The Fire These Times

138/ We Need To Talk About Twitter w/ Musa Okwonga and Justin Salhani

2023-08-24

After some 12 years on the site, I've finally deleted my Twitter account. Its takeover by a profoundly narcissistic, mediocre and insecure bigot gave me that extra excuse I'd been looking for all these years. But why does any of that matter? After all, isn't it 'just a website'? Yes. And no. Whether you are an activist or a scholar or a journalist or a policy-maker, Twitter has had an undeniable influence over your life - even if you've never been on it. I was a very active user of that site. I gathered some 34,000 followers, had...

But why does any of that matter? After all, isn't it 'just a website'?

Yes. And no. Whether you are an activist or a scholar or a journalist or a policy-maker, Twitter has had an undeniable influence over your life - even if you've never been on it.

I was a very active user of that site. I gathered some 34,000 followers, had my tweets featured in mainstream media dozens of times, and made a lot of friends. Twitter is also how a lot of my work got published, and how so many people even heard about me in the first place. For that, I'll be forever grateful.

But still, I quit it, and I ain't going back. I've reached this conclusion after many years of deliberation. Weighing the pros (exposure, networking, connections etc) and cons (addiction, restlessness, a huge waste of time etc). I don't know whether this is the right decision for everyone (although at this rate the site might become irrelevant soon enough anyway) and in many ways this conversation isn't even about that.

I invited returning guests Musa Okwonga and Justin Salhani to talk about the impacts of social media on our world, with a focus on Twitter.

You can support The Fire These Times on ⁠⁠patreon.com/firethesetimes⁠⁠ with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more.

Mentions

Center for Countering Digital Hate: Twitter fails to act on 99% of Twitter Blue accounts tweeting hate
The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok by Cory Doctorow
Wilder Winds by Bel Olid
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula Le Guin
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

Contact

You can follow Joey on: ⁠Website⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Bluesky⁠ | ⁠Mastodon⁠, or reach out to him via email at ⁠contact@thefirethesetimes.com⁠

You can follow Musa on: ⁠Website⁠ | ⁠Bluesky⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠

You can follow Justin on: ⁠Website⁠ | ⁠Bluesky⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠

Episode Credits

Host: Joey Ayoub
Producer: Joey Ayoub
Music: Rap and Revenge
Main theme design: Wenyi Geng
Sound editor: Joey Ayoub
Episode design: Joey Ayoub