Colm O'Regan: Twitter's gone sour — where to next?

Mastodon might be the next big thing, but I'll always thank Facebook for the memories

On Twitter you could say that you liked Spuds and someone would reply WHAT ABOUT CARROTS. But on LinkedIn you could announce you’ve just joined an exciting project in suppressing popular uprisings and someone will say BRILLIANT NEWS YOU’LL CRUSH IT GIRLBOSS.

Twitter’s gone sour. Or sourer. Sensible people aren’t bothered. They’ve somehow managed to live their lives without social media. The weirdos. But some people are worried and thinking of moving.

They are moving to a thing called Mastodon. A social network which is a bit like...eh…em…Basically, it has a thing called a … Sorry, I’ve spent too much time on social media has rotted my ability to understand details.

There are the social networks like TikTok for dancing and shaming and shaming about dancing and also surprising effective 40-second history lessons. Or WhatsApp which is the perfect place for people who have not been getting enough information about local crime.

Maybe you’ve sought refuge in LinkedIn where everyone is delighted with your news. On Twitter you could say that you liked Spuds and someone would reply WHAT ABOUT CARROTS. But on LinkedIn you could announce you’ve just joined an exciting project in suppressing popular uprisings and someone will say BRILLIANT NEWS YOU’LL CRUSH IT GIRLBOSS.

And then there’s Facebook. Occasionally you get glimpses of a time you were happy there. Facebook is both a good way to publicise the fundraising coffee morning for the school and the greatest threat to democracy since Genghis Khan. (I’m not sure Genghis was targeting democracy per se but I’m sure if some sleeveen told him about it, he’d make a pile of democracy’s skulls just for lulz.)

But there’s one thing that Facebook has that is seductive for nostalgics like me. The memories.

Facebook will surprise you on any given day with a reminder of what happened on that day a few years ago. It’s not a new concept. “On this day” is a regular feature in media but that’s about boring inconsequential stuff like inventing electricity or recapturing Sicily. This is far more important. This is “What I Posted Off The Top Of My Head” on this day on a year between 2007 and last year. It’s nice for remembering people who’ve moved on in every sense or seeing photos of your children when you thought they were Fierce Grown Up but you realise they were only little dotey dotes.

During Covid it was a poignant feature. As we all stayed at home sharing WhatsApps of rumours of the army about to impose martial law, a memory would pop up on phones of happier, carefree times.

You’d be there dreaming about the possibility of visiting a toilet other than your own and Facebook would tell you about the time you were in Kusadasi or Bali or Mizen Head and you were absolutely “living your best life”. Powerboating or kitesurfing or experiencing an awkward silence with a strange cousin at a christening.

Maybe lockdown Level 5 of you got a reminder of 2015 when you were dancing topless to Declan Nerney at Burning Man (you thought it was Declan Nerney, you’d had some ayahuasca) and then your older relative who didn’t know it was a memory thought it was the present day commented “Where’s that? I thought we were in lockdown?”

Now it’s the opposite. We’re all getting memories of Christmas 2020 and 2021. Some of you are reliving standing outside a house drinking cans with the camera arranged to hide how many people were there. Others no doubt are being reminded of their academic posts and how they “aint letting no Big Pharma near me with the mind-control jab” but they quietly got it in the end.

So whatever about undermining democracy or rotting our brains, at least I can say this to Facebook: Thanks for the memories.

• Speaking of memory, Colm’s acclaimed award-nominated latest book Climate Worrier is out now.