As was the case in the glory days of The AV Club, how I envy the ability to have a whole team covering television, rather than figuring out what I can do myself.
Which is why I'm glad you've created this place and brought in Donna, et al to be part of it.
See most of what you're associating with "TV Twitter" for me I associate with the heyday of TV recapping and recap comment sections itself. I understand twitter was a big deal for academics, TV critics, entertainment journalists etc. but for me as a civilian the sense of community etc. you're describing came from the actual AV Club itself (and also from non-AV Club writers like Sepinwall, Emily Nussbaum, Matt Soller Zeitz et al at their publications at the time) And I'm not one of those anti-twitter people. I was a heavy user of the platform from 2009 to the day the Elon Musk deal went through when I deactivated my account. It's just that following my favorite TV recappers on twitter was also secondary or even tertiary to actually reading recaps and their comment sections in their heyday. The big loss for me in re: TV commentary still remains the collapse of the old, good AV Club and with it a huge overall decrease in the amount of week to week recapping going on and the near death of worthwhile comment sections.
Hahaha. Is "Sure, I can now text Alan Sepinwall whenever I want" the greatest ever TV critic flex that wasn't actually intended to be a TV critic flex?
Great read and I feel awful for those of you who can use social media without turning into a giant anxiety bag that compulsively checks for replies. Needless to say, Twitter wasn't my jam. But I agree wholeheartedly with Lynn's sentiment above. The system (and the writers) here foster comment sections full of intelligent, thoughtful folks who know how to discuss and disagree without disparaging. I used to avoid comment sections like the plague they generally were. Here I'm actively seeking out the comments.
My early Twitter feed was probably a lot like yours, although I never had the strong desire to do a lot of my own writing. I remember finding Alan's blog I think when googling stuff about Chuck, which he was reviewing at the time. TV twitter was a space that I felt like I was able to read conversations between people I'd very likely never meet, but found very interesting. Critics, TV writers/showrunners/etc, other interested parties. I never would have found some of the podcasts or other people that I have read or listened to over the years (including reading the backlog of Cultural Learnings Buffy posts back in the day...).
I wouldn't read/watch/listen to nearly as much of the stuff that I do without Twitter because it'd be too hard to find amid the large amount of content out there without the Twitterverse. So...yeah. Hopefully it doesn't implode.
I guess I hadn't ever imagined that the fragmenting of the TV landscape (and the kind of death of live tweeting / appointment viewing) would eventually be followed by the fragmenting of the (TV) Twitter Community itself. I don't think I can manage following so many different people to so many different apps; it would be nice to just be able to still engage with everyone in one space all at once. I'm sure in a few years, we all will have found just the right niche space(s), on Discord or Mastadon or wherever (here I assume!), but it won't be 'the whole gang' so much as a new, different, cool community.
I joined Twitter in 2010, during LOST's final season, and TV was my main focus and reason for joining. I just wanted to livetweet and make friends and see the AV Club's feed and think about TV in ways that most people I knew IRL were not thinking about TV. [That's different now; I've been rambling about TV and TV Criticism at most of my close friends for years, so a bunch of them have since joined me.]
But even when I was mostly lurking, I could always rely on the fact that TV Twitter would just be there (though my Twitter timeline is hopelessly confused as it combines academic, professional, and personal interests in weird ways). And that "follows back" element definitely feels nice (thank you for the recent follow back and also T_T). It was just comforting to know that this beautiful, fun, weird, parasocial space was always there, so I could check in on what you or Emily or Alan (or dozens of other TV people, well-known or otherwise) were watching or chatting about or promoting.
I lurked on Twitter for years but after I got into the TV show Bones on Netflix I started live tweeting the show in 2014 and made many friends. However for me Twitter has gone downhill for years. I tried to replicate my experience with Bones with the show Sleepy Hollow and as many know the show fell off a cliff and the fan conversations became incredibly toxic. I swore off TV fandom after that but I didn’t realize that meant meaningful connections on TV Twitter were mostly over too. While you have stayed engaged, Myles, many TV critics have pulled back. We can talk about the loss now but for me I would pinpoint the death of TV Twitter to 2016. It wasn’t just Trump. It was also Gamergate. Just one too many instances of awfulness that just made it all less fun.
I am happy with Substack. It is not the same as the heyday of TV Twitter but at least everyone is kind even when we disagree. I am able to have meaningful conversations about TV here and at a few other places. Oh and one note on Mastodon: there were a couple moments last week where I got a glimpse of the old TV Twitter. (Both James P and Emily Nussbaum are there) It might be short lived (between the tech and the odd culture there, not sure it’s going to take off) but it gave me this stab of nostalgia!
I have used Twitter most often to post jokes and observations, sometimes to gripe at customer service for this or that business, and very occasionally to engage a tiny bit with public figures. I get that many people do manage to use it as a platform for ongoing discourse (and flamewars), but it's just not a good fit for the way my attention works. I guess that's why I'm a little happy to see it burn - if it goes away maybe whatever comes next will suit me better - but I do feel for you and others for whom it has been important.
Any Young Royals thoughts to share? Or have you not had a chance to watch S2 yet?
I am bereft over the slowdemise of Twitter. I follow a lot of TV critics (you included, Myles) there, but don't engage with them very often. But I like to see what they are watching cause maybe I'll like it.
But mostly I have found a community of other TV fans on Twitter that has been really lovely. Not a specific show (though most of them I found through TVD) but just a love of television and watching television and enjoying television as a medium. I have a discord with a group of this community but it's not the full experience and I'm going to miss it.
I haven’t logged in since the purchase, but I should if only to figure out where people have gone. But, I’ve always been a lurker. I never posted at AVC, but I did read a lot. I listen to a bunch of tv podcasts, but don’t engage with their social media either. I’ll miss having everything in one place, but I’ll keep finding places to read the commentary of the people who think more carefully about this than I do.
One thing I think is important to note is that Twitter itself has changed considerably over the years. It used to be much easier, as I recall, to both find conversations about topics one liked and to be discovered by others in turn. Hence, community-building and following-building used to be easier than it is now. In fact, I'd say unless one already has a following, the odds of building a Twitter following from scratch is quite slim. The algorithm changes came to guarantee that even your close mutuals seem to be exposed considerably less to your feed than they used to be, minimizing engagement. So, If Twitter goes down, I will miss it. But I'll prob-ly miss moreso the Twitter that used to be, not what it is today.
Also, I want to say that this is a very inspirational piece.
Over the years, I've been influenced quite a bit by the AVClub-style of writing to try my own hand at recaps. I actually loved the grading system, so I've been trying to replicate it over at my own blog and now my newsletter (https://textualvariations.substack.com/s/serials). Knowing what your journey has been, Mr. McNutt, gives me hope about indeed becoming a professional TV critic myself in the future.
As was the case in the glory days of The AV Club, how I envy the ability to have a whole team covering television, rather than figuring out what I can do myself.
Which is why I'm glad you've created this place and brought in Donna, et al to be part of it.
See most of what you're associating with "TV Twitter" for me I associate with the heyday of TV recapping and recap comment sections itself. I understand twitter was a big deal for academics, TV critics, entertainment journalists etc. but for me as a civilian the sense of community etc. you're describing came from the actual AV Club itself (and also from non-AV Club writers like Sepinwall, Emily Nussbaum, Matt Soller Zeitz et al at their publications at the time) And I'm not one of those anti-twitter people. I was a heavy user of the platform from 2009 to the day the Elon Musk deal went through when I deactivated my account. It's just that following my favorite TV recappers on twitter was also secondary or even tertiary to actually reading recaps and their comment sections in their heyday. The big loss for me in re: TV commentary still remains the collapse of the old, good AV Club and with it a huge overall decrease in the amount of week to week recapping going on and the near death of worthwhile comment sections.
Hahaha. Is "Sure, I can now text Alan Sepinwall whenever I want" the greatest ever TV critic flex that wasn't actually intended to be a TV critic flex?
Great read and I feel awful for those of you who can use social media without turning into a giant anxiety bag that compulsively checks for replies. Needless to say, Twitter wasn't my jam. But I agree wholeheartedly with Lynn's sentiment above. The system (and the writers) here foster comment sections full of intelligent, thoughtful folks who know how to discuss and disagree without disparaging. I used to avoid comment sections like the plague they generally were. Here I'm actively seeking out the comments.
My early Twitter feed was probably a lot like yours, although I never had the strong desire to do a lot of my own writing. I remember finding Alan's blog I think when googling stuff about Chuck, which he was reviewing at the time. TV twitter was a space that I felt like I was able to read conversations between people I'd very likely never meet, but found very interesting. Critics, TV writers/showrunners/etc, other interested parties. I never would have found some of the podcasts or other people that I have read or listened to over the years (including reading the backlog of Cultural Learnings Buffy posts back in the day...).
I wouldn't read/watch/listen to nearly as much of the stuff that I do without Twitter because it'd be too hard to find amid the large amount of content out there without the Twitterverse. So...yeah. Hopefully it doesn't implode.
Oof, this hits really hard.
I guess I hadn't ever imagined that the fragmenting of the TV landscape (and the kind of death of live tweeting / appointment viewing) would eventually be followed by the fragmenting of the (TV) Twitter Community itself. I don't think I can manage following so many different people to so many different apps; it would be nice to just be able to still engage with everyone in one space all at once. I'm sure in a few years, we all will have found just the right niche space(s), on Discord or Mastadon or wherever (here I assume!), but it won't be 'the whole gang' so much as a new, different, cool community.
I joined Twitter in 2010, during LOST's final season, and TV was my main focus and reason for joining. I just wanted to livetweet and make friends and see the AV Club's feed and think about TV in ways that most people I knew IRL were not thinking about TV. [That's different now; I've been rambling about TV and TV Criticism at most of my close friends for years, so a bunch of them have since joined me.]
But even when I was mostly lurking, I could always rely on the fact that TV Twitter would just be there (though my Twitter timeline is hopelessly confused as it combines academic, professional, and personal interests in weird ways). And that "follows back" element definitely feels nice (thank you for the recent follow back and also T_T). It was just comforting to know that this beautiful, fun, weird, parasocial space was always there, so I could check in on what you or Emily or Alan (or dozens of other TV people, well-known or otherwise) were watching or chatting about or promoting.
I lurked on Twitter for years but after I got into the TV show Bones on Netflix I started live tweeting the show in 2014 and made many friends. However for me Twitter has gone downhill for years. I tried to replicate my experience with Bones with the show Sleepy Hollow and as many know the show fell off a cliff and the fan conversations became incredibly toxic. I swore off TV fandom after that but I didn’t realize that meant meaningful connections on TV Twitter were mostly over too. While you have stayed engaged, Myles, many TV critics have pulled back. We can talk about the loss now but for me I would pinpoint the death of TV Twitter to 2016. It wasn’t just Trump. It was also Gamergate. Just one too many instances of awfulness that just made it all less fun.
I am happy with Substack. It is not the same as the heyday of TV Twitter but at least everyone is kind even when we disagree. I am able to have meaningful conversations about TV here and at a few other places. Oh and one note on Mastodon: there were a couple moments last week where I got a glimpse of the old TV Twitter. (Both James P and Emily Nussbaum are there) It might be short lived (between the tech and the odd culture there, not sure it’s going to take off) but it gave me this stab of nostalgia!
I have used Twitter most often to post jokes and observations, sometimes to gripe at customer service for this or that business, and very occasionally to engage a tiny bit with public figures. I get that many people do manage to use it as a platform for ongoing discourse (and flamewars), but it's just not a good fit for the way my attention works. I guess that's why I'm a little happy to see it burn - if it goes away maybe whatever comes next will suit me better - but I do feel for you and others for whom it has been important.
Any Young Royals thoughts to share? Or have you not had a chance to watch S2 yet?
I am bereft over the slowdemise of Twitter. I follow a lot of TV critics (you included, Myles) there, but don't engage with them very often. But I like to see what they are watching cause maybe I'll like it.
But mostly I have found a community of other TV fans on Twitter that has been really lovely. Not a specific show (though most of them I found through TVD) but just a love of television and watching television and enjoying television as a medium. I have a discord with a group of this community but it's not the full experience and I'm going to miss it.
Dollhouse either is better now than it was all those years ago or horribly out of step with the times. I'd bet both.
I haven’t logged in since the purchase, but I should if only to figure out where people have gone. But, I’ve always been a lurker. I never posted at AVC, but I did read a lot. I listen to a bunch of tv podcasts, but don’t engage with their social media either. I’ll miss having everything in one place, but I’ll keep finding places to read the commentary of the people who think more carefully about this than I do.
P.S. Any thoughts about covering Slow Horses?
One thing I think is important to note is that Twitter itself has changed considerably over the years. It used to be much easier, as I recall, to both find conversations about topics one liked and to be discovered by others in turn. Hence, community-building and following-building used to be easier than it is now. In fact, I'd say unless one already has a following, the odds of building a Twitter following from scratch is quite slim. The algorithm changes came to guarantee that even your close mutuals seem to be exposed considerably less to your feed than they used to be, minimizing engagement. So, If Twitter goes down, I will miss it. But I'll prob-ly miss moreso the Twitter that used to be, not what it is today.
Also, I want to say that this is a very inspirational piece.
Over the years, I've been influenced quite a bit by the AVClub-style of writing to try my own hand at recaps. I actually loved the grading system, so I've been trying to replicate it over at my own blog and now my newsletter (https://textualvariations.substack.com/s/serials). Knowing what your journey has been, Mr. McNutt, gives me hope about indeed becoming a professional TV critic myself in the future.