disclaimer: the following piece deals with the part of Twitter I have seemed to fall into, hereby termed MPOT (My Part of Twitter). If some of what you read does not make sense, don’t fret. I believe some of the dynamics explained apply to other parts of Twitter too. Still, given the broadness & multitude of Twitter parts, I do not expect this piece to resonate with everyone. But it’s describing a dynamic that has felt very salient, particularly recently. That said, what you need to bear in mind is that, ultimately, none of this makes sense.

Inflection Points

A characteristic of complex systems, be they ecosystems, social systems, etc., is that they are dynamic and continuously shifting. Seeing MPOT itself as a complex system with ever-emergent boundaries, it ought to be no surprise that changes in broader environmental inputs can have cascading impacts, leading to significant shifts in the overall behavior (aka vibe) of the system, triggering inflection points. After all, it’s definitely not the first time we’ve hit one — some will remember the First MPOT Civil War. Ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows.

Take a look around. Look away from the bigger accounts or the mainstays, and you’ll come across many people questioning what’s their purpose on the platform, why should they keep posting, what are they gaining out of it. 

Many are experimenting with long-form writing too, while minimizing their Twitter time. Others feel like they’ve achieved their goals and have little interest in using Twitter as a means of achieving more. Others choose to Exit outright.

From illegibility to shitposting

Some of the changes are part of the natural trajectory of a social system, it’s part of the process. Different times give birth to different accounts. After all, MPOT is a breathing, living thing. Even before the term was coined, precursors to it were around.

Across pre-MPOT and MPOT, earnestness and illegibility have always engaged in a tug-of-war. Illegibility has its place, sometimes obfuscating your message is necessary when you risk having your takes exposed to unfriendly actors & uncharitable interpretations.

Suppose we define clarity as the signal-to-noise ratio of a message and directness as the number of steps necessary to decode its signal, then illegibility does pretty well on clarity while limiting its directness.

Now, what we’ve been seeing the last couple of years, has been a gradual replacement of illegibility with shitposting.

Shitposting, broadly, and in other corners of the internet, may take the form of bait & low-effort posts, however, it has a slightly different connotation on MPOT. Shitposting can mean being experimental, saying stuff you're not sure you believe, testing & trying things out, saying things merely to see how they sound. And sufficiently advanced shitposting is indistinguishable from domain expertise.

This is great in principle — a sort of sensemaking freedom — but it also means it has plenty of attack surface for exploitation/being Goodharted — and the Twitter algo incentivizes this.

When Goodharted, shitposting often lacks the clarity that illegibleposting might have had. It asks for engagement first, is often coupled with irony & sarcasm (Sasha discusses this briefly here), and only concerns itself with its signal-to-noise ratio second. It will taste good but it will ultimately be nutritionally deficient.

For the record, I think the Elon acquisition and his subsequent hyper-shitposting have had acceleratory effects, but that was ultimately just a response to wider trends. Shitposting had been on the rise for a while, and this was the final push that led to the inflection point.

Shitposting Takeover

What led to the Shitposting Takeover? There are a few explanations and driving forces. One is that many new people joined or became active during the pandemic and have been attempting to grow their presence; easiest way to do this is via shitposting/edgier stuff that drive engagement — it does not pay to be nuanced. 

Additionally, as boundaries around a community begin to form and be identifiable, the incentive to fit in spins up. So people mimetically optimize for the behavior that rewards the most. One shitposts, another sees that said shitpost invites engagement, a third adopts shitposting to invite engagement too. The population of shitposters grows.

Of course, as communities grow & become crystalized, subgroups are formed as well. Previously high-signal, public interactions move to DMs & groupchats. Once one finds their “people”, public engagement is increasingly seen as a funnel to the private. What’s left is low-signal public discussions.

Current Thing & Current Accounts

This boundary formation also seems to lead to another dynamic, a more pronounced obsession with the Current Thing. Big accounts bring up topical discussions with lowbies trying to fit in (top-down discourse) while other times, lowbies attempt to discuss Things that may appeal to big accounts (bottom-up discourse) so a Current Thing feedback loop keeps being generated.

Funnily enough, the Current Thing dynamic seems to also apply to accounts. Accounts that manage to capture sufficient levels of attention from the group, mimetically invite more of the group to engage with them; Current Accounts get born (sorry, economists & accountants). It’s pretty comical that there’s a significant overlap between people that cultivate an independent thinker persona, with those that end up pandering to Current Accounts.

This in turn leads to increased occurrences of people dunking on and/or attempting to ratio each other.

Needless to discuss the problems with creating environments where perceivedly unorthodox takes from outsiders are met with ridicule and disdain.

“But I am not seeing that many reactions from people”

Why that is, becomes rather self-evident, given the aforementioned dynamics. There is little incentive for the dissatisfied to voice their dissatisfaction and/or issues. But the fact that Voice is not the preferred option — at least publicly — does not mean that there are no parts of MPOT that are dissatisfied. 

Trust me (or don’t) but very different discussions happen on alts & in DMs.

Shitposting hangover & where do we go from here?

Elon brought shitposting to its heyday, people got tired, exhausted, and now (some of them) are looking for something else. And while, yes, shitposting is fun & a good way to experiment with ideas, goodharted & incessant shitposting might have just been a zero-interest rate phenomenon.

I truly believe (and hope) that we can do better. The platonic ideal of MPOT is of a corner of Friendly Ambitious Nerds, a sandbox of ideas, where one can earnestly discuss their dreams, ambitions, and passions; share and get help with their troubles; genuinely experiment with ideas and half-formed thoughts; and make friends along the way, while avoiding Becoming a Type of Guy

How can we get there? Broadly, we need to develop a better awareness of how bad incentives affect our thought & expression patterns and simultaneously develop better ways to resist them & play games the way we want to play them. We ought to start curating our timelines more — unfollowing, muting, or blocking is not A Cruel Thing To Do — and focusing on what we want to see more of.

And remember — choosing Voice over abrupt disengagement (Exit), helps foster deeper connections between one another and strengthens the bonds that hold us together. It allows us to sustain our communities and, ultimately, contribute to the development of a more robust and resilient social fabric. And that’s what we want, right?

Big thanks to Rob Hardy for helping me actually start putting words on paper, my Foster S2 friends, and Depatterning, Taylor Pullinger, Laura London, Navigating the crises , @imperialauditor, and @MamanLunettes for their feedback and encouragement.

P.S. This piece could have been better, but better published than endlessly revised, amirite