Dear Neighbor,
Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. My penance is a lifetime suspension from Twitter, now known as X.
We all have our secrets and hidden lives, and one of mine was Twitter. Now that it’s no longer part of my life, there’s no need to keep my dalliance private. (I hate the name X, and now that I’ve been exiled, I’ll call it whatever I want.)
I was the ultimate troll, a keyboard warrior with a fake name, no photo, no profile information and not a single post. Yet somehow, I garnered several hundred followers, which always left me wondering: Why?
All I ever did was comment on other people’s posts, occasionally pressing the heart button to indicate agreement, though more often expressing vehement disagreement. And always with correct spelling and proper grammar. This alone set me apart from much of the fray inhabiting what is commonly referred to as a cesspool.
The constant use of “your” for “you’re” infuriated me, to say nothing of “to” for “too,” and the hordes who have never met a possessive or contractive apostrophe they didn’t ignore. Do these people not care that their sloppy presentation represents so much more?
As they say, how you do anything is how you do everything.
Carelessness is the hallmark of ignorance, and vice versa. This is true in grammar and in relationships. Carelessness creates confusion, and For understanding to occur, someone must clarify. All too often, this burden falls on the unsuspecting other party, who gazes in astonishment at the mess. Loss of respect soon follows.
I imagine you’re wondering what crime I committed to merit a lifetime ban. I truly can’t remember exactly what I wrote, but it was unquestionably snotty. Compared with President Trump’s post threatening Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” or be sent “back to the Stone Ages,” my offense was squarely in the shallow end of the Augean stable. Rules for me, but not for thee.
I was on Twitter for about three years after my first suspension the night Trump was elected to his first term. Again, I can’t remember what I wrote, but it had something to do with Sarah Palin.
Then Elon Musk took over, proclaiming his commitment to free speech. I went back in for Round Two the way I approach everything: with gusto, curiosity and a sense of fun.
Under Musk, Twitter became a combination of the Wild West and “The Jerry Springer Show” — a place where people wrote things that made me gasp.
I learned there are entire armies of people who live according to codes I could scarcely imagine.
Trad wives, those traditional women who defer to their husbands’ every decision, demand and desire, were quite the surprise.
Unmuzzled racists abounded, as did misogynists, religious fanatics, hardcore MAGA loyalists, loony leftists, extremists and fetishists of every stripe.
Yet I stayed on, fascinated in the way one can’t look away from a massive car crash or a burning building.
Shortly after I was kicked off Twitter, I received notices informing me that I could appeal and perhaps be allowed back into the fold.
But after my initial reaction — gasp! — which felt like someone had unplugged my iron lung, I quickly realized my ouster was a blessing in disguise.
Randy Pausch, the computer science professor who died of pancreatic cancer in 2008, said in his final lecture that brick walls present themselves for a reason: “The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
I’ve climbed over, crawled under and jackhammered my way through many brick walls in my life. But Twitter’s paper tiger no longer held any allure. Why fight for something you don’t even want? I did not appeal.
Why was I there in the first place? I suppose it was a desire to engage and be heard. But no one listens on Twitter because everybody is too busy shouting, including me.
It was war, I tell you.
John Steinbeck wrote that “war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.” Wars, he argued, result from the failure of communication to solve problems and the substitution of violence for thought.
Psychopathy 101.
For all my fewer-than-140-character rants, I doubt I changed anyone’s mind. I am certain I enraged many whose grammar was so atrocious I simply had to correct it. More than once, I was accused of being a bot.
Now that I’m a couple of months Twitter-sober, I’m sure the Twitterverse misses me as much as I miss it:
Zero.
— Dorothy
Dorothy Richmond writes for the Hill & Lake Press. She lives in Cedar-Isles-Dean.
