Twitter and Rage Porn

For most of the industrial advertising complex, it was widely assumed and understood that sex sells. If you have a message you want to spread, the best way to do it was with sex.

But, social media changed that. Now, the best way to sell an idea is with rage.

Twitter was never perfect, but it’s worse than it’s ever been. Now since Trump has left the platform, Elon has reinstated rage back into the public discourse, except he calls it “free speech.”

The free speech argument always confused me, because never have I seen an argument that actually shows anyone’s first amendment rights being violated. Not one. There literally hasn’t been a single case of someone’s free speech rights being violated. So what is everyone talking about free speech for?

You can call it censorship, but you can’t call it a violation of free speech.

Social media platforms are private companies. I’m not saying that social media should censor people, but they have the right to. That’s the way it works. As such, if you want to change the rules, you have the right to start your own social media company.

Well, Elon put his money where his mouth is and he bought Twitter. I can’t knock him for it.

Sadly, regardless of Elon’s intentions, Twitter has become a shit show. As part of his free speech campaign, Elon has totally let the trolls and spam bots and visceral shit posting take over the platform. And not the funny shit posting that you share with your friends, but the endless bot driven shit posting that is only meant to make you angry.

Twitter has now become some weird, incessant hotbed of trolls, Russian spam bots, random anti American memes, and men that are so desperate to be masculine that they spend all their time overcompensating with anti pronoun and anti trans rhetoric.

Now, don’t let me oversimplify this. It’s very complicated, because there are many instances where I wish these difficult conversations were more readily in the public discourse.

For instance, why can’t we have a normal conversation about pronouns? Why can’t someone just say that some of the pronoun stuff is ridiculous while also saying that there are plenty of trans people who legitimately don’t feel right in the sexuality they were born with. Does anyone reading this actually think otherwise?

Or, why can’t we talk about how our government is getting too big and the giant blob of divided politics is seeping into our culture while also accepting that all things considered, America is kicking butt right now in relation to the rest of the world.

Is there actually anywhere else you would rather live? Seriously, does anyone who shit posts about America on Twitter actually have the guts to move somewhere else? I doubt it.

There’s no way to actually talk about these things on Twitter, because as soon as you do, you’re either stupid or a bigot or blind or a lib-tard or a racist.

No one is helping. No one, from either side of any argument, listens or participates in any sort of productive discourse at all. It’s an endless vomit spree of hate and confusion and nothingness.

The funny part is that when I travel, or go to conferences, or meet people in the park, all I feel is comradery and people having a great time. In my every day life, people seem to be getting along just fine.

I have friends with different beliefs, and not once has any of them called me stupid for believing that we should be supporting Ukraine or that vaccines are (clearly) a net positive for society. Some of my best business partners are people with almost exact opposite belief systems as me.

So what? What’s the big deal?

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of people are perfectly open to conversation, discourse, and respect.

So what happened to Twitter? All I know is that it’s not nearly as fun as it used to be. I think Twitter is doomed. Elon doesn’t pay his bills, advertisers are steering clear, and the blue check fiasco was a dud.

I hate to say it, but Twitter kind of sucks.