As the year draws to a close, I wanted to offer a eulogy for something that was lost in 2022. No, not Twitter, which remains a living if grotesque parody of its former self, but rather the intellectual community that Twitter hosted.
Physicist Edward Teller once claimed that one of the worst things the Third Reich did was destroy the intellectual community that had thrived in Germany in the early 20th century. Leaders in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and other fields made Germany the leading scientific power in the world. Then with Hitler鈥檚 rise, many fled, many were persecuted or killed, and most of the rest served the Reich and then were divvied up between the Americans and the Soviets.
What happened with Twitter is not precisely the same, of course (and I question whether that was really one of the worst things the Nazis did), but there鈥檚 been a similar diaspora of intellect.
One of my frustrations when I first started as an academic was the disconnect between political scientists, journalists, and practitioners. On those rare occasions when we might find ourselves in the same room, we were often talking about the same things, just from different perspectives.
But usually, we weren鈥檛 talking to each other. Scholars would complain that journalists were missing the big story or that campaign consultants were overtly confident in the effects of advertising, and practitioners would claim that scholars were slow and had their heads in the clouds, etc.
This was one of the things that motivated me to start blogging in 2007. I worked at it pretty hard and was gratified to find that some political journalists in the blogging community found my work there and promoted it. I was able to do the same for others. There was a back-and-forth. We learned from each other.
I joined Twitter in 2009, although I didn鈥檛 really start using it regularly until a few years later. And it turned out a community was developing — a place where scholars, journalists, and practitioners were in touch with each other. Sometimes we were on the same page, sometimes we were sniping at each other. But at our best, we were learning how to speak to each other. As a scholar, I was learning how to write in a way that wasn鈥檛 just for other scholars.
While it may be selfish, a good deal of my lament is that Twitter was good for me, both professionally and personally. I found friends on there that I wouldn鈥檛 meet in person for several years — there are some I still haven鈥檛 met. And I gained a decent-sized following which elevated my profile above that which one might expect a professor in an undergraduate-only department in a modestly-ranked university in the least populous time zone to have.
My tweets would occasionally get noticed and get me invitations to write op/eds, to attend conferences, to speak at schools, and more. Me getting verified on Twitter remains one of the few things I have done that actually impressed my children.
And beyond that, it was fun. Discussing politics or movies or food or whiskey or many other mundane things with smart people in other fields was immensely enjoyable.
Now, it抖阴ap easy to romanticize this community. In fact, it had many of the same flaws that academia suffers from, only magnified. There were bullies. It could be a hostile place for women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized groups. It ate up time. It could also be addictive. At one time, I had encouraged junior scholars to build accounts on there but later became more circumspect about it, noting that the benefits it conveys come with costs, and the costs are not equally borne.
I believe the site had improved in recent years, offering more ways for users to control their experience and filter out negative voices, and it was taking threats and disinformation more seriously.
That抖阴ap over now. I left Twitter in early November, shortly after Elon Musk endorsed a party right before an election and promoted conspiracy theories about the attack on Paul Pelosi.
I鈥檝e seen many other colleagues terminate their accounts following other triggers. I still occasionally go on there to see what people are talking about, but overwhelmingly the content seems to be a) Musk critics lambasting him, b) Musk acolytes praising him, and c) Musk praising himself. It抖阴ap boring and sad.
At least for now, the community is scattered. Some of us (including me) have tried to build things up at places like Mastodon and Post, or even returned to Facebook. This has had only limited success. Some of the content is there, but the spontaneous conversations just don鈥檛 seem to be occurring, and it could take years for that to rebuild.
I certainly respect those who have remained on Twitter and refuse to be bullied into giving up something they have built. There are good arguments for staying or going. I just felt I couldn鈥檛 keep contributing to the site in good conscience.
And sadly, I鈥檝e felt the loss of the community. I鈥檓 no longer in touch with as many people. I don鈥檛 see as much of what other people write, and they don鈥檛 see what I鈥檝e written.
But more importantly, there were thousands or millions of conversations between scholars, journalists, practitioners, and others that are simply no longer occurring. We鈥檙e not learning from each other like we used to.
Hopefully, we鈥檒l be able to build some of that back up in 2023. As we鈥檝e seen, the world can shift pretty quickly. But we also know that it抖阴ap easier to destroy than to create.
Seth Masket is a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver.
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