Reflections on Twitter, the Bird that Has Been Flipped*

Years ago, I encountered a colleague who was on Twitter, and I asked him why he was on Twitter.  He said it was a great way to keep up with the news.  I said something snide and haughty like, “We’re scholars, not journalists.  Nothing turns on whether we get our news at 2 PM or when it comes out in the papers the next morning.”  

Years later, I was writing about originalism in constitutional interpretation, and I learned that some of the scholars I liked the most in that field were on Twitter.  When I asked them why, they told me that interesting conversations were happening there.  I was very surprised to learn that these law professors at top institutions were having conversations in 280-character increments.  I lurked a bit.  Still, I didn’t join.

But when we re-launched the Blog in 2020, I thought it might help us gain readers if we had a linked Twitter account, and so I joined.  Now I check Twitter frequently during the day.  I do indeed use it precisely as my colleague from years ago recommended — as a news aggregator — and also as my colleagues in the field of constitutional history and law recommended — as a place to have scholarly exchanges with colleagues.  

Twitter has a bad reputation.  It is a time sink hole; that part is true.  But I also find wonderful things there.  Frequently, I share some video or image with my wife, and she says, “How did you find this?”  Twitter is the answer.  I have not experienced the bad side of Twitter.  People with whom I interact on Twitter engage in civil discussion and share slices of life.  I don’t think there has been a time in my academic career when I have felt more connected to what people in my field(s) are talking about.  It is a great way to bridge the gap between conversations in the Legal Academy and the Other Legal Academy.  Sometimes, people disagree with me in unpleasant ways.  I respond civilly and make sure that they know that while they are insulting me, I am engaging with them respectfully.  Sometimes that changes the conversation.  If it doesn’t, the conversation ends.  I don’t feed trolls, and as a result, my encounters on Twitter do not involve escalating insults and invective.  It’s a pretty simple formula, and it works.  

That all might change now that Elon Musk has acquired Twitter.  I do not like him, and I do not think he will improve my experience of the site/app, but he likely will make it more profitable.  I don’t play poker, but for a brief period I played in a neighborhood game.  The rule was that we topped out at $20.  One day, I was playing with a person who prided himself on his poker prowess.  I was a novice.  We went a few rounds of bidding, and then he threw down a 20.  I had a good hand and I suspected that he was bluffing.  The rest of the table oohed and aahed and someone gasped admiringly, “nice play.”  I folded.  I didn’t think it was a “nice play.”  I thought it was a violation of the spirit of the game, and I am comfortable with my penis size, or my income, or whatever it was about.  

Musk is that guy.   He must have been good at something at some point because he’s very rich.  But now it’s not about skill, because not much is left to chance.  He will win because he can force others to fold. 

I continued going to my neighborhood card game for a while because there was one guy in the group whom I liked, and it was a nice opportunity to see him.  I was also close with his wife, and it annoyed me that no women were invited to the game.  Eventually, he and I got together in other contexts with our wives.  We had daughters who were close in age.  I stopped playing poker.

For now, I will maintain the Blog’s Twitter feed.  I think it has helped the Blog (although who knows?), and I enjoy interactions with legal academics and occasionally with students on the site/app.  If Musk ruins it for me, I will leave and find new ways to socialize with my friends from Twitter.

*Thanks to LawProfBlawg for the title of today’s post.