This week, I gave up Twitter. For good.
I’d been thinking about it for a while, but there it was: as of Saturday afternoon I am just me, and not @stebax (formerly @antonvowl). I won’t be coming back; I’m gone forever. At least, that’s the plan.
Hey, Twitter, we had good times, you and me. We followed a few people; we had some hashtags; we broke superinjunctions and called ourselves Spartacus. But I think it’s time we went our separate ways. If it’s any consolation, it’s not you; it’s me.
For one thing, I’m planning on becoming a teacher soon. As such, it’s not good to have every single thought you utter out there for the world to see, searchable forever more, by the odd the rogue vexatious parent or and mischievous pupil. I’d rather not comb through everything I’ve ever said, or run the risk of starting all over and saying one regrettable thing.
It’s a different world, this one we’re working in now. If you’re in the public sector, there are people who are out to get you, to snivel if you do anything other than flog yourself with a cast iron sign saying “sweat of hardworking taxpayers” during a lunchbreak. If you’re in education, there are people who might want to see you done down, and could look for any excuse, in or out of the workplace, to do it.
Your Twitter identity is something that represents you, or so you like to think; perhaps it’s just an imago of what you’d like to be, if you were someone else, a kind of Second Life. I had a tiny square avatar to represent my entire personality – first it was Kenny Everett’s Spider-Man, stood at a urinal; then, it was Monsieur Tourette from Modern Toss; then, it was the Vietnamese stuffed monkey toy who sits watching me as a write at my desk at home; then it was my own large potato-shaped face. I became me.
As I did so, I emerged into a world of writing, a career and lifestyle where you have to adopt a kind of overly keen whacky 1980s Radio 1 DJ type persona in order to convince yourself that your pitches are brilliant and you have the brio to overcome your doubts. Those of you who do know me in real life will understand how uncomfortable that would make me be.
It’s easier to maintain that artifice if you’re hiding behind a pseudonym and other people’s ideas of who you are, rather than their knowledge of every cough and spit you make. But you can’t go from reality to anonymity and back again; and if you’re not comfortable inviting everyone into your life, you can’t do it anymore.
So, that’s that. And so far, I’ve not really missed it. There have been a couple of times when I’ve been watching something on TV and I’ve thought to myself: “Ooh, I really ought to tweet something about this; it might get five, or even six, retweets.” And then I’ve stopped myself and thought: “You know, you don’t have to say anything. You really don’t need to say anything at all.”
I’ll miss the feeling of creativity and instant fun, which is what Twitter could be at its best. And I’ll miss the people. Some of them were friends already; some of them became friends through our @-mentions and DMs. Twitter is where you get to choose your friends by seeing what they’re like, rather than being lumbered with the same old faces down the pub. Look at me, talking in the present tense! I can’t let go yet, can I?
But I’m going to have to.
Goodbye grabbing the mobile every time I think about sharing something moderately observational about something I’m watching on TV with people I have and will never meet. Hello to a world where you can just do stuff, without talking about the stuff you’re doing, or talking about talking about the stuff you’re doing (except for this, of course, but this doesn’t count).
See you all on Google Plus! Hashtag only kidding semicolon close bracket.
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