The “last days” of Twitter (I say last days, social media platforms have a kind of undead quality to them) remind me of the “last days” of Livejournal.

If memory serves, LJ’s decline began in around 2009/2010 when it was bought by a Russian social media company and bot accounts on the platform started flooding comments with porn.

Arguably though, I think it began a long time before then. The arrival of Twitter on the social mediascape resulted in annoying Tweet digests being crossposted to LJ and driving the readerbase away.

Facebook also played a hand in LJs demise as “going online” and “surfing the web” became “going on Facebook” and its glasswalled panoptical garden. Less people surfing and browsing outside the FB platform meant less people reading and engaging on other platforms.

Some LJ users began sharing “alternative” ways to connect with their content – Dreamwidth, WordPress, Twitter, Tumblr. Others plunged blindly headfirst into FB. Eventually all fading away – the golden days of LJ and blogging over.

The same seems to be happening to Twitter. Users jumping ship entirely, some clinging on hoping for rescue that will never come, others playing hopscotch between platforms waiting for their “followers” to follow.

However, if the death of LJ is anything to learn from, short of a total rage quit from Mr Musk, Twitter will probably continue – a husk of its former self – much like Myspace and LJ before it. LJ is still there. Some users still post regularly.

Myspace returned too like a rotting ghoul or wight mostly stripped of the original accounts. Even Tumblr, after shooting itself in the head with its porn ban and overly strong filters, had a resurgence.

Familiarity of social spaces – both on and off line – is like a tribal or ancestral memory. We return. Regularly. Until something new comes along to replace. Yet even then we still return to the old – to remember or perhaps reconnect with the ghosts of those who can never leave.

The digital corpses of abandoned accounts will begin to litter the service. Much like on LJ where looking at a profile’s follow list is like wandering through a digital cemetary. Massive holes appear where users deleting their accounts remove all their content.

Eventually, only the bots, the determined and the lonely will remain. Desparately trying to connect with those that continue in order to get a sense of purpose, connection or audience.

When Twitter began I couldnt understand its popularity over long form blogging. When I taught Social Media I likened the platform to a cocktail party where everyone was talking at once but only the loudest speakers could be heard clearly.

Now that cocktail party is drawing to a close. The hosts have moved house. The new house owner is trying to go to bed and wants the guests to pay to stay or leave entirely. You can still hear the loud talkers, the brash and the rude.

You can also feel and hear the ghosts of those gone before their time and also the menacing shades of those ejected from the party that are just lingering at the end of the driveway to invade the venue with their own “Special Atmosphere” of hate and division.

Is social media dead? No. It, like other online movements, will persist and find a way. Undead yes. Completely dead no. And, much like the undead, social will enthral, drain your soul and destroy those around you if you let it.