If you are one of the artists still on Twitter, talking about how you want people to stick with you there because its possible collapse will harm your business, I have two unsolicited and mostly unqualified thoughts on the matter:

1. Have some goddamn self-respect. It is absolutely pathetic seeing talented people moan about the exposure they will lose from a website that runs on contempt for human beings. You may love Twitter but it never loved you. Yes, you deserve a living. Yes, you work hard. Yes, it’s a good way to reach an audience. Yes, it’s simpler than spreading yourself across several platforms.

It is also a website that, by its design, hides your links to other websites, amplifies messages based purely on their ability to key people up emotionally, profits from the spread of disinformation, and has abandoned what little shred of a commitment it ever had to not actively making the world a worse place it. It is a machine for showing people ads, and it regards you as a necessary evil to that end. If it could replace you with a bot that automatically generates visual patterns that make people go “ooooooh” and click on ads, it would, and maybe someday it will. Get a grip.

2. You are the value add. Does being called a value add make you feel gross? It should, because you’re a human being. But that’s not how Twitter sees you. Your art attracts the eyes that Twitter wants to show ads. People are still on the website because you are still on the website. The sooner people can enjoy your excellent work somewhere, anywhere else – perhaps somewhere that has even a faint echo of basic respect for its users, democracy, and/or the planet – the sooner they, too, can joyfully follow you the fuck off that website that, in case it wasn’t clear, hates you.

I am not interested in having a conversation about the above. I am not interested in holding space for a conversation about the above. I will delete all comments attempting to start a conversation about the above.

However, if you are an artist, and you have recently left Twitter or are thinking of leaving it, I invite you to use my modest comment section to plug your socials (as long as it’s not Twitter). If you’re on Tumblr or cohost, I’ll gladly give you a follow.