Midweek Update: Social Butterfly

Twitter continues to implode. Any theory that suggests Elon Musk has some long-term plan and is playing 4D chess is the same fallacy we rest on us to believe that the wealthy have somehow earned their status through intelligence rather than a combination of luck and amorality. Even if we allow that Tesla and SpaceX are sound businesses, nothing in that sphere would necessarily lend itself to Musk being able to run a social media network, which has a completely different set of goals and procedures than building cars and rockets. It helps if we just use Occam’s razor: Musk is addicted to Twitter and wanted to be in charge of it, but has no idea how to make the site successful. The end.

Musk has now made himself Twitter’s main character on a daily basis. While it’s all fun and games to dunk on this guy, I’ve already played this before with Donald Trump. We get addicted to dunking on a wealthy doofus, but we’re being played because we’re giving him the thing he wants the most, which is attention. And they don’t really deserve it! These are guys who were born on third thinking they hit a triple, and every time they show themselves to the world, they betray how deeply insecure, neurotic, and weird they are but will avoid all consequences because they’ve achieved an escape velocity of wealth and status that means no court can touch them.

So it’s not a surprise to me that Musk has opened the gates of Twitter and let back in all the bad accounts because his Hail Mary play after alienating advertisers is to ramp up conflict as much as humanly possible. While Musk’s initial takeover looked like it would cause Twitter’s demise through technological failure (e.g. firing people who oversee key systems), I’m now more inclined to believe that it will simply become distasteful to be on Twitter. It’s not that one day the site will stop working (although it’s not out of the realm of possibility); it’s that some notable person who’s not a white cis-het male will be hounded to within an inch of their lives by the worst people around, and Musk will relish it as “free speech.” The guiding ethos of Twitter now seems to be, “You're free to hate anyone you want as long as it’s not Elon Musk.” Thanks, but I’ll pass.

However, I think social media still serves a purpose. While Twitter has a lot of problems, it does allow content creators to reach their audience easily and build a following. It also allows voices that wouldn’t necessarily be heard to find a platform (this can work for good and ill). Twitter wasn’t beyond saving, but now with Musk in charge, it’s clear that the site is going down the tubes fast, which means it’s time to find another outlet.

For my part, these past couple of weeks I’ve been toying with Post.News and Hive Social. Post.News is the more polished product insofar as it has VC money and is run by head of Waze. It’s very much in beta and is slowly metering how many people it lets in. It doesn’t have an app (although you can basically make it into one by using the “add to home” function in iPhone) and right now I feel like it’s kind of empty unless you’re a Name. I have no idea how I got in, but it’s missing the key feature of clowning around with buddies. That being said, it’s got some nice functionality (you can “tip” creators for their posts; there’s also text formatting) and I like how it opens on the “Explore” tab so I can see what other people are saying (that being said, this tab doesn’t feel sustainable as more people come on and you’ll want to curate your own experience).

Hive Social is a curious study. It doesn’t even have a desktop site, and the only way you can access it is through the app. Hive Social, by the way, is basically comprised of three people. And yet Hive Social, despite running a little slow, is doing all the things I want it to do. It works like Twitter, has a pleasant interface, and even has fun touches like an “AMA” button and the ability to add a song to your profile should you so choose. Hive may not have the bells and whistles that Post.News is aiming for, but it also lets my friends participate, and that edge isn’t nothing.

Neither Hive nor Post is ready to replace Twitter yet, but they both have loads of potential, and in tech, nothing is promised to last forever. In the meantime, I’d say both services are worth checking out. If you want to find me on them, I have the same handle as I do on Twitter, @MattGoldberg.

What I’m Watching

I’m still a member of various critics groups (and I consider Commentary Track as my outlet), and with voting deadlines looming, my attention has largely turned to cleaning up anything that has some buzz or acclaim. I’ve meticulously scheduled out my December and am trying to resist the allure of “What’s leaving streaming” since this month is about awards films and Christmas movies. I admit this is weird, but I need the structure.

What I’m Reading

Over Thanksgiving break, I finally got around to some articles I’d been meaning to read. I recommend these:

The Polymath Known as “the Third Coen Brother” by David Owen (The New Yorker) - A great piece on composer Carter Burwell, who has scored all of the Coens’ movies and will likely score another Oscar nomination for his work on this year’s The Banshees of Inisherin.

John Wayne and the Six Security Men by Farran Smith Nehme (Self Styled Siren) - For those who love “You’re Wrong About”, you’ll like this piece about how John Wayne’s need to be subdued as he tried to assault Sacheen Littlefeather at the 1973 Oscars is a fiction that’s only grown over the years.

The Hunted by Jeffrey Goldberg (The New Yorker) - Did you like the 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens? You may want to read this 2010 profile of her and her husband, Mark Owens.

Susbtack Recommendation

I’m kind of in awe of Dave Chen. He’s a smart, savvy guy who’s always on the cutting edge of various content creation platforms, which is one of the reasons he’s one of the most successful and independent entertainment podcasts working today. His latest venture, Decoding Everything, is the next phase in his podcast empire, and this newsletter is a great way to keep up with what Dave’s working on.

What I’m Hearing

My wife and I took a long road trip up to Cincinnati to see family over Thanksgiving, and we listened to some podcast episodes on the way. These three stuck with me:Conan O’Brien and Jack McBrayer play off each other beautifully, and I’m amazed at how much mileage this episode gets from their rapport. If you only know McBrayer from 30 Rock, this is worth a listen.

Chris Hayes had tech and finance reporter Kara Swisher on his podcast to talk about Twitter’s implosion. Swisher has been covering the tech industry for decades, so I trust her reporting, but it is kind of a record-scratch moment when she calls Elon Musk “smart.” I do think it’s important to leave the dunking aside and try to see this person clearly, but I also think we need to do a much better job of explaining what kind of intelligence a person has. Musk may be a savvy engineer, but his emotional intelligence and business acumen seem quite poor right now.

Finally, while I am not a Twilight guy, I kind of loved this episode about its fandom. There’s something really pure and sweet about it, and while there’s absolutely a dark side (see how Kristen Stewart was hounded because of decisions she made in her personal life), I also think fanfic writers and cosplayers deserve some admiration from using their love of a property to spur their own creative instincts (also, if you like this one, you should go a couple back episodes and listen to the one about how Twilight was originally envisioned as movie. It involved jet-skis).

What I’m Playing

No updates here. Just a lot of Marvel Snap and an intent to pick up God of War: Ragnarok when I’m not trying to watch movies or read books.

That’s it! Come back on Sunday when I get personal about Steven Spielberg and his new film, The Fabelmans.