Column: I hope Musk’s erraticism kills Twitter

Graphic by East Anglia Bylines

Billionaire Elon Musk is doing what I predicted: Spilling precious boxes of tea into the Twitter harbor. His revolution so far is somewhat revolting.

From feuding with powerful politicians to firing Twitter employees live on the app, what he’s doing is obviously in poor taste. His erratic past behavior, which allegedly included cussing out his Tesla employees, is paving the way for the stoning of the Twitter bird. And I hope he kills it with one stone, sinking the app fast.

For the moment, Musk is providing entertainment for everyone, except maybe the people whose whole livelihood depends on Twitter. For example, some entertainers and artists rely on the app as a way to promote their work. Of course, they could easily find sanctuary somewhere else, like Instagram or TikTok. 

Popcorn isn’t even needed to enjoy this show. If Musk completely sinks Twitter, it would be a step in the right direction for humanity. Twitter is an ugly cesspool from the darkest depths of hell. Banishing it would be glory.

You may think that is melodramatic, but like all other social media apps, Twitter is filthy. Think about it: It’s a constant stream of random information coming at you all at once. It parches the brain, sucking all the creativity and invention from it.

Let me paint the picture for those who don’t use Twitter. You decide you want to use the app to cure your boredom. “It will only be a couple minutes,” you think.

Soon enough, minutes turn into hours, and instead of working on that project you have due, you’ve just wasted a large chunk of your day numbing your mind with drama, toxicity and ugly comment threads. You find yourself watching people getting ratioed (Internet slang for Tweets that get more replies than likes or retweets, usually for their controversial nature). 

Then you get off the app and think that the project will get done. But AH! You forgot to check that juicy drama your friend told you about. And the cycle repeats.

The app kills productivity, is filled with toxic behavior, including from Musk himself, and provides little real value outside of finding entertainment in the stupid crap people tend to post. 

This isn’t to say that Twitter is all bad. News reporters often break news live on the app, giving you the first scoop. Education-based accounts can be found scattered across Twitter, which can actually be enlightening and give you a daily AHA! moment.

And if you post on the app and manage to build a community, it can be quite fulfilling in the long run.

But again, we have other social media apps that offer the same thing, in a slightly less toxic format. Do Instagram and TikTok have extreme problems? Yes. Do they numb the brain? Absolutely. But one fewer app would help lift the burden of constant stimulation off of Twitter’s estimated 450 million users. 

Musk is slowly fulfilling his destiny: destroying Twitter so that former users can regain their sanity.

With Trump’s account reinstated on the platform through a poll created by Musk, ad revenue may drop even further.

Message to Musk: Keep doing what you are doing. Destroy the user base and incite extreme anger across the app. Make advertisers pull out, and sink the app once and for all.

After all, birds can only fly for so long before they are gobbled up. And Musk seems like the most dangerous, erratic, eager predator yet, scoping out the area, waiting for the right moment to snap the neck of the beautiful bluebird.