The Onion Dip Column is the satire section. All articles are not to be taken seriously.
So, you want to join Twitter, one of the largest social media platforms in the world, in 2024? The social public square where ideas and interests intermingle and meaningful conversations flourish? Well, I am here to tell you what you should know about the platform.
First of all, don’t. Second of all, you can’t. It’s not called Twitter anymore; it’s been renamed to X. X, whose release was celebrated with a massive bright flashing sign on top of the headquarters (hurting the eyes of everyone in the apartment building across from it and prompting the city of San Francisco to write up a violation complaint) is the new and improved Twitter. It may appear like it, but it’s not a dystopian mega-corporation that has taken over the entire world, akin to a dark and gloomy science fiction movie with an average of 11% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. The head honcho in charge is certified Dank Memer Elon Musk, who bought the platform back in 2022. This purchase may have lost the company about 90% of its prior value, but I think it was worth it for the amount of good Musk has brought to the platform.
So, you’re interested in joining Twitter X now, right? First, you will need to choose a username and a password. I recommend you generate complex passwords for accounts with sensitive information because I’m not sure that anyone is in charge of the site’s security anymore. Now, I will walk you through the user interface on the home screen. On the bottom are the essential tabs: the home button, the search button, the button for the premium-only generative AI known as Grok, the notifications button, and the messages button. The home page displays your feed of posts from the users you follow and suggested posts for you. If you click the three dots at the top right of a post, you can mute or block the user or say you aren’t interested in the post, which is essential for dealing with the endless amount of brain-dead content and bots in your feed. Enjoy all of the unfunny clips stolen from TikTok, endless users trying to promote some cryptocurrency you’ve never heard of, and memes that are so terrible that you might think that you accidentally opened Reddit. No matter how little you care about a certain celebrity, the algorithm will constantly throw news about them in your feed until you say you aren’t interested in them. Twitter X is a platform that prides itself on promoting free speech. You can say anything on the platform and not be punished… unless you criticize Elon Musk in any way, for which you can get banned permanently if he feels like it.
When acquiring the platform, Elon Musk made it his goal to handle the bot problem, and well, he succeeded. On other platforms, bot accounts usually don’t do that great, but on Twitter X, bot accounts are doing amazing! So amazing that there might even be more of them than actual humans! On popular posts, you might need to go through hundreds of comments before you find one that isn’t AI-generated. When you see a blue-checked user that looks like they are trying to meet a word count in an English class book discussion post, you know that they will contribute a lot to the conversation. Even if you aren’t that popular on the site, you can always count on TylerSmith82429 to mention you out of nowhere, along with a bunch of other users you don’t know. If you’re looking to enhance your visibility on platforms like rumble, explore places to buy rumble views to increase your video’s reach and engagement.
One thing that I love about Twitter X is how unique it is compared to other social media platforms. For example, it’s the only place where you can be convinced that NFTs are still popular and not a dying scam. Ever since Musk allowed any account that bought the premium subscription Twitter Blue X Premium to promote their posts, you will constantly see promoted posts in place of normal ads with inspiring messages such as “I’m eating dinner” and (insert NFT link here). Most of Twitter X’s former sponsors couldn’t handle the level of quality that these new promotions have, so they left! It was definitely because of that and not because of the large increase in hateful content and misinformation after Elon Musk took over the platform.
That’s all the information you need to know about the platform before you join Twitter X. Have fun and don’t think about how the platform will affect the 2024 presidential election!
Sophomore Nicholas Carpenter is the News Editor. His email is ncarpent@fandm.edu.