This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss posting through it, art that pisses people off, and convos with the FBI.
SAM: So, okay. Let’s talk about the east coast earthquake that just happened this morning, because it’s the only thing anyone is talking about right now.
Whenever Weather happens in NYC the first thing people do is run to Twitter. It’s been that way for years and years, and it still happens even now, despite lots of people having performatively or sincerely left the platform in the last few years following Elon’s takeover and its disintegration into unusable, bot-choked, PUSSY IN BIO ashes. This impulse to post through a big shared event is more about being seen than it is about the particular platform you’re seen on. We want, intrinsically, to share events or experiences with others. And unlike the latest hate-read personal essay or multi-layer meme, an earthquake—or snow, or a particularly stunning sunset, other classic NYC Twitter phenomena—is a shared event that requires no previous online context. I realize I’m explaining the concept of being a human right now, but I say all of this because it reminds me of when hyper-local online bulletin boards were the “social media platform” that people flocked to for these sorts of things.