable as loneliness. But that’s what it was! Now that I’m off Twitter, I have become much more aware of how terrible I am at initiating hangouts. A lot of times, I can get away with that thanks to a cornucopia of proactive pals. But without Twitter, the Me Time is much louder than it used to be. If I’m not using it well, I feel that! Unnumbed by the clatter of Twitter, I can hear my own shortcomings all the more clearly. Will I improve? Maybe! But I will definitely be trying.
Fifth, I wanted to write again. And look what I just did!
Those are the ways that my life has changed the most since I got off Twitter. I thought maybe I’d read more books, or that my attention span would improve, or that I’d learn how to speak Mandarin. None of those things happened. But it has been a really, really nice three weeks anyway.
Maybe I’ll get back on Twitter in August and revert to all of my old ways. Maybe I’ll get back on in August and keep these lessons close to my heart. Maybe I won’t get back on in August! But I’m glad I did this thing that I wanted to do, and it has been surprisingly easy to stick to. Life is nice. So put that in your 280-character pipe and smoke it!