The original article is old, and also a bit cringey in trying to be hip and sardonic. And obviously it's an argument and opinion not meant to be taken scientifi

The original article is old, and also a bit cringey in trying to be hip and sardonic. And obviously it's an argument and opinion not meant to be taken scientifically. No scientist would voluntarily include a K-index (ratio of citations vs. twitter followers) on their twitter profile unless they felt they deserved larger recognition. That said, there's this growing clique of scientists on twitter and as the clique grows in spread and weight, it's becoming harder for new scientists to jump in. What used to be a safe place to air laundry and commiserate about academia is now kind of like regulated hivemind where you can only air 'certain' topics that the twitter cabal approves. I've heard this from more and more scientists approaching social media/openness/the internet, that twitter is not as flat as it's been portrayed to be. I think this stems from the main conflict of popularity vs. legitimacy, and in science buzz it's so easy to game the system once you have the minimum amount of recognition. All of this points to the conclusion that twitter is not a natural home for scientists, but rather scientists have adapted their behavior to twitter and shrewd ones have capitalized. Some of it's good, some of it's not good, and in that regard I agree with the author.