EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

pretty funny to think if he wasnt a billionaire with a pr team thats spent a decade plus boosting his brand hed just be some 47 follower reply guy instead of tanking $50b and his reputation buying twitter

as for whether hes changed twitter a lot im going to vote a definitive yes, for one hes instigated a year long mod war its become the talk about elon site, tons of good posters have left because of it, he made dril break character lol, this whole blue check situation which as mh mentioned has really gummed up the replies, various reliability issues, but id say most of all hes sent twitter into a death spiral, its over folks, and theres no change bigger than death

dril breaking character is actually weirdly super upsetting, it feels like a watershed

the jig is up

Whenever any lefty asks me why society ought to have billionaires, I say "Because otherwise they'd be warlords", and if recent events don't make this point abundantly clear I don't know what to tell you

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) April 23, 2023

As bad as Ezra and Matty are, it gets worse.

lol its true you go far enough down the centrist pundit hole and matty and ezra seem totally normal in comparison

i mean tbf ezra is normal mattys a freak tho

this whole blue check situation which as mh mentioned has really gummed up the replies, various reliability issues, but id say most of all hes sent twitter into a death spiral, its over folks, and theres no change bigger than death

So otm. Aside from all the Twitterati who have already jumped ship, why would any new (and sane) celebrity/influencer join Twitter when the main feedback they will actually see is blue check birdbrains harassing them for not coughing up $8/month and otherwise generally just being as toxic as possible?

I mean Twitter reply threads always sucked as a nobody, that’s the one massive advantage Reddit had (before it was captured by the alt right concern trolls).

With all this talk about cloning Twitter circa 2019, what about combining the best of Twitter and Reddit? Personality-based but with actual intelligent sorting of replies so that it can function as an advanced discussion forum as well.

Posting is over

ILX WILL NEVAH DIE

Nothing based on a less-than-24 hour life cycle like Reddit or Twitter can be useful for discussion. Niche forums just need to make a comeback (but you’ll never go viral on 2023 Something Awful and get $20 to advertise something your follow up posts).

Reddit used to have some pretty good discussions in the more heavily moderated subreddits. I agree it’s very difficult to scale though, I’m probably thinking of the time when the total activity there was at most 10% of what it is now.

no offense to any itt but reddit is the absolute pits the whole voting sorting format is just the deepest nerd hell

also not everything has to be a deep discussion twitter was never really about that it was about other things

most of all hes sent twitter into a death spiral, its over folks, and theres no change bigger than death

See, I guess this is where I disagree -- my expectation is that a year from now, two years from now, I'll still be using twitter about the same amount and with about the same experience as I do now, which is about the same as it was pre-Musk.

i suspect youre wrong but also a single user doesnt really tell the whole story

The biggest reason why eephus is unlikely to be using Twitter in exactly the same way two years from now isn't necessarily that the buggy software issues and chaotic new policies will impinge heavily on eephus's user-experience, but rather that the continuing exodus of advertisers who bankroll the system will lead to the complete failure to cover the interest payments on the multi-billion dollar loans used to take Twitter into private ownership.

theres that and also once an exodus of users starts its hard to stop

Well, we're still here?

I do hope Musk manages to kill Twitter because (a) it would be the funniest outcome and (b) I spend way too much time there.

no offense to any itt but reddit is the absolute pits the whole voting sorting format is just the deepest nerd hell

Lmao I don’t identify with Reddit in the slightest, no offense taken. Just idle speculation from a ‘reply guy’ about how text-based social media can survive in the era of TikTok. It’s true that downvotes are just horrible.

also not everything has to be a deep discussion twitter was never really about that it was about other things

It doesn’t have to be a deep discussion to be better than Twitter ffs. The benefit of Reddit is that you actually see replies to replies, so there’s some actual exchange of ideas.

(Not to harp on Reddit but it’s also much worse since they totally revamped the site maybe ~7 years ago. It made it more like Twitter/FB to zero actual benefit for the user.)

Exchange of ideas sucks ass

I prefer hoarding ideas

heh

McElwee told @bterris that he'd placed bets against JOHN FETTERMAN, whom he was working for, saying "I think he's fucked." McElwee showed Ben a spreadsheet of bets he'd made on the midterm --most AGAINST Dems. “I think I’m going to make a lot of money on election night,” he said

— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) April 26, 2023

this section is killing me

She had “drunk the Kool‐Aid” that Sean had offered, but part of being 25, she said, is “drinking lots of Kool‐Aid and figuring out what flavor you like.”

Now Marcela was 26. And she wasn’t sure if any amount of Kool‐Aid was healthy.

When I was 25, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for Kool-Aid men who broke through the walls.

lol

trying all kinds of kool-aid hmm what was the deal with the kool-aid originally idk

everyone yelling at me to not drink the koolaid whats their deal

its very funny how this guy who everyone on the left was deeply suspicious of turned out to be completely worthy of suspicious

ARE YOU KIDDING ME SEAN MCELWEE HAD A SECRET FAMILY https://t.co/MtrwxdbnFU pic.twitter.com/6TJDdsDZlH

— tom mckay (@thetomzone) April 26, 2023

lmao

this is worse than making bets pic.twitter.com/JMGC8likdP

— rain (actual speed) enjoyer (@notnotnuanced) April 26, 2023

oh, tweeting "abolish ice" all the time had nothing to do with ice. got it

amazing

“All of the Zoomers that work for me are bisexual, and all of them have long covid,” Sean McElwee said. “I’ll believe long covid is real when someone who is not bisexual has it.” https://t.co/cOufE8zD2M

— David A. Graham (@GrahamDavidA) April 26, 2023

The Crypto Council for Innovation

I'm gonna start some conspiracy theories about this org

that quote would be kind of funny if you had a veep-style show about these dorks

my one sean mcelwee story is i ended up at his media happy hour by accident once and he apparently recognized me as someone who made fun of him and kept pulling people away from me mid conversation, which is baffling on like ten different levels

— 30 minute review of amtrak as a rollercoaster (@Boringstein) April 26, 2023

don't give attention to the mean man he say bad things

getting strong vibes that this man had a lot invested in being a 30-ish knowledge master who staffed his office with impressionable youth and rubes, and wanted to make sure they only ever heard things about him from other swindlers and rubes

one of the biggest freaks out there for sure

“I’m like Radiohead for donors — you can’t really explain why I’m good but everyone knows that I’m good at it,” McElwee shouted over the din of bar talk

is the answer because rich people feel kinship with vacuous amoral weirdos

trying all kinds of kool-aid hmm what was the deal with the kool-aid originally idk

tbf it was framed

new one seems like it might be even worse than Crystal Skull

Indiana Jones and the Legend of the Substack Pivot

Temple of the Woke Agenda

"What I remember from my economics textbooks" is the most likely beginning of an answer from this crowd in historyhttps://t.co/1iZpAMF7D8 pic.twitter.com/kKDvmWXtKb

— David Dayen (@ddayen) May 6, 2023

To all the Russia stans who are like "Yes we are in Ukraine, because we spend a bunch of money trying to help them", by this standard we're also in your grandma

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) May 17, 2023

Lol

I feel myself negative polarizing against the rightwing dreck in the “for you” tab and wanting to do more progressive columns.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 9, 2023

THEY ARE FORCING ME LEFT

loooooool