Musk’s acquisition has been greater than just a little crazy-making on a platform the place many customers’ chief obsession is the positioning itself. The textual content field of Twitter nonetheless prompts each consumer with “What’s taking place?” What’s taking place, invariably, is that they’re taking a look at Twitter. This straightforward truth accounts for maybe 99 p.c of the acrimony on there, which is never about occasions within the outdoors world and ceaselessly in regards to the content material of different tweets. Nearly everybody who makes use of Twitter feels that he’s being wronged by it one way or the other, however he can’t cease wanting. And one of many perverse details about it’s that the extra energy and followers one accumulates, the extra one dangers turning into held forth for instance of all that’s mistaken on the planet — none extra so than the winner of the complete recreation of worldwide capitalism. No marvel Musk thinks there’s nonetheless worth to be unlocked: He loves the positioning, although his expertise with it’s more than likely horrible.
And since Musk is the one wealthiest individual on the planet, it’s simple for a lot of to imagine that the deal will not be a few want to refurbish and renew “the digital city sq.” however one thing extra nefarious or silly. Some — together with the second wealthiest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos — have speculated that Tesla’s publicity to the Chinese language market will in actual fact make it extra prone to censorship underneath Musk’s possession. Others have fretted about his now proudly owning journalists’ D.M.s; some assume that’s hilarious. There are some who worry that he’s going to deliver again former President Donald Trump, one other billionaire energy consumer of the platform; loads of others discover that concept exhilarating. He’s acknowledged a want to rein in bot accounts, which most likely seem to be an even bigger downside to you when you may have 85.4 million followers and tweet about crypto and inventory costs and the numbers 420 and 69. On Monday, individuals saved posting unflattering footage of him — from his PayPal days, or standing subsequent to Ghislaine Maxwell — joking it’ll be the final day they’ll get away with it.
And that is what’s so unsettling about his acquisition: the robust sense that — even at its most anodyne — it’s an act of self-importance, a way of bettering the private expertise of 1 consumer of the agora. And there’s one thing to it. Musk oozes with a desperation to be considered humorous, an ailment no amount of cash can repair and maybe his most relatable high quality. His outing on “Saturday Evening Dwell” was borderline painful to look at, even by modern “S.N.L.” requirements — particularly his monologue, which was filled with fascinating be-nice-to-me protection mechanisms: an announcement that he was the primary host with Asperger’s syndrome; an look by his mom, who hugged him and advised him she liked him; and a declaration of his imaginative and prescient for the long run: “I imagine in a renewable-energy future; I imagine that humanity should develop into a multiplanetary, spacefaring civilization.”
He paused after that half: “These seem to be thrilling objectives, don’t they? Now I believe if I simply posted that on Twitter, I’d be tremendous. However I additionally write issues like ‘69 days after 4/20 once more haha’ ” — an actual post from June 28, 2020, which was certainly 69 days after April 20 — “I don’t know, I assumed it was humorous. That’s why I wrote ‘haha’ on the finish. Look, I do know I typically say or publish unusual issues, however that’s simply how my mind works. To anybody I’ve offended, I simply wish to say: I reinvented electrical automobiles and I’m sending individuals to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you assume I used to be additionally going to be a chill, regular dude?”
By no means earlier than has the Twitter-user mentality been so neatly summarized: I do know it’s possible you’ll not like my jokes, however what it’s a must to perceive is that I’m truly cool. The capital markets have rewarded Musk richly for all of that; Twitter, dwelling of the guillotine meme, has not — or no less than not uniformly. However due to the previous, any frustration Musk might have with the latter can probably reshape the closest factor we’ve got to a digital city sq.. It’s not clear that there’s something to mourn on this altering of the guard, besides maybe for the truth that it may possibly occur in any respect.
