The Social Media Age Is Over

Welcome to the Corporate Media Age.

In the unlikely event that Twitter survives Elon Musk’s leadership, it’ll be a pretty different place. As I write this, everyone is posting with the energy of a group waiting to hear the outcome of a friend’s highly experimental and potentially dangerous brain surgery. There’s no telling if our friend’s gonna pull through, and what exactly he’s going to be like if he does.

I for one hope Twitter survives. For one thing, on a purely practical level, it’s where I get most of my work. Like a lot of people in the digital media space, Twitter serves as a sort of LinkedIn. But more importantly, I’ve made a lot of friends on Twitter. I’ve learned a lot. It’s challenged my priors. It makes me laugh almost every day. It wasn’t a hell site. It was a hell home.

That said, it seemed like the sun was already kind of setting anyway, and maybe a quick death is preferable to a long one. Social media is over and if we take a step back and look, we can see it’s been over for a while.