4 ms·

> a zillion people may see it as opposed to your mom and best friend who read it on your blog If you write solely for vanity than this is great, a zillion is

> a zillion people may see it as opposed to your mom and best friend who read it on your blog If you write solely for vanity than this is great, a zillion is better than 10 so you can feel important. The problem is that Twitter threads are incredibly ephemeral and also written, inherent to the nature of the platform, to be more engaging than informing. I would rather a few hundred people, or even a few dozen, carefully read and consider what I've written rather than a "zillion" mindlessly click on some basically contently stream of "sounds good" blips. Of course I've basically left twitter because the ego boost from engagement was not sufficiently worth the pressure the platform puts on your writing to eventually become pure engagement obsessed drivel, devolving ultimately into the infamous "shit post". I've had plenty of people I really respect I've met on Twitter and they go only one of two paths in the long run: increasingly writing meaningless content for the ego-driven thrill of likes until they become an intellectual parody of themselves or they leave Twitter baring occasional updates.

afavour 4y ago
I think you’re presenting absolutes where there aren’t any here. People read deeply on Twitter sometimes too. Let’s say there’s a 100% chance of a blog reader deeply considering what you’re saying but only a 10% chance of the same happening on Twitter. If your tweets get 10.1x traffic your blog does then Twitter is still a better platform for broadcasting your thoughts.
- time_to_smile 4y ago
  I think you missed the point where the media itself does shape the way you write. There is no Twitter equivalent to a post or essay you've spent multiple days writing, tweaking, reworking and then finally publishing. I've never started a single essay with "a thread 1/?". Twitter abhors subtly and nuance. I have nearly 10k followers, the highest upvoted tweets I've made are always the most polemical, flippant statements I make. Anything nuanced or remotely complex is ignored. Any statement that makes people a little uncomfortable or is off brand will lose followers. Twitter encourages bad writing and bad thinking. And people don't read tweets as deeply as other content. It is extremely rare to see engagement on a tweet that is more than a few days old, yet blog posts I've written years ago get frequent revisits and rereads. I've had classes and organizations make my posts required reading, I've never heard of that happening with a twitter thread.
BitwiseFool 4y ago
>"If you write solely for vanity than this is great, a zillion is better than 10 so you can feel important." I write because I want to share my thoughts. Sometimes I want to persuade people, and sometimes I just want to share interesting tidbits. I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people. It seems like the optimal solution is to write twitter threads but also link to one's own blog.
- karaterobot 4y ago
  > I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people. I don't think this is self-evident at all. For one thing, it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it. For another thing, the medium really is the message, and Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content. Linking to one's own blog is something, but it doesn't get around those problems, or hasn't seemed to in my experience. This is my own opinion, and nothing more than that. It's why I'm not on Twitter. If you see it differently, it makes sense that you are.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    >"it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it." I don't disagree with your observation that the quality of who receives your ideas and how they engage with it is critical for ideas to spread. I would add on to this by asserting that having more people exposed to the content itself makes encountering such valuable reads much more likely and frequent. >"Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content" Agreed, but up to a certain point. I contend that is a valuable place to introduce people to, or otherwise lead them to, a more appropriate venue for long form content. For example, I learned about the work of Lyn Alden through a Twitter thread someone linked, and now I follow her on her website. I am fairly confident that if someone had just linked me one of her long form essays, I would not have been intrigued enough to explore her work. I also believe that the internet has ruined our attention spans and Twitter threads can act as a hook because each tweet is much more digestible than trying to dive into an essay right away. The medium is the message, but set and setting matters as well.

afavour 4y ago

I think you’re presenting absolutes where there aren’t any here. People read deeply on Twitter sometimes too. Let’s say there’s a 100% chance of a blog reader deeply considering what you’re saying but only a 10% chance of the same happening on Twitter. If your tweets get 10.1x traffic your blog does then Twitter is still a better platform for broadcasting your thoughts.

time_to_smile 4y ago
I think you missed the point where the media itself does shape the way you write. There is no Twitter equivalent to a post or essay you've spent multiple days writing, tweaking, reworking and then finally publishing. I've never started a single essay with "a thread 1/?". Twitter abhors subtly and nuance. I have nearly 10k followers, the highest upvoted tweets I've made are always the most polemical, flippant statements I make. Anything nuanced or remotely complex is ignored. Any statement that makes people a little uncomfortable or is off brand will lose followers. Twitter encourages bad writing and bad thinking. And people don't read tweets as deeply as other content. It is extremely rare to see engagement on a tweet that is more than a few days old, yet blog posts I've written years ago get frequent revisits and rereads. I've had classes and organizations make my posts required reading, I've never heard of that happening with a twitter thread.

BitwiseFool 4y ago

>"If you write solely for vanity than this is great, a zillion is better than 10 so you can feel important." I write because I want to share my thoughts. Sometimes I want to persuade people, and sometimes I just want to share interesting tidbits. I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people. It seems like the optimal solution is to write twitter threads but also link to one's own blog.

karaterobot 4y ago
> I think it is self evident that people who want to share their ideas publicly would rather have their work seen by more people than fewer people. I don't think this is self-evident at all. For one thing, it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it. For another thing, the medium really is the message, and Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content. Linking to one's own blog is something, but it doesn't get around those problems, or hasn't seemed to in my experience. This is my own opinion, and nothing more than that. It's why I'm not on Twitter. If you see it differently, it makes sense that you are.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  >"it's not the amount of people who see something that's important for spreading ideas, it's who they are and how much they engage with it." I don't disagree with your observation that the quality of who receives your ideas and how they engage with it is critical for ideas to spread. I would add on to this by asserting that having more people exposed to the content itself makes encountering such valuable reads much more likely and frequent. >"Twitter is a truly terrible place to present meaningful, long form content" Agreed, but up to a certain point. I contend that is a valuable place to introduce people to, or otherwise lead them to, a more appropriate venue for long form content. For example, I learned about the work of Lyn Alden through a Twitter thread someone linked, and now I follow her on her website. I am fairly confident that if someone had just linked me one of her long form essays, I would not have been intrigued enough to explore her work. I also believe that the internet has ruined our attention spans and Twitter threads can act as a hook because each tweet is much more digestible than trying to dive into an essay right away. The medium is the message, but set and setting matters as well.