A small update on my Mastodon experience thus far… I can tell a more complicated story about what Twitter meant to me, buuuuut the desires of the thumb-brain captures most of it
(Over there at: sfba.social/@alexismadrigal)
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Alexis C. Madrigal
@alexismadrigal
Hanging up the cleats here. Find me on Mastodon: AlexisMadrigal@sfba.social
howthebaywasbuilt.comJoined December 2007
Alexis C. Madrigal’s Tweets
The restaurant Rintaro needs our help. The restaurant was flooded by last week’s storm and it’s in some trouble.
Only trying to draw some attention to this could bring me back here.
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Probably getting down to my last few tweets. What a long, strange run it has been. I think I’m going to mothball and lock it down, but it’s hard to figure out exactly how to do it.
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And on the last night, they said, a screaming was heard across the sky, and from the abyss rose a whale carried aloft by a flock of tiny birds.
Then, it was quiet.
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I know you were not the only one, Meredith! (Looking at you )…
And I really hope nerdy kids still stay home from school and listen.
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Bay area! I'm on KQED's Forum tomorrow Nov 18th, 9-10 PT talking Signal, why a livable future depends on privacy, & the biz model of tech. Call in!
(As a nerdy kid I loved staying home from school to listen to Forum, so this is very exciting for me :)
kqed.org/forum
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Another adjacent set of thoughts on how power flows now that I’m grateful to for articulating:
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That is power and our experience of power is so socially different than it used to be. We flex the power the internet and social media as an extension of the internet gave us quite a bit.
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On the theme! This is a nice piece from Twitter OG
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Replying to @alexismadrigal
@nancyscola touched on the same idea in Politico today twitter.com/nancyscola/sta
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Also, I just note how different this is from the “town square” of lore.
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Will Mastodon or some other platform have that kind of juice? I don’t know. Probably not? Twitter worked hard to recruit those folks back in the day. Will Twitter be able to hold on to this power with all the chaos? Maaaaybe?
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That cuts against some of the ways people (people like me!) usually talk about this place, as a place of community or knowledge building.
But it’s always been the proximity of real elites, celebrities, politicians, etc, that’s made this platform powerful.
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You could just say something about an institution and it might go through the Twitter pipes and right into the CEO’s ear. Journalists might pick up your frame. VIPs knew they’d have to contend with “what Twitter said” about something.
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And a hundred people saying something on Twitter can feel like a lot! So relatively small groups of savvy people really could get the attention of people they’d have no chance of getting in front of in the world out there.
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It worked across scales, too. Local elites could be influenced, same as world leaders.
Twitter has never been BIG in social media terms, but it was influential because this is place where certain elites actually hung out, phone in hand, just like the rest of us.
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I’ve been struggling to articulate something about Twitter for a while. It’s the thing that I think is its key strength. Here goes:
Twitter is/became a space for elite persuasion, a way to push ideas to elites across disciplines. Media, Hollywood, DC, tech.
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One other thing I think about for obvious reasons a lot: that conversation had the crackle of live radio just minus … uhhh … all the other uhhh stuff that goes with live radio.
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Weird and interesting is an extremely good start, IMO!
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If you’re wondering … could Mastodon really be a thing? I think the answer is yes, but it is definitely choking on all the new users. For a certain late-00s Twitter user, though, it’s delightfully nostalgic!
I’m over there. It’s weird and interesting.
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So few books lavish this kind of attention and love on friendship between men.
There are so many dumb depictions of being bros, and nearly none of actually being friends, with the depth, reciprocity, and tenderness that implies.
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Click the link below to 
listen to our podcast!
@huahsu on his new memoir "Stay True" w/ @alexismadrigal: apple.co/3E05Dsn3
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Diana Magaloni's talk on the Florentine Codex is my soundcloud:
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Because writing is special. Scholar of Mesoamerican art, Diana Magaloni, described the Mexica view like this:
"The unfolding of words is believed to be the unfolding of flowers."
And the flowers?
"The flowers are the crystallized energy of the sun.”
read image description
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I mean, shit, word-people spend thousands of hours on books that they know—despite their fever dreams—will be read by 100s, maybe 1000s, of people.
I've done it. Maybe you've done it.
We'll do it again. Of course.
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Also, if you’re word person, that’s ok. You don’t have to make dance videos or start a podcast or become an influencer.
Make a zine. Build a miniature marigold museum.
Like, since when did word people abide by arbitrary character counts and corporate whims?
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The practical advice that derives from this realization is simple: let’s go crazy. Go on other platforms. Tweet like Teju Cole used to. Create a discord for you and old friends. Build an internet protocol like .
It’s not like we were getting paid to make stuff here?
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But text is agile and light. It can go anywhere, costs almost nothing to produce, and is glorious to create on its own terms.
We will have smaller audiences, smaller platforms, less virality. But the Words with Friends part? That could be better than ever freed from Scale.
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The prominence of text on the internet was basically due to bandwidth limitations. Radio and TV were easily more popular than newspapers and magazines. Text has probably never had such wide readership as it did over the last 20 years. But … we’re regressing to the norm (probs?)
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The anxiety that word-people feel about the end of Twitter isn’t just about Twitter (tho it is that too!) — it’s also about our declining relevance on an internet that has turned largely visual with a side-helping of audio.
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Something I’ve been thinking about Twitter: for those of us who are word people, this was once our place. “Words with Friends” as once put it.
TikTok may be exciting and engaging, but it’s not about words.
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Maybe you wonder… will I see relevant content somewhere else that is not Twitter. Joined Mastodon an hour ago and already I am confronted with this absolutely perfect question
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And like … I will have a Discord to share with people soon, too. An emergent alternative that is like:
Texting tool
Newsletter
Mastodon
Discord
It feels very Web 1.0 … but I’m also not good at making dance videos and actively don’t want the kind of virality TikTok “offers”
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Like even if you don’t succeed in building some alternative network away from Twitter… that time can’t be more misspent then … reading some buckle up threads and Elon speculation? Right?
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My current strategy: posting here and then following everyone who follows me on Mastodon 😅
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For Bay Area folks on that Mastodon, let me know… I think the hardest thing is figuring out who to follow to so that you can see what is going on. A very weird kind of escape velocity.
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I thiiiiink that a Discord-like future is more likely than a Mastodon-like future, but … we’ll see?
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I mean … maybe it is time to try it? Created an account at least
sfba.social/@alexismadrigal
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I am looking forward to seeing @alexismadrigal on the sfba.social server! <3
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What is there to do, but go and be?
Best not to try too hard to catch sight of the alternate Mes living out those other lives or self-flagellate over my language almost-dids.
This is life, the path you are on, that you found yourself on, surrounded by those spectral traces.
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And the fact that I haven’t been back for 25 years suddenly feels less like an accident and more like genuine fear. Fear of loving it too much or not enough? Fear of feeling strange and alien or totally at home?
I’m overthinking it, I know.
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It’s also crazy to visit a place where I know my family has had roots for 500 years. And I was born there, too. Yet… I don’t know it at all. Like, what is my relationship to this place? I have no idea, but many feelings.
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Going to Mexico City tomorrow — and I’m honestly worried I have *too many* recommendations. Everyone I know goes and finds their own set of things to love. I almost don’t want to know any more than I already do?
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This, exactly
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Replying to @alexismadrigal
Now I know precisely what I would do if I ever had a 5-second warning of impending doom: gape at my phone screen wondering what to do.
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