This (hopefully) is a wish come true. I’ve wanted this for Twitter for a long time. My expectations were once Elon Musk took over, everyone would be verified, own what they say, the bots would be minimized, and the gladiator rhetoric, presentism, virtual signaling, [fill in the blank] shaming, would come to an end. Or at least subside.

…it was frustrating because it’s a great tool in concept, and when it used properly, connects people that might never had interacted.

We’re one week in, and things are shaking up quite a bit. Musk floated the idea of charging $20/month for a blue verification check mark (including to those that already have it), and Stephen King raged in response, so Elon shashed the price to $8. Which is now a running joke, especially with verified users like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (one of my lesser favorite people). @AOC, as she’s known on Twitter, called out Musk for charging the $8 and he replied, thanking her for her input and adding “that will be $8”. Today, she claims her feed was tampered with and blank, something that seems unlikely, until you see Musk’s response, “What can I say? It was a naked abuse of power.” The dance continues.

This ridiculousness aside, Musk is revamping Twitter, gutting half it’s workforce today, planning to make changes, stop permanent bans (which has some advertisers boycotting). Bottom line, it’s going to take a while for things to change, and we shouldn’t expect too much too soon. We also shouldn’t expect it’s going to stay the same.

As I mentioned, I look forward to the changes. I left Twitter more than once over the cesspool of behavior, the red/blue crap, the fighting, the bots… it was frustrating because it’s a great tool in concept, and when it used properly, connects people that might never had interacted. That’s how I used it, at least.

I would never have “met” Andrew W.K. if not for Twitter. I got to have a phone conversation with him for almost a half hour because I answered a trivia question through his live feed that I found through – Twitter. He DM’d me, I DM’d him my phone number and he called me. Crazy. I met so many other people through Twitter. I had a live tweet exchange with JJ Boogie from Arrested Development during the Grammys one year. Fun stuff.

Twitter used to be a fairly reliable way of getting news information out quickly. Missing kids, tornadoes… what was going on in the world. It still is to some degree, you have to decide the most reputable news outlets to follow, because so many are busy distorting stories, making clickbait, attacking the rival network, it’s ridiculous. I saw one this morning implying that Elon Musk had Amber Heard’s account deleted. Not necessarily true, she could have deleted it herself. She hasn’t posted to Instagram since June 2022. Perhaps she is just avoiding her ex (Musk and Heard dated after the Johnny Depp breakup – BTW – doesn’t look like Depp has a Twitter account – or DOES HE and IT HAS BEEN DELETED???).

This time out, I decided to take more control and accountability for my Twitter use. During the $8 blue check exchange, I went back at Andy Richter in jest, and he hit the like button on my joke. He was the only one that hit the button, doesn’t matter (actually 1 Andy = 10 ordinary people) It was clear I was being sarcastic, and he liked the response.

The point is, I am trying not to stoke some political agenda, I’m having fun and beginning to interact like I used to. I have a Twitter Circle set up with people associated with scuba diving and/or music (some fall in both categories). I can tweet to them without involving everyone. Nice feature.

I don’t have to wish for permanent bans or account removal (“JUST DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT NOW”) because I have control with a MUTE button and a BLOCK button. I can dismiss the haters, the liars, those virtue signaling or trying to tell me that someone from a sixty years ago needs to be “canceled” because they added to climate change with their hand painted ornaments and live Christmas tree.

Whatever – I am back, and I’m enjoying using Twitter.

Let’s see what Elon does with his new $44 billion toy.