Enjoy the silence: Twitter was down and we were free

I loved Twitter. I loved everything about it. It's where I met new friends. It's how I got most of my jobs. Like a new relationship, everything was sunshine, rainbows and the occasional fail whales. Hell, I even loved that damn whale. Then it got ugly. Very ugly and still I couldn't (I can't) walk away.

Today the timeline stopped. Everything just came to a halt for the first time in a long time. "Twitter is down," we'd scream from our keyboards, if we had access to Twitter. Maybe a few folks went over to Facebook to tell their friends and family. They don't care.

Instead of trolls, arguments about air conditioning, unhinged rants from our leaders, and memes that feel more and more like forced happiness, we have silence.

"Something is technically wrong," the site decries. My initial reaction of, "uh oh" is replaced with calm. This is how the relationship should end. I can't walk away on my own, I need it all to come crashing down. There's no FOMO when we're all turned away at the door of the world's shittiest club that also happens to have a few good bands on the lineup.

Twitter holds on to you because years ago you held onto it. A curated feed of friends and smart humans made for an interesting and dare I say it fun occasional escape. I gradually added more accounts to my feed like a ravenous dog chomping all as much data as my brain could handle. More friends. More friends. More friends. Everyone is equal. Everyone has something to say and it's weird AF and I was just filling my feed with their words and occasional cat GIFs.

Then the feeds turned ugly and the company didn't care. It still barely cares. It cares in the way that a psychopath cares when they are caught. They're not upset about what they've done. They're disappointed that they were caught.

Twitter has been weaponized. It's anger and depression and the worst comment section of the worst site come to life. A beast that breaths in bigotry and hate and coughs it out onto unsuspecting humans. A monster.

A horrible, soul-crushing monster that I can't stop staring at. I refresh my timeline tens maybe hundreds of times a day. I'm looking for a glimmer of joy. I see it here and there but it's fading and here I am feeding it with my inane observations hoping that I get a few hearts.

I'm trying to be clever in a sea of despair. I know it's a losing game but I won't stop. I'll load the app. I'll refresh the site. I'll DM my friends and ask them what they want for lunch. I'm so far into it, I can't fathom stopping.

So I need Twitter to be down. I need it to go away. I'm sure I'm not the only person in this sinking canoe.

Twitter will be back soon (it's already back) and like a codependent fool, I'll be back to refreshing the timeline and worst yet, I'll tweet this article.