Making Peace with Losing Twitter

Learning about learning online

I’ve been on Twitter for a few years now and in spite of its flaws have benefited from the bird app in a big way! Thanks to Twitter I have read the works of thinkers and academics I had never heard of in grad school. I have accessed most of our Reframeables’ guests through the platform without agents or gatekeepers blocking me. Even my freelance writing opportunities have come from scrolling. Imperfect—yes. Useful—also yes! So watching the devolution of the platform play out in real time since that guy took over has really bummed me out.

And yet, one poet I follow tweeted, “Folks leaving twitter confuse me. As artists we spend our lives working inside oppressive systems [and] Twitter is just a system. It also has tools to make liberatory room…Keep making this our space. Ours to make.”

So this post is going to be one such liberatory effort. I am going to stay in the social media fight a little longer! In the vein of

Roxane Gay

and her weekly round up, I’m going to compile and share a list of my own. These are a few pieces and people I’ve found on Twitter over the years that have changed the way I both teach and learn—helping to make Good Enough the kind of space I want it to be:

1. Rania El Mugammar’s The Anatomy of an Apology divides “sorry” into pieces. Each piece is a component of a larger whole that cannot be fully realized as an apology until cohered. Unified. The blanks filled in. It’s beautiful and thought provoking. Social justice enacted.

2. What It Is I Think I'm Doing
   writer Kaitlyn Greenidge has been one of my favourite Twitter finds. She is the features director for Harpers Bazaar US and a writer. Last year I taught an article she wrote to my grade 12s — “Just Because I’m a Woman” — all about Dolly Parton and feminist art-making. It was not an easy read but the students rose to the challenge. I sent Greenidge a DM about our experience with her words and both teacher and students alike felt very seen in her generous response!

3. Poets like Hanif Abdurraqib and Chen Chen are Twitter finds that I may have come across in other places, but on Twitter I have enjoyed reading some of their informally published thoughts. Poets have a disruptive effect in the online space I have found. Their effective use of 240 characters is a model for choosing words with care!

4. Imani Barbarin (otherwise known as Crutches&Spice) is a disability community advocate and activist who I would not have known about (nor learned from) had it not been for Twitter. And she makes the very important point that the loss of Twitter means the loss of key communities for those who do not have the same access outside of that space.

Is there someone you know about who I should follow before things devolve completely? I would love to read your thoughts!