Way of theworld Michael Deacon
Elon Musk’s $44billion takeover of Twitter is going better than I dared hope. Advertisers pulling out. Users deserting. Losses of $4 million a day. With any luck, the whole business will be bust by Christmas.
You may think that these comments are somewhat rich, coming from me. I regularly claim to hate Twitter and publicly yearn for its demise. And yet I myself use it every day. In fact, I’ve been using it every day for over 10 years. Surely, therefore, I’m being absurdly two-faced.
Not at all. Anyone making such an accusation has completely misunderstood my position.
It would be like saying to an alcoholic: “You claim to think that booze is ruinous and damaging. And yet you continue to drink it! What a hypocrite!”
The sad fact is, no matter how much I despise Twitter, I’m addicted to the infernal thing. And, like so many addicts, I simply don’t have the strength or self-discipline to quit. I’m far too weak and pathetic. Therefore, I am counting on
Mr Musk to save me, and millions of other feebleminded wretches, by running Twitter so badly that he drives it out of business. If he does, it will rank as his single greatest contribution to society. Even if he fulfils his stated dream of building a city on Mars, it will pale in significance next to his glorious unwitting destruction of this hellish, life-squandering website.
Leave aside the usual arguments about how Twitter has poisoned public debate, making it more tribalistic, spiteful and self-righteous. Leave aside, too, the way that (as I wrote on Saturday) Twitter has turned opinions into fashion statements, which people adopt purely to stay in with the in-crowd. All too often, when people tweet an opinion, they aren’t saying, “Here’s what I think about this particular topic.” What they’re really saying is, “I want to signal that I’m part of the social group that expresses this opinion,” or, “I want to be part of the social group that expresses this opinion, so I’m hoping that expressing it myself will encourage its members to accept me.” Obviously, this is bad. But if I had to give one single reason, above all others, why opening a Twitter account is so unwise, I would offer the following. Tweeting makes you feel like a celebrity – but with none of the upsides. Only the downsides.
By which I mean, you don’t get the money or the awards or the groupies or the glamorous photo shoots or the best tables at the hottest restaurants. But you do get the abuse and ridicule from complete strangers, and the peculiar unsolicited messages from people with an at-best tenuous grasp on reality, and the furious blowback whenever you say something that is considered contentious. Similarly, you find yourself getting discussed, analysed and righteously denounced by groups of people who have never met you in their lives.
In short: you get a small but rancid taste of what it must feel like to be public property, the way that celebrities are. But at least for celebrities there is another side of the bargain: they get to console themselves by counting their millions, polishing their Oscars and lounging around in their fabulous mansions. Whereas you, the mere Twitter user, make an exhibition of yourself for nothing.
And then, worse still, you find that you can’t stop doing it, because you’re hopelessly addicted. Which is why, unlike so many others on Twitter,
I do not see Elon Musk as a spoiled, juvenile, dim-witted, thin-skinned billionaire vandal. On the contrary, I see him as our saviour. What he is doing to Twitter will be of incalculable benefit to humanity. He is a hero for our times, and I wish him every failure.
Jeremy Hunt must have been delighted to read that the Civil Service has spent almost £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on twee “mindfulness” apps that feature celebrities reading bedtime stories. At last: something he can cut without angering voters.
Apparently these bedtime stories are necessary to help civil servants get to sleep. I’ve no doubt the celebrities – who include Dame Mary Berry – do a wonderful job. I’m not just sure why it’s the taxpayer who has to stump up for them, rather than the civil servants. I assume they don’t also bill the public for Ovaltine and teddy bears, although perhaps I should submit a Freedom of Information request, just to check.
Come to think of it, teddy bears would surely be cheaper than these apps. For the sake of the public finances, the Chancellor should announce that he is issuing each civil servant with a state-funded teddy bear or comfort blanket, according to preference. If they still can’t get to sleep, Suella Braverman will pop round to sing them a soothing lullaby.