Sorry, I don’t take much notice of trending, not since I quit. You didn’t hear? On its 10th birthday? Well I can’t remember what I tweeted exactly, something like, “It’s true, my friends, I’m leaving & I won’t be back. And to the trolls out there – it feels more FABULOUS than you saddos will ever know #RIP.” I thought it struck the right balance between release and regret, as much as you can say anything serious in 140 characters. Now I’m off it, I can’t believe how much time I wasted cutting really great jokes according to some random person’s random instruction.
There were some brilliant ones, mind – I’ve got a 10,000-word essay on my blog, if you missed it, all about how magical Twitter was in the early days. You’d join for the lolcats, alone, and the banter, before the thought police ruined it and the nonentities and self-publicists arrived, and don’t even talk to me about the the heart button. You remember when real life just felt like this really boring thing stopping you going on Twitter? I’ll never forget some of those photographs of Stephen Fry’s lunch. It’s all in my post: “Gloriously witty. Invariably serendipitous. Occasionally magnificent”.
Right, I did quit in 2012, yes, and twice in 2013, no that libel thing came to nothing, but character assassination was just part of the fun in those days, like drunk-tweeting Louise Mensch during Newsnight, not like now, with all the hate. The turning point came after Strasbourg. I just tweeted a little thing about Brexit. No need to go into what. Suddenly, this voice inside was going, Alex, you’re brilliant, you’re averaging what, 70,000 tweets per year, all you get back is a shitload of grief, and yes, OK, quite a lot of love – but is this truly how you want to live? Anyway quitting’s a major thing now, Twitter is over, everyone’s tweeting about it.
Of course I started a new profile, had to. People need to know that something so innocent has become a vicious, glib, slimy, intolerant, ignorant sink of putrefying, self-promoting rottenness – as well as how to find me on Instagram.
