With the dumpster fire that is Twitter burning hotter each passing day, Meta’s Threads promises a similar user experience outside of Elon Musk’s control and influence.
Our relationship with Twitter is contentious… to say the least. On the one hand, it’s our most-followed social media handle that unsurprisingly boasts our highest impressions. On the other hand, Musk-era Twitter has since evolved into a platform that’s growing riddled with transphobia, right-wing conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, a collection of hate speech, the list goes on. (Thanks for literally nothing, Elon Musk.)
The latter issues on the social media platform is why the SF LGBT Center chose to leave Twitter altogether — an applaudable, honorable decision. We imagine that we’d do the exact same thing if we weren’t a local media company. But, alas, we are, and Twitter continues to play a vital role in journalism… though that prominence seems to rest on a hollow tree branch, as of late.
When Threads — Meta’s attempt to Ctrl-Alt-C Twitter’s functionality — launched last night, we were hesitant to jump on board. Another app, our aging Millennial minds shouted. Mind you, Meta is owned by another white Billionaire, the human-robot and still-problematic-biped Mark Zuckerberg. As author Stephen King searingly put it: Wow, we now get to choose between Zuckerberg and Musk. What a gift
It does feel like ingesting the lesser toxic of two poisons. But nonetheless, Threads, thus far, reminds us of Twitter in its firefly-catching days. It’s simpler, far less cumbersome, void of sponsorships and ads — for now — and the algorithm hasn’t yet fed us anything we’ve cringed upon seeing (sans a post from hustle culture magnet Gary Vee).
Because we really don’t give a single fuck about our screen time these days — you never know when your last scroll is going to be, tbh — we were the first independently owned SF Bay Area publication to sign up.
Hooray, what a treat! It’s unclear how we’re going to evolve with Threads, especially considering how young the product is, but you can rest assured it won’t sit as a copy-and-paste to what we post on Twitter. All we know now for certain is that uploaded pictures appear clearer on Threads than on Twitter. That makes sense because, well, you know… Threads is a “product of Instagram.”
Follow us on threads.net/@underscore_sf, if you want. *sparkle emoji*
Feature image: Courtesy of Meta
