After months of mudslinging and childish name-calling (whoever said being a multi-billionaire tech genius made you a grown up?), the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg came to a head yesterday with the launch of Threads, the latter’s rival to Twitter.
When Musk launches things, they have a tendency to crash within seconds, usually somewhere off the coast of Mexico. By contrast, Zuckerberg’s digital lift-off was seamless.
Within minutes of the UK launch at midnight on Wednesday, the platform was alive with new accounts.
Many were existing Twitter users who, like myself, had joined partly to see what all the fuss was about, and partly in response to Musk’s endless twiddling with the platform in increasingly desperate attempts to make it profitable after spending $44billion (£38.1billion) buying it last year. (Musk’s latest ruse is to limit the number of Tweets users can see.)
I must confess I’ve never been there at the very start of a social media platform. I’ve always been a latecomer to the party, joining slightly under duress because I had to, either for work or just because, as one millennial once put it to me, ‘if you’re not on social media, do you even exist?’
When Musk launches things, they have a tendency to crash within seconds, usually somewhere off the coast of Mexico. By contrast, Zuckerberg’s digital lift-off was seamless
Within minutes of the UK launch at midnight on Wednesday, the platform was alive with new accounts
After months of mudslinging and childish name-calling (whoever said being a multi-billionaire tech genius made you a grown up?), the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg came to a head yesterday with the launch of Threads, the latter’s rival to Twitter
This time, I got in on the fun right from the start. I say ‘fun’; it was a bit like one of those parties where you turn up far too early because you’ve finished work but don’t have time to go home first. So you spend the first half-hour just standing awkwardly sipping warm white wine in a corner wearing the wrong shoes, wondering whether anyone you know is actually coming, or whether you should just scoff as many canapes as you can and cut your losses.
But then, all at once, they came.
Old familiar faces, the famous, the not-so-famous: with surprising speed the room began to fill up, the virtual murmurs of conversation rising to an almost deafening cacophony. Zuckerberg claimed there had been 10 million sign-ups within the first seven hours. By 5pm that figure had risen to 30 million across 100 countries. Hurrah! (Then someone pointed out that this was only going to make Nick Clegg richer. Not so hurrah.)
It was a riot. There were endless memes taking the mickey out of Musk; lots of earnest ‘let’s all join hands in peace and love and not ever be mean to each other’ declarations. One man posted a very rude picture of himself in his bathroom mirror, supposedly to demonstrate the absence of moderation, but really to show off his six pack (and beyond).
The Whitney Museum of American Art started posting pictures of works featuring actual pieces of material (‘threads’, see what they did there?); a screenshot of Musk’s Twitter account saying ‘just downloaded threads it absolutely f****** sucks’ went viral. Ed Balls posted simply ‘Ed Balls’ (a reference to that time, when searching for mentions of himself on Twitter, he accidentally just tweeted his own name), which brought the house down. There were lots of pictures of pets.
As a platform, it’s clearly been designed by someone who likes mindfulness apps. There’s a worthy little feature that allows you to set a reminder to take a break when you spend a certain amount of time on it – every 10, 20 or 30 minutes. You can set your account to private, and there’s no D-emming (direct messaging) to discourage trolls (even though, of course, the entire thing is effectively a giant trolling of Twitter).
If I had to sum it up so far, I’d say that if Twitter is very Generation X (a bit old-school, quite fighty, likes a cheeky fag around the back of the bike sheds), Threads is more millennial. Avocados, shades of pink, personal pronouns, cute little signs saying ‘be nice’. Or that’s the vibe, anyway. For now.
Personally, I can’t help thinking that anyone who believes it’s somehow going to end up being less toxic than Twitter is deluding themselves. It’s not the technology that makes a platform nasty, it’s people – and I can see no material difference between Twitter and Threads that is likely to change that. Indeed, if anything there’s already rather a lot of unpleasant smugness on Threads that doesn’t exactly cast users in the best light.
SARAH VINE: If Twitter is very Generation X (a bit old-school, quite fighty, likes a cheeky fag around the back of the bike sheds), Threads is more millennial
I suspect at the end of the day this will come down to personal choice. It’s a bit like the old Blur vs Oasis, Beatles vs Rolling Stones, PC vs Mac thing. Zuckerberg vs Musk: which tribe do you belong to?
Me, I’m still team Elon. Yes, he’s bonkers, spends too much money firing off rockets into space and treats Twitter like his own personal train set (mainly because it is). But I like his chaotic energy.
Zuckerberg, by contrast, has all the charisma of a boiled frog, while also giving off rather sinister vibes.
Meta – which also owns Facebook and Instagram – seems intent on taking over the world; Musk just seems to want to get off it, which strikes me as infinitely more interesting.
Ultimately, only time with tell whether mighty Meta will bring Twitter to heel. Until then, I have just one burning question: if Twitterers tweet, what do Threaders do? Sew? Stitch? Needle? Embroider? Answers on a virtual postcard, please.
