Thread by @polotek

I was talking to @operaqueenie today about twitter. We have both been doing some thinking about whether we’re still getting what we want out of coming here. I think for me that is also coupled with asking myself if what I’m putting into it is net positive.

I want to share a few of the things that have led to me grappling with these questions.

First and foremost, I don’t think I recognize a community that I’m part of on here anymore. The communities I used to be a part of have been fractured to the point of being unrecognizable.

Tech twitter has changed a lot. It’s much more diverse, which is what we set out to do. I think it’s mostly a good change. But the result is I can’t really find my people anymore.

I think a big part of this too is I’ve been a manager for a long time. So the things that used to matter in tech matter a lot less to me. I found myself uninterested in “pure tech” conversations. I don’t want to talk about tech outside of the context of what it’s trying to do.

Even thought I talk about management a lot, I never really connected with manager twitter either. The prevailing management culture right now is not one I subscribe to. And I can feel that friction when I share what I think we’re getting wrong.

My goal is to share all of the experience I’ve gained from management. Just in case it helps someone. Because I’m probably going to move away from it in the coming years. That’s a longer story that I’ll probably talk about another time.

Folks often ask me how I ended up with so many followers. Especially because I don’t seem to value that status, nor do I actively cultivate it. That came from social justice twitter. (Yes I know that’s not really a thing.)

I went through my awakening some time ago. It was a long and painful process. And a personal one. But I somehow decided that I was gonna use twitter to share and process what I was going through. It seemed to resonate with a lot of people, and here we are.

I think that’s the experience that has changed the most for me. Unfortunately I’m not going to talk about that in depth either. Because we know that adversaries of social justice love to pounce on any intra-community critiques. I’m not interested in that.

I say all of this to say that I’m asking myself if I’m finding things on twitter that still push me to grow in the ways I want/need to. I’m not sure. It doesn’t feel like it lately.

But I’m also examining the flipside of that coin. A lot of people are very kind in telling me they get a lot out of following me. Finding ways to express what I’m learning out loud so other people might also learn. That always matters to me.

But this is where I have to do the most self-reflection. People get a lot of “insights” from reading my tweets. But when they naturally want to engage with me further one-on-one, that experience is less positive for them. They find out I’m also kind of an asshole.

I rarely set out to be an asshole. So I’ve had to explore this. The truth is I hate the way twitter has conditioned people to engage. It rubs me the wrong way. I can’t blame people. But I’ve also put up a bunch of defense mechanisms against interactions I find frustrating.

People have asked me if I’m genuinely looking for dialogue on here. It’s a fair question. I haven’t completely answered it for myself yet. But if the answer turns out to be “no”, what does that mean? What’s the responsible thing to do with that truth?

Anyway, these are some of the things I’m wrestling with. I haven’t made any decisions about anything yet. And as a step towards giving people more explicit expectations, I’m open to hearing your thoughts on any of this. I may not respond directly, but I won’t bite your head off.