I started working on this in 2024. I am publishing it as is.
I created my Twitter account in 2007. My account has gone through many eras. This post is an account of how I currently see Twitter and my usage of it.
I see my use of Twitter as a fun game with powerful consequences. I see myself as playing multiple mutually-supportive safe-to-run fun-to-play games in parallel. Each of those games have different rules, goals, and joys.
Here are some of the games I’m playing:
- Wisdom Posts: when I feel strong and full and bold I write down my truths in the strongest words I can find, so that I can return to them on days and hours where I feel small and lost, so that I might Remember, and be inspired
- Metta Phrases: may U be happy ❤️
- Questions
- Slice of Life
- Draftposts
- Quotes
- Jokes
I am playing the game in multiplayer mode. While the whole internet has access to what I share, I focus my interactive experience on connecting with others players whose games and play styles interface well with the meta1Shortened for of “metagame”. In any kind of competitive gaming, there exists a kind of extra game on top of the game. Certain tactics are found to be very effective, and because of that, counters to those tactics become effective, and so on. The current state of the interactions between all these tactics is referred to as “the metagame” for a particular game. — Urban Dictionary
I see Twitter as a primitive hivemind or collective consciousness. It’s primitive because its native elements are text posts, images, gifs, and videos—but it is a minimum viable hivemind because it publicly connects many, many people around the world in a serendipitous, emergent way. I and others have compared this to Hesse’s Glass Bead Game.