Real First Post

That last one was fake

I’m in the unique position here to say something for the first time, which is daunting. Recently, I’ve transplanted myself to many new internet venues— bad imitations of Twitter either in spirit or facade— and I guess the whole thing has made me wonder about reintroducing myself to my “audience” (the twenty or thirty of you who still read my work). Who we pretended to be on Twitter was certainly not who we were or are, anymore than who we’ll pretend to be on threads or BlueSky or bleep blorp will be. But we all knew that. 

I’ve been thinking recently with all this commotion towards reinventing Twitter about how much so many people I respected, who had large followings on Twitter and posted frequently, despised it. The same people more often than not are lamenting its collapse or murder. This fits many truisms. And points towards (i am always pointing towards, apologies, prose is not my first language) the sort of nostalgia i stalk in my work. That terrible feeling of a reliable world disappeared. 

But more than just resonance in theme and obsession, Twitter in many ways made me. Most of you would not know who i am without either a terrible joke or a poem from me popping up on your Timeline, some generous fool having retweeted me. Sorry, I just watched Watchmen and whenever I see anything with Jeremy Irons in it I write in his voice for a week. It’s like an allergic reaction. 

I’ve been sad about Twitter too and am one of the many who insisted it was terrible. I guess I’ve realized lately that a lot of people could benefit from the right people seeing their unpublished poems at the right time (whenever I talk about this it’s like I’m David Bowie or something rather than a barely published mostly unemployed person in Cleveland, Ohio).

And the imitations are unbearable, each with its own reproduction of an original Twitter sin. Too online people making too online jokes on BlueSky, even developing their own “lore” in a few months, simply to cancel the whole platform for anti-blackness (it was anti-black before Dril got there, i assure you). 

Threads regurgitating the same bits out of freshly copyrighted mouths, minus the laughs. 

Even this little missive is a retread of other content being made about the content being made about the content being made about Twit—X. But once upon a time I could say six words about this and a million people and their grandma would see it and maybe ten of them would buy my book and that’s how I ate that week. Undoubtedly, working in media is a red flag now more than ever, but before at least it came with a check. 

That’s the sort of thing you blow up in big font and put in the middle of it to break it up. It’s also the sort of thing someone would name in the replies in a condescending “how do you not know this tone” that for so long animated my life. 

Anyways, I won’t post here often I think. I’ve got a new book called personal problem that I’ve probably already begged you to buy. After that I’m working on this book called surplus years. I don’t really know what it is. I might leak parts here or there, but its parts are longer than a screenshot so this might be a nice delivery method. No retweets tho :(. Oh and also there’s supposed to be merch soon, which autocorrect insists is supposed to be mercy, so that’s cool. 

See ya later