Time to move beyond Twitter
Even without all the problems brought on by Musk, we were already getting sick of Twitter anyway weren't we?
Twitter has always been, let’s face it, the best and the worst of public discourse. On one hand it allows for thought-provoking quick observations, or longer threads delving deep into a topic. It’s a forum where non-conventional views that haven’t been heard before have been able to be expressed, bypassing long-entrenched mainstream media. But it is also, often, thoroughly stupid.
The character limit (which a distant memory tells me used to be even shorter at just 140 characters before 2017) forces brevity but also encourages simplification. Even when you’re trying for a more nuanced take with a thread, people will quote tweet one part out of context to encourage a pile-on (which have become ever more notorious and stupid over the years). It’s something that Kate Lindsay has written about and had a great discussion with Jon Favreau about on the Offline podcast this week. She’s written that more and more people are disengaging with these platforms because as addictive as they have become, they have also become increasingly unpleasant experiences for the user (especially for content generators).
These problems predate Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. But rather than fixing them, he seems intent on making them much worse. The result is that Twitter, or “X”, has become this weird confusing place with policy lurches and technical glitches that gives the whole thing the vibe of something that is imminently about to shut down. As I described it to Politico last month, Twitter has become an embarrassing place to be, like a formerly cool nightclub under awful new ownership that you’re still going to but you don’t know why.
Why this, why now?
Personally, I’m sick to death of Twitter. As a journalist, especially one who doesn’t work for mainstream outlets, it’s been a great place to post my work and get ideas and perspectives out there which are not normally part of the dominant media narrative. I have an unusual perspective - an American who moved to Europe 17 years ago and has become an avid European federalist, believing that a united Europe is the best hope for the world and that this continent needs to free itself from American dominance, be it cultural, economic or defensive. To be honest, those views have not always found me a natural home in British/American media or continental European media. It is a message many people, on either side of the Atlantic, don’t want to hear.
Twitter has given me the space to express those views. But it’s also a space where people with little understanding of the European perspective can take things out of context. I often feel like I’m failing to convince, and that the perspectives I’m trying to bridge between the English-speaking world and continental Europe remain exasperatingly far apart.
So, I’m migrating over to Substack to be able to express these perspectives in a more nuanced and thoughtful way than Twitter allows. It will be much like the Gulf Stream Blues (later renamed Brussels to Berlin) euroblog I wrote from 2006 to 2018. I’ll still be tweeting (Xing?) occasionally, but not as often as I used to. And usually just with links to my work on other platforms.
Who might be interested
I don’t want this Substack to be a place only for the already-convinced in the Brussels bubble. I want it to be a place where both Anglophones and continental Europeans can read about European politics and policy from a different lens - not the dominant Anglo-Saxon one. I want people to confront uncomfortable truths about the future of Europe and its dependence on the United States. I want to make people understand the context and importance of the push for a united and strategically autonomous Europe. Because I think both national continental European media and “international” Anglo-Saxon media have done a very bad job of telling that story to citizens.
A different perspective
You can call this “advocacy journalism” if you want to. The fact is, all journalist and media outlets have perspectives and biases even if they refuse to acknowledge it. This is my perspective. I am an American immigrant, based in Brussels, who has become an adopted European who believes in the European project and wants the European Union to not only exist, but be strong. If I had stayed in America and described myself as a journalist who wants the United States to exist and be strong, that would not be controversial. Nor would it be controversial for any national journalist to say that about their country. But in Europe, especially in the UK, holding such views about the EU is somehow seen as bias.
It’s time for Europe to wake up and get ready for the 21st century. As a journalist, I report the news with this in mind. If that bothers you, then this is not the Substack for you. But if you want to hear about European politics and policy from a different lens than you’re used to, I invite you to click the subscribe button below. I’ll try not to disappoint you!