Farewell then, Twitter
A brief flowering of social tendencies
Last week I deleted my Twitter account, or X account as it’s been for ages but which I could never bring myself to call it. It made me sad in a way that no software removal should, which made me think about what it had, in its heyday, given me.
In 2012 the novelist Louise Doughty ran a monthly short story competition in The Daily Telegraph and there was also a forum on the paper’s website where she set writing exercises and engaged with the members of the Short Story Club (SSC). My mum had recently started buying the Telegraph on a Saturday and she mentioned it to me as something I might want to investigate. I entered the competition in February and then lurked on the forum for a while, where a core group of participants seemed to chat and encourage each other. Eventually, I joined in.
By the end of that year I felt like I’d made friends. This was a couple of years before I joined an in-person writing group so the SSC were the only writers I knew. With a revamp of the Telegraph website the forum went away but some SSC members had opened Twitter accounts so I did too in April 2013. Funnily enough I hardly interacted with the SSC on there, none of them seemed to take to it, but I did soon find other writers to chat to and for about 10 years on Twitter I had fun, read a lot of flash fiction, found out about new writing opportunities, and publicised my successes. There are a whole raft of publications I would never have got stories in, competitions I wouldn’t have won, connections I would never have made if I hadn’t been on Twitter.
One thing I loved about Twitter was the easy communication with writers at a different level. By which I mean I could tell someone how much I’d enjoyed their novel or Radio 4 series1, and in many cases get an unexpected reply, sometimes a brief conversation. I asked questions of radio comedy writers like John Finnemore, Jon Holmes and Eddie Robson that I wouldn’t have dared ask if I was in the same room, not that I would ever have found myself in the same room in the first place2.
When Twitter changed hands in 2022 there was a gradual dropping off of participation in the circles I was in. People decamped to Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, or gave up social media altogether. The community feel of Writers’ Twitter disappeared. I’d only briefly had Twitter on my phone, being late to smart phones and then finding it too much of a distraction, so I was logging on to the website less and less, finding fewer people I knew each time, and next to no interaction. My account lingered as a reminder of the good times I’d had, but serving no useful purpose. It was time to admit that, and let it go.
When I left university in 2000 I deeply missed Newcastle. I’d lived there for four years and got used to the metro, the shops, the scenery, the nights out. For a while I wished I hadn’t left, until eventually it dawned on me that it wasn’t the place itself I was missing, so much as a particular time there. I missed being young and without responsibilities, within walking distance or a short metro ride of friends who were equally likely to be at a loose end when I was, and fancy a pint or a jaunt, or a mooch round a record shop. Even if I returned, I’d be living a different life and most of my friends would have moved away.
I’ve already made some connections and had brief, interesting conversations in the comments or Notes on Substack but I’m not going to regain the pleasure of Twitter from a decade ago, no matter where I lurk online.
If you have some kind of social media access to a writer whose work you’ve enjoyed, let them know. Many writers are in the constant grip of imposter syndrome and you may well make their day. And the other, peculiarly well-adjusted, writers are unlikely to be annoyed by your praise.
Particularly if you know that I didn’t attend either the Telegraph’s official SSC gathering in 2013 or the CWIP awards 2024, the trip to London and indeed the room full of strangers having put me off in both cases.