Twitter has broken our brains, yet we cling to these shards and believe each new tweet may be the one that mends our gray matter. No one is more emblematic of broken brain syndrome than the Chief Twit himself, Elon Musk, who in the first few days of owning Twitter has dissolved the board, laid off half its employees, suggested inviting some back, flip-flopped on monetization plans, spread disinformation, and railed against his own advertisers, making decisions about Twitter's future with the impulsiveness of tweets themselves. "Tiny talk is talk so small it feels like it's coming from your own mind," Musk tweeted, a thought so deep it might have bubbled up from a fish-bowled dorm room. Congratulations: We all live in Tiny Talk Town now, where all conversation is about Elon Musk. We don't have to be here, in Tiny Talk Town. We all know it. There are other places online that are a decent hang. But Twitter is unique, and its most fervent users are unlikely to leave en masse. And most of the knee-jerk "I'm outta here" reactions to Musk's takeover aren't that compelling, unless you're a writer assigned to collate celebrity tweets. The smarter move might be a slow burn instead of a pyrotechnic exit—a thoughtful, considered approach to quitting Twitter without quitting Twitter. Think of it as quiet quitting, but for social media. |