Closing Pandora's Box

Reckoning with the swift decline of Twitter

I first signed up for Twitter in March of 2009. My tech-savvy friend and tourmate DJ Co-op encouraged me to start an account. Already fatigued after migrating from MySpace to Facebook in 2007, I asked him what was the point of this new website. Turns out it was essentially a micro-blogging application that mimicked Facebook status updates. You could text out a tweet via SMS and it would show up online for all to see. Everyone was tweeting about what they had for lunch, what they were listening to or making random observations. I wasn’t able to find my posts from that far back but here’s an example of an early tweet by me:

Cadence Weapon @cadenceweapon

saw a dude on the F train who looked just like canibus

In the years that went by, I became increasingly addicted to the dopamine rush provided by this app. I started using it as a news aggregator. Breaking news was reported on Twitter at a breakneck speed that made going on Facebook feel like waiting for the town crier to shout the day’s comings and goings. Twitter became the perfect place to discuss live events like award shows and sports matches as they happened. Black Twitter seemed to be where every meme on the internet originated. The app unexpectedly became a useful tool for revolutionary dissent and organizing protests. Things that happened on Twitter began to impact the real world.