The following was a tweetstorm I shared on Twitter in February 2018:
What the hell am I doing on Twitter? (An evolution of sorts…)
Alternative title: Why I’m probably about to change the way I use Twitter.
In fact, here was my 1st tweet:
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing…
I tweeted about my internships, things I was doing, and shared some early (and very rough) blog posts.
Mostly, I just tried to talk to and connect with people I admired.
I was amazed I had access to all of these smart people’s thoughts and ideas. Twitter even landed me my first job in 2008 after the economy collapsed.
From 2008-2014-ish, I (mostly) used Twitter to learn about various aspects of business and marketing. When I was in healthcare, I studied the best healthcare marketers. When I was leading marketing for a tech start-up, I studied our niche, growth-hacking, et al.
In addition to learning from others, I would share smart things I found (usually about business/marketing), but also funny things, and, occasionally, something personal or political. I don’t know if anyone was listening or anyone cared, but Twitter was a net good in my life.
I’m not sure that’s true anymore.
What changed?
Somewhere around early 2015, a lot of *really* hard work and a *a lot* of reading + implementation compounded into enough knowledge and experience that I acquired a certain command over my job.
And that’s when the trouble on Twitter started…
I had spent 7 years studying all things business/marketing and now all of I sudden I had wanted to understand ‘everything.’ I yearned to be a full blown polymath and starting exploring things like: behavior change, psychology, nutrition, mental health, neuroscience, mental models & more.
So, what’s the problem?
Now, I’m following all these new and interesting people… people opening my eyes to certain truths. Truths that are irrefutable when you open your eyes and take your head out of the sand. And they’re commenting on Twitter trends — politics and the like.
All of sudden, things I previously had no appetite for (politics, etc.) started making me go hmmm.
Today, truth is problematic
My family means more to me than a bunch of people on Twitter.
- Postmodernism
- Victim-mentality
- Gender differences
- Critical Race Theory
- The attack on free speech
- Identity politics & intersectionality
- Equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunities
But, here’s the thing…
I *Will* Get Cancelled One Day
Sharing these ‘truths’ on Twitter doesn’t actually matter. It makes zero difference.
Many of you who follow will like/RT, but 95% of people will never change their mind.
And many co-workers (and others in the “real world”) will (at best) respect me less/act differently towards me and, at worst, ostracize me for career growth or, worse, fire me.
I used to joke that Twitter would get me fired one day. It’s no longer a joke.
This is the world we live in now.
What makes me sad about this is how many people write to me and tell me they wish they had the courage to speak these truths, that they agree 100%, but can’t risk doing so publicly.
Perhaps, there are sane people left, just not on Twitter.
So what does that mean for me on Twitter?
In truth, I don’t know yet. I may there less. I may be there different. I may re-tweet something from someone else doing important work, but I’ll likely keep MY beliefs to myself.
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