At this point, I find the constant stream of people complaining about Twitter and posting long-winded goodbye speeches much more annoying than the supposed changes of the service under Musk.
Those people are expressing grief. Twitter was one thing, and has changed into a substantially different thing. Something that has been a meaningful part of their lives for, in many cases, well over a decade.
If you care about those people, compassion might be helpful, no matter how you feel about the actual changes. If you don't care about them - which is perfectly valid, we can't care about the entire Internet - I suggest just not engaging on those posts. It's kinder to them and you.
Perhaps it's profoundly unhealthy that Twitter changing its TOS or Musk unbanning some people and banning others causes you to grieve.
I'm not saying the correct response is "LOL STFU" (it's not), but I also don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with saying someone is treating something as more than it actually is.
If we untie this from Musk for a moment: Twitter's user composition has changed tremendously over the last 12 months, whatever the reasons. That means for a lot of people, folks that they'd gotten to know quite closely suddenly aren't there any more.
It's not grief as the same level as "my close relative died", but it's grief on the level of "All my friends left and moved elsewhere". That's still a major upset, and people need to process. And the technical term for that processing is "grieve". That is entirely independent of your opinions on how to treat it, it's a feeling folks experience.
And, given those are folks who like leaving a somewhat public life, they process in public. If those emotions don't resonate with you, it's probably a good idea to just move on and let others feel what they need to feel.
> Perhaps it's profoundly unhealthy that Twitter changing its TOS or Musk unbanning some people and banning others causes you to grieve.
Why? People grieve all sorts of things—a community which was built up over a decade and is now falling apart seems a perfectly reasonable thing to grieve. What about that do you feel is profoundly unhealthy?
What's falling apart though? Is it really falling apart? Like I said, my feed is identical. I think if you dig into this you'll find it's a completely self-made issue. People leave because they think there's going to be massive changes or they try to prove some political point. Then other people are mad because some people left and start talking about how Twitter is completely changed when it hasn't.
I believe you, but my feed definitely isn't. Lots of the commercial feeds are still there, but most of my friends have moved on—not all to the same place—and the more interesting feeds I follow tend to post someplace else first, and then crosspost to Twitter.
> start talking about how Twitter is completely changed when it hasn't
I agree with you, it's clear that they're talking about something that's coming from a place of rather ordinary human empathy, as opposed to unhealthy fixation.
I think it relates to the fact that very few of these changes affect users directly, especially if you make it a point not to follow political hacks on either side of the aisle. My timeline has never had politicians or celebrities in it, I follow well over a thousand active accounts, and my feed is indistinguishable from what it was half a decade ago.
I’m baffled by this; how are you using Twitter? As far as I can see, the replies under _practically everything_ are full of spam from idiot blueticks; this seems like a pretty dramatic change.
I think it depends on what accounts you read: If I only look at replies to accounts that I followed prior to Musk's takeover, then not much has changed. But that is likely because I only followed niche accounts. The moment I look at more popular accounts (news or what have you), then I see an overweight of blue-tick accounts that rarely have anything worthwhile to contribute
Prior to the ascension of Naughty Old Mr Car, bluetick replies weren't promoted to the front. (There were also fewer blueticks, and most though not all were less attention-seeking than the current crop).
My personal favorite trope as of late is announcing you're leaving for BlueSky, because Twitter is reputedly inhospitable.
Then returning 5 days later as if nothing happened, Costanza-style, because your narcissism can't cope with a mere 14 followers to look at pictures you posted of your breakfast.
Yep, Twitter is not an airport, you do not need to announce your departure, just leave... Most people will likely not even notice, and I think that is real reason they post these things, main character syndrome, they need people the notice they are leaving, if no one notices then their self worth declines.
