So Long, Twitter

In November 2022, shortly after Musk took over, I exported my twitter data. I used the platform sporadically in the years since and then deactivated my account a couple of times, logging in once a month to keep it alive. That was until the start of this year when I completely forgot about it and, when trying to log in, realised my account was no more. RIP.

Then, a couple of weeks back I rediscovered the data I had exported, so opened it up to take a look and noticed my first tweet was on the 14th of May 2009, so figured today would make for a good tribute post.

My very first tweet

The History

Although my first tweet was from 2009, it wasn’t until 2012 I start using it properly. It was a fun time and I did get to know a lot more people through it.

2012 the tweets began in earnest. Great taste young dav

Early days mostly consisted of League of Ireland posting, culminating in Rovers winning the league and subsequently an Irish social media all-timer (more on that below).

Glory days - May 2013

The vast majority of my tweets were from 2012 - 2016. I guess Trump came in then and made the site considerably shiter, with most people I followed tweeting less and just consuming content. Scanning through the export (which is pretty good btw, would recommend doing it if it’s still an option) I can see I tapered off at this time anyway.

Spotted this one from 10 years ago to the day as well, funnily enough

The Highs

There’s no getting away from it, twitter is by far the best for live information. It particularly excels when it comes to sporting moments. I mostly followed League of Ireland banter when I first started using it, and it’s poetic that the last time I really enjoyed it was Rovers’ European run during the summer of 2022.

#taxigate

A good laugh for all who remember it. Found an interaction with myself and the lovely legend Gary Dillon where he saved the original post.

I had also screenshot and saved one of my favourite interactions from the thread.

Taxigate

More of a Facebook thing but a great time for Sligo, and it trended above Obama’s re-election too iirc! The full Facebook transcript can be seen here.

Accounts

Some memorable accounts include limmy, beardedgenius, and, in recent times, dieworkwear, all of whom have made the move to Bluesky. Special mention to liverpoollogic in the pre-Klopp era, and sligostats and magnumlady for local lore.

Probably missed some good ones – it’s amazing how quickly you forget!

The Lows

Even before Musk took over I thought the platform was massively on the decline. Almost nobody I followed tweeted any more, and if they did I’d rarely see it, thanks to the algo changes that every social media platform adopted (cheers TikTok).

But it got sooo much worse then when Musk came in. So rich and yet such a massive loser, buying this just to feed his ego. We’ll probably never know the damage done because of his vanity – helping Trump get in again and amplifying the biggest gobshites going. Get annoyed just thinking about it so I’m going to take a break and touch some grass.

Thanks for the Memories

Happy to have the tweets exported for this trip down memory lane, though also happy to see the back of twitter. If I ever do want to check something out on the platform I use Xcancel which is pretty handy – you replace the x in the url with xcancel and you can view the tweet without an account.

I’m on Bluesky too and while it has improved a lot and is reminiscent of old twitter, it can’t really recapture what made twitter great in its time. But sin é.

So that’s it for Hamish McDougall – among many tweets about Pointless (or just pointless tweets heh) here are a couple from over the years: