I distinctly recall logging onto Twitter for the first time in January 2009, and becoming gripped by Questlove — drummer of The Roots — wandering around suburban America, liveblogging an afternoon of shopping for “sneakers”.

This was an almost Joycean level of internality, and for all the clichés about people “blogging their breakfast”, it was engaging. It felt like someone was building a map of human consciousness. But as the years rolled on, the site underwent a range of psychological transformations. As Twitter today marks 20 years since it was founded, its lifecycle speaks to the evolution of a once-innocent app.

There was a moment around 2012 when user uptake had grown to the point where that early intimacy began to shear off. Suddenly, your boss — and possibly your next boss — was listening in, which meant a certain professional performativity crept in. An era of mass cancellation then followed.

By 2016, the algorithm had become central to the character of the site. Soon, whatever niche following a user had built up mattered less — we had moved away from personal, curated audiences towards chasing keywords, conflict, momentary trends.

The greatest change in the past decade has been the move from genuinely social media platforms towards a form of user-generated broadcast media. The service is a global aggregator, bringing viewers a neat selection of brain-droppings from news to opinions to outright clickbait slop, with which they barely interact.

Overall, what we’ve learned is that we cannot step into the same river twice. That once quite sweet app, where Questlove could take us through his morning, is gone. We lived through a golden era of psychological naivety, a time when we trusted like toddlers. Then we lived through an age where we tried to manipulate what Twitter could be and bend it to our own purposes — when we were wilful and cynical like teenagers. Now, perhaps, we are in a kind of maturity — or perhaps a kind of dotage — as the relationship between user and site has become one of passive consumption.

What we have learned about ourselves is that we are all individuals until the algorithm takes over. Intimate confessions now just sound lame or creepy. Esoteric, side-mouthy internet humour — in the style of the cult account @Dril — has fallen into the sinkhole it created. Strident appeals to social justice have played themselves as simple calls for personal attention. What we’re left with in the Musk era feels like the end of history: an over-optimised site bubbling with a narcotic mix of trite rage and light humour.

In fact, it is only another link in the chain: the beat goes on. Occasional pioneers will continue to test out new forms of engagement, which can now even drag in revenue. But then, occasionally, the gods of the algorithm will upend the hierarchy by rewriting its laws.

Is this where we want to be? One thing Musk toyed with in his earliest days of ownership was removing the totals from “likes”, ending the tyranny of quantity. Perhaps that would be a better world. But we can’t return to the Eden of 2006. Instead, we wait to see what the next stage of the lifecycle will be.

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Gavin Haynes is a journalist and former editor-at-large at Vice.

@gavhaynes

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