But the truth is that for many people, the connections we make online are just as significant to us as the ones we make offline.

We have a hard time grappling with internet spaces as being “real.” We think of them as less important or significant than real life. Did we really think we weren’t gonna feel absolutely wrecked about the apparent abrupt destruction of a social media platform that has been a digital home to millions of people for more than a decade? We’re a species that forms unhealthy levels of emotional attachments to robots. Telling ourselves it’s dumb to feel bad about Twitter belies the human impulse to build bonds and connection - which Twitter users spent years doing. Yes, people loved to hate Twitter, and hated loving it, but the love was real, nonetheless. Right?Īlas, human nature doesn’t work that way. After all, Twitter is “just” a social media platform.

Throughout this slow, exhausting demise, one of the key sentiments Twitter users have grappled with is shame - the shame of being this impacted by the whole frustrating process. At Musk’s behest, on Sunday, the site renamed to perhaps what is the polar opposite of the distinctive, language-shifting platform name that was “Twitter.” In its place: the letter “X.”

All of this - both the cultural and the technical changes - have contributed to the ongoing feeling that something about the platform has fundamentally changed.Īnd now, finally, there is this: The end of Twitter itself, erased in the form of a rebrand. Then there have been the constant technical hiccups: the broken links, the rate limits, the end of its collaboration with third-party developers. Or the moment he broke the platform’s verification system and then rendered it ineffective by turning it into a monetized feature. Or the time Musk reinstated numerous high-profile banned users, including former president Donald Trump. Take the evening of November 17, when news reports swept across Twitter that Musk had fired so many employees that Twitter likely no longer had the people behind it to keep its most vital services running. Ever since the platform was purchased by Elon Musk in October 2022, its slow deterioration and slide into irrelevance has delivered a few standout moments along the way. It may be hard to comprehend, but Twitter has been in its death throes for a full nine months now.

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