Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/11/18/two-years-post-twitter/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58293

For various reasons I was reminded that two years ago this week, I quit the former Twitter for good; I had been doing a slow draw down of my presence for most of 2023 but on November 16 I abandoned the place entirely, mostly decamping to Bluesky, with additional outposts at Threads and Mastodon. At my peak on Twitter I had 210,000 followers (down to about 180,000 when I pulled the plug), accrued through a dozen years of being on the service, so it was no small thing to go. But the other option was to stay and be complicit in the machinations of a fascist asshole who was actively turning the place into a cesspool. Off I went.

Two years on, I’m happy to say that I don’t regret leaving. One, and most obviously, I’m not wading in a dank hot tub of feculent right-wing bullshit, which is a positive for my mental well-being and my general ability to be online. Two, my career hasn’t suffered a whit for not being on the former Twitter; my book sales have chugged along rather happily and my other opportunities have not lessened at all. Three, those 200+K followers have been replaced by more than twice that number on Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon (there are repeat followers on each service, to be sure). So surely my ego is assuaged there.

That said, the business aspects of being on social media are not my primary reason to be there, although of course I do tell people when I have new books and other projects out, or when I’m doing appearances. Mostly, though, I’m just hanging out. And while none of the other social media services are perfect (he said, delicately and understatedly), none of the rest of the ones I hang out on are so aggressively tuned to be unpleasant as the former Twitter was when I left, and still is today. It’s possible to chat and hang out and have fun on Bluesky (and Threads and Mastodon) and not feel icky for being there. That’s the real win for me: I’m enjoying myself online more. These days, that is not a small thing.

I’m aware that people are still on the former Twitter and even prefer it there, for whatever reason, and they are welcome to their own karma. There’s nothing and no one there that’s so essential to my day-to-day life that I need to go back there. Likewise, outside of a few right-wing dickheads who like to snark about me, the former Twitter seems to have entirely forgotten that I exist, and I can’t say this bothers me greatly. It’s a pretty clean separation.

I don’t imagine I’ll do another update about this again; there’s not much point to it from here on out. But again, maybe I’m a useful anecdotal case study. What happens when you leave the former Twitter? For me, mostly, online life just got better. If you’re still on the site, maybe it’ll work that way for you, too.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/11/18/two-years-post-twitter/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58293