Tonight, I’ve been trying to rebuild the news consumption engine that Twitter used to be for me. A few weeks ago, I created an account on Post. Mainly, it was to make sure I could squat on my username. At the time, usernames had to be four characters long. So, instead of @F6x like my Twitter handle, I leaned into the Post. branding with @F6x. on Post.
Ages ago when I joined Twitter, it was the Wild West. I didn’t know who to follow, outside of a few friends who had introduced me to the service in the first place. Thankfully, I have some pretty smart friends. And they have smart friends. And by just looking through who they were following, I found a core group of people and accounts who made my Twitter experience immediately valuable. Getting value out of those first few days, as I’ve mentioned before, is a fundamental reason I came back day after day. And now, I’m having to start that process all over again.
I took a few moments this evening to look through the accounts some people I trust are following. It’s a very manual process, and I tend to gravitate toward journalists and news organizations, but I think I’m getting somewhere. The tediousness, however, reminds me of writing about finding quality Twitter accounts to follow all those years ago. At this point, I’ve resigned myself to trying to get my news fix from Post., but trying to find community elsewhere. Conflating the two may be a mistake, anyway. I’m pretty sure all the context shifting was bad for my brain. But even as I try to rebuild my own personal news service, I’m finding I miss a handful of features I helped build at Twitter, specifically Bookmarks and Lists. But for now, I’ll take what I can get.
I know I’m a long way from being able to trust another platform with most of my information diet. And a great deal of my identity. But I think the harsh reality of having so much emotional investment in a company has been a hard lesson that I should have learned a while ago. Nevertheless, I’ll keep trying to scratch my news and information itch with a combination of podcasts and Posts. Maybe I’ll even start keeping a wish list of how we can all help make news consumption sustainable and edifying for both those creating it and those consuming it.
Burden in My Hand
05 December 2022
Forcing follow functions.
Tonight, I’ve been trying to rebuild the news consumption engine that Twitter used to be for me. A few weeks ago, I created an account on Post. Mainly, it was to make sure I could squat on my username. At the time, usernames had to be four characters long. So, instead of @F6x like my Twitter handle, I leaned into the Post. branding with @F6x. on Post.
Ages ago when I joined Twitter, it was the Wild West. I didn’t know who to follow, outside of a few friends who had introduced me to the service in the first place. Thankfully, I have some pretty smart friends. And they have smart friends. And by just looking through who they were following, I found a core group of people and accounts who made my Twitter experience immediately valuable. Getting value out of those first few days, as I’ve mentioned before, is a fundamental reason I came back day after day. And now, I’m having to start that process all over again.
I took a few moments this evening to look through the accounts some people I trust are following. It’s a very manual process, and I tend to gravitate toward journalists and news organizations, but I think I’m getting somewhere. The tediousness, however, reminds me of writing about finding quality Twitter accounts to follow all those years ago. At this point, I’ve resigned myself to trying to get my news fix from Post., but trying to find community elsewhere. Conflating the two may be a mistake, anyway. I’m pretty sure all the context shifting was bad for my brain. But even as I try to rebuild my own personal news service, I’m finding I miss a handful of features I helped build at Twitter, specifically Bookmarks and Lists. But for now, I’ll take what I can get.
I know I’m a long way from being able to trust another platform with most of my information diet. And a great deal of my identity. But I think the harsh reality of having so much emotional investment in a company has been a hard lesson that I should have learned a while ago. Nevertheless, I’ll keep trying to scratch my news and information itch with a combination of podcasts and Posts. Maybe I’ll even start keeping a wish list of how we can all help make news consumption sustainable and edifying for both those creating it and those consuming it.
See you tomorrow?