When I first signed up for Twitter, in July of 2013, I never could have imagined all the things I would eventually gain from it—among them my first job in New York media, an introduction to my current partner, and a seemingly incurable case of meme brain that’s had me repeating nonsense like “This hot pink bitch was named Breakfast!” on a loop for the last decade. I didn’t love how much time I found myself spending on the site over the last few years, and I certainly didn’t love how my daily (okay, hourly) Twitter fix tended to make me antagonistic toward humanity in general, but I genuinely never imagined myself leaving—that is, until Elon Musk took over.
I won’t say too much about the deluge of negative changes that have accompanied the advent of Musk, famously the least funny man alive, as Twitter’s owner (you can read about those in detail here), but the vibes are off, and I don’t see them returning to normal any time soon. Yes, I’m sick of seeing unmoderated racist and transphobic tweets from people who pay for their blue checks, and yes, I’m annoyed about the new rate limit, but even if those problems were fixed, I’d still want to spend my one wild and precious online life elsewhere.
The question of where to migrate my specific Twitter mix of work promo, gay memes, and lightly stoned rants about the poor quality of HGTV programming weighed heavy on me until I found Bluesky Social, a platform spun-off from Twitter—Jack Dorsey sits on his board of directors—that I once wrote off as a “meh” alternative to the real thing. (I don’t eat Halo Top or Lean Cuisines instead of real ice cream or pasta, I thought, so why should I accept diet Twitter?) Once I actually tracked down an invite code, made the move, and found some of my former Twitter cronies on Bluesky, though, I realized I’d been granted something incredible: a brand-new social media platform where my extended family and camp friends from two decades ago don’t follow me. In fact, as of now, nobody follows me except people I actually like—pretty novel, right?
Bluesky is by no means perfect; the interface is a little basic and buggy, and while I appreciate what they’re trying to do with the invite-only thing (it’s giving early Facebook!), I genuinely don’t understand how to get invite codes to the remaining half of my Twitter friends who still need them. I also wish the app were more imagery-friendly, although I guess we still have Instagram for that (and really, do we need more than one place to post heavily edited photos of summer salads?). Still, ever since I made an account, I’ve genuinely been having fun online again: maybe because it still feels intimate and new—at the moment, Bluesky still has just over 100,000 users—and I don’t feel pressured to “do numbers” with every stray observation the way I used to. My Twitter account is still technically active, but I’m hoping to spend way, way less time there, and I think Bluesky is the perfect place for a reset. (And, not for nothing, its bugs stop me from spending my entire day scrolling.)
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