It’s funny cause people tell me *all the time* how they’ve learned from me and found community through my posts and been uplifted and connected to others and gotten tools to recognize and fight hate and felt less alone in the world. But I guess fuck that right? I’m not accomplishing anything.
I mean I guess that this is certainly one very privileged way to engage with social media, where you already know everything so what’s the point in listening and learning, but I am unquestionably a better informed and more engaged person because of people on Twitter whose labor was invaluable to me
I have had the entire world opened up for me by being exposed to countless marginalized communities that I’d otherwise had very little opportunity to meet and learn from IRL. But I also had to do that *with intention*.
exactly, how you interact with it is a choice
if you only ever see people who think exactly like you do, sure, I guess I can see how the whole thing feels like an exercise in collective wanking
The way these people talk about online interaction *online* just tells me they aren't serious people. Like they just drift online and say shit for an ego/brand boost but hide behind "none of this matters" when it's convenient, to weasel out of consequences, etc.
Bingo, that’s exactly it. Anyone who doesn’t think online is “real life” isn’t being serious or authentic and clearly has never made a friend online. (Tbh they’re probably not great at making friends offline either.) Sad way to live not connecting with anyone.
As a lurker, I learned so much from Black Twitter that as a middle-aged suburban white lady, I wouldn't know. Like, I liked to think I was mostly well-meaning, but the change in my frame of mind was important to my growth as a person.
Black Twitter is a perfect example of how people can learn from in-community conversations that don’t include them without interrupting or inserting yourself or demanding emotional labor. you just follow and listen and on your OWN TIME you get to examine where you’re experiencing personal discomfort
I am eternally grateful for getting to see a community to which I don't belong talking to each other. The experience was edifying, and it would be impossible outside social media.
and it’s applicable to so many things. I remember a thing years ago where some story about harassment of women in hijabs in France was in the news and I realized I didn’t have nearly enough Muslim women on my TL to be hearing actual informed opinions and I needed to expand the POVs I was taking in
Lurking on Black Twitter has legitimately taught me more than anything I learned in school, or thousands of hours of brilliant PBS documentaries (where I actually learned history)
It's also a very odd self-own. Like, ok, stipulate that you've never learned anything from anyone else's posts bc Boomer/X cis white man. You're ALSO saying you know for sure no one has learned anything or chosen to take an action from one of yours? EVER? REALLY? You're that insipid??
It’s good to get other points of view!! You’ll feel enriched. I certainly learned that politician decision within the same sphere is healthy to broaden your scope, even if you don’t agree. And the arguments aren’t wrong just because you disagree on some detail.
Idk why I want this bit but I want to be clear: I am talking about like “the finer points of socialism versus anarchism versus communism and all that” not “do marginalized people deserve rights?” Because the latter is not to be debated.
