I May Be 15 Percent Twitter
Why I’m still tweeting
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How many things do you do consistently for 15 years? For me, it’s not a lot, and if you would’ve told me on March 19, 2007, that my first inconsequential tweet would be the beginning of 15 years of pithy Twitter missives, I know I would’ve laughed in your face.
Where were we in 2007?
- I was still in my 40s
- I was celebrating 15 years of marriage
- I was on my first Editor-in-Chief gig
- George W. Bush was President
- Facebook was three years old
I didn’t realize I’d been Tweeting for 15 years — through four jobs and two layoffs — but Twitter, a much more developed and institutional presence than it was when I signed up, now reminds everyone of their #TwitterAnniversary (and encourages you to share the news on, of course, Twitter).
There are things I’ve started and stopped in the digital space, various fads and trends that I’ve tried and abandoned, but somehow, Twitter stuck. Social media is littered with the corpses of abandoned or greatly diminished platforms like Friendster, Houseparty, Vine, and Meerkat.
I’ve used them all, but none with the length or consistency of Twitter. Facebook might be considered a close second, but I can go days without looking at the platform, which I find less useful every day.
Twitter is different, though. Not just because it has changed, grown, and matured over the last decade and a half (it launched a year before I joined), but because it’s consistently filled some gap within me.
In essence, I’m now 15% Twitter.
I start every day on Twitter — just ask my phone. Even if only measured by time, it’s a fair guess that I check Twitter 20 to 30 times a day. There are days where I tweet a few times, others where I tweet a dozen, and some — those live-tweet days — where I approach 100.
