Twitter seems like the perfect social media platform, and perhaps it is: posts in digestible form, text-centric, shareable paragraphs, re-sharing features that can turn any post into wildfire, and a timeline that is clean and concise. It's easy to imagine Twitter being the market square filled with evangelists and marketers trying to sell their ideas and products. Groups form around these individuals, and share their ideas and products with others. Twitter's form is efficient and effective for the propagation of certain ideas. But which ones?
The Effects of Twitter's Aphoristic Form on its User's Content
Twitter's previous limitation of text to 160 characters has transformed into a way of writing on the internet, even if Twitter has done away with most limitations now. This method of writing is not new; aphorisms have existed since writing has existed. Twitter's post format instituted the style as standard for a new generation of internet users.
I'm familiar with aphorisms due to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, who used the form to condense a lot of conclusions into just a few sentences. The aphorism is all conclusion and no argument. It assumes that the reader has already understood the reasoning behind the conclusion, and is simply looking for pithy statements on the subject at hand. For Nietzsche, the brought a lot of trouble for his reputation after his coma and death, for his sarcasm, mixed with strong statements without the context of reasoning, lended itself to less contextual, more literally-minded groups of philosophers and readers.
On Twitter, I can retweet a sardonic statement by Marc Andreessen, who has been focused on the meme "The Current Thing", without having to add any information about what "The Current Thing" is about as a meme and why he is so fixated on it. As I add Andreessen's words to my timeline, I import his sarcasm, cynicism, and wit as my own, like a new piece of clothing. At times, Twitter content is like a corollary of a corollary. There is a rabbit hole of research for each meme, hashtag, and even thought.
Twitter is at its best when one makes commentary on a subject. This may be why Twitter is so popular for sports fans: Some people have a screen for Twitter with a live stream of the game, and concurrently send out their own thoughts on the game's development. For at least the last four or five decades, a game appears to have required commentary—and meta-commentary—for its fans to maximally enjoy and engage with the sport. This is because humans are social creatures; Twitter provides a nearly-infinite venue for commentary about a sport.
The most common reaction to sports is negative: To deride a player or team for their performance; to judge the personal lives of the players or coaches; to find fault in anything they see in the game's character or form. We find this same type of reaction in Twitter user's reactions to politics, technology, and social issues: Derision, judgment, seeking of fault. These criticisms are condensed to their aphoristic elements: One to three sentences of pure conclusion, no argument needed.
For Twitter, ideas appear to be propagated by sarcasm, derision, and judgment; products appear to be spread by positivity. In other words, ideas are formed by reaction and negation; products are marketed by a going towards. Product companies using Twitter are typically not using aphoristic modes of writing, as they don't typically have conclusions about anything; they are cheerleading the product, typically by promoting the use of celebrities using the product and the ways it can improve someone's lifestyle.
Ideas by a reacting-against, products by a going-towards. These appear to be the predominant ways of engaging with Twitter on the ideological level. The aphoristic form appears to have shaped the reacting-against.
I'm familiar with aphorisms due to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, who used the form to condense a lot of conclusions into just a few sentences. The aphorism is all conclusion and no argument. It assumes that the reader has already understood the reasoning behind the conclusion, and is simply looking for pithy statements on the subject at hand. For Nietzsche, the brought a lot of trouble for his reputation after his coma and death, for his sarcasm, mixed with strong statements without the context of reasoning, lended itself to less contextual, more literally-minded groups of philosophers and readers.
On Twitter, I can retweet a sardonic statement by Marc Andreessen, who has been focused on the meme "The Current Thing", without having to add any information about what "The Current Thing" is about as a meme and why he is so fixated on it. As I add Andreessen's words to my timeline, I import his sarcasm, cynicism, and wit as my own, like a new piece of clothing. At times, Twitter content is like a corollary of a corollary. There is a rabbit hole of research for each meme, hashtag, and even thought.
Twitter is at its best when one makes commentary on a subject. This may be why Twitter is so popular for sports fans: Some people have a screen for Twitter with a live stream of the game, and concurrently send out their own thoughts on the game's development. For at least the last four or five decades, a game appears to have required commentary—and meta-commentary—for its fans to maximally enjoy and engage with the sport. This is because humans are social creatures; Twitter provides a nearly-infinite venue for commentary about a sport.
The most common reaction to sports is negative: To deride a player or team for their performance; to judge the personal lives of the players or coaches; to find fault in anything they see in the game's character or form. We find this same type of reaction in Twitter user's reactions to politics, technology, and social issues: Derision, judgment, seeking of fault. These criticisms are condensed to their aphoristic elements: One to three sentences of pure conclusion, no argument needed.
For Twitter, ideas appear to be propagated by sarcasm, derision, and judgment; products appear to be spread by positivity. In other words, ideas are formed by reaction and negation; products are marketed by a going towards. Product companies using Twitter are typically not using aphoristic modes of writing, as they don't typically have conclusions about anything; they are cheerleading the product, typically by promoting the use of celebrities using the product and the ways it can improve someone's lifestyle.
Ideas by a reacting-against, products by a going-towards. These appear to be the predominant ways of engaging with Twitter on the ideological level. The aphoristic form appears to have shaped the reacting-against.
The Limitations of Twitter's Aphoristic Form on User's Content
Susan Sontag had a few strong thoughts on aphorisms in her journals; unfortunately they are also presented in aphoristic form:
Can it be that the literature of aphorisms teaches us the sameness of wisdom (as anthropology teaches us the diversity of culture)? The wisdom of pessimism. Or should we rather conclude that the form of the aphorism, of abbreviated or condensed or rogue thought, is a historically-colored voice which, when adopted, inevitably suggests certain attitudes; is the vehicle of a common thematics? (Sontag, 1980)
Twitter took "the vehicle of a common thematics" to a whole new level with its retweet function, which is the ability to spread a pithy commentary on a subject like wildfire and the ability to try on other people's thoughts like clothing. Like the phrase "you took the words right out of my mouth", the retweet function is the ability for one's posts to replace the thoughts of others by being good enough estimations of those thoughts. If a celebrity posted a conclusion that you agree with, but don't have the time to formulate your own thoughts, you can replace your thoughts with their own on your timeline. The efficiency is impeccable, but the homogenization of thought is easy to preserve.
However, there is another limitation of Twitter form of commentary: Ideas can only propagate if they are already generally shared by the user population; otherwise, they won't be shared. Twitter has long had the issue that an individual user account lacking a prior reputation outside of the platform is hard pressed to build a following, especially if they are not posting content that is relevant to the cultural trends of the platform. Technology and politics are the most engaged-upon topics of commentary on Twitter. To post about topics outside of those two, one needs especially engaging posts, such as an extreme position on a random topic to the point of shock. One needs to carve out a population of users that are willing to propagate your ideas, especially if their are heretical to the implicit motives of a social media platform.
For instance, can one use Twitter to convince Twitter users to turn away from Twitter to another platform? For the typical user, absolutely not, because it's similar to the movie Network: Someone using a medium (television, Twitter) to try to criticize the medium itself. The criticisms of Twitter on Twitter are simply content fodder for Twitter; some very small groups may engage and leave Twitter, but for the most part, people are seeking to continue to use Twitter to find fault with Twitter. If a celebrity proposes a strong alternative to Twitter, they may be able to convert a portion of their audience from the platform, but only if they refrain from using it themselves.
More existentially, Twitter requires commentary, which requires a subject. However, consider two versions of the Luddite: The Luddite who will take to the presses to argue their view that technology should be resisted; the Luddite who has no thoughts on technology because they don't engage with it. How does one conduct themselves on Twitter in the absence of a subject? If there is nothing to be said on the subject? Homogenization of ideas on Twitter is not just about celebrities replacing the thoughts of individuals, but that the platform does not connect those disinterested by a certain subject, unless they actively comment on their disinterest by the subject. This is pretty obvious for any social media platform, but it is indicative of social media primarily connecting people on their going-against. Thus, Twitter will always be inviting of the Luddite who can't stop talking about their disdain of technology, but will have no room for the Luddite has little to say about non-subject; thus, for or against technology, Twitter is truly only inhabited by those for Twitter.
Twitter is a free speech platform limited to a particular view of the world.
I don't believe there is room for someone who has thoughts on questioning the basis of modern society on Twitter, which makes Twitter too limited of a platform for the free exchange of ideas. Instead, it is the propagation of popular ideas in varying forms, whether its pro something or anti something. Whether you are for or against population growth on Twitter, you must consider population growth a worthy subject for commentary in order to find success in engagement on the platform. This again sounds tautological: Of course one must engage on something to find engagement! But there is an implicit filtering out of people that don't want to create aphoristic messages on any subject; those who haven't found the pithy statement of disdain, judgment, or fault within that subject. There are those who aren't inclined to replace their own thoughts with the thoughts of others by way of retweets. There are those who, having found no room in the commentary space of Twitter, are also not engaged by the going-towards that appears to be exclusive to the product-marketing community.
Read the posts of Twitter giants who have something to say about our society, and you'll find the same formulas I have described. Despite their reactions against said subjects, they are sneaking in their going-towards; read and you'll find their implicit ideologies. The half-truth of everything is found in the space of absence.
If you are not contributing to Twitter's conversation, it's not interested in having you. You won't be banned, you won't be harassed, but you will be confined to a space of Twitter that is silent and lonely, until you concede defeat and engage on Twitter's implicitly-approved topics. And to find that engagement, you will likely need to produce a reactionary take on the subject, with sarcasm, superiority, or indignity. And you may be selling other people's products and ideas with the cheerleading method of posting. But you will see how truly limited Twitter is as a free speech platform when you attempt to freewheel on the topics you engage with. The silence is deafening.