The Weird, Fragmented World of Social Media After Twitter

Are you on Bluesky? Let’s be honest: Probably not. The Twitter clone is still in beta and has been notoriously stingy with its invite codes. Its small size means that every time an influx of newbies arrives, the existing user base freaks out, filling the algorithmically curated “Discover” tab with incredibly overwrought complaints. A much-discussed recent post lamented that “Bluesky elders”—and here I should note that this is a service that launched a mobile version only in February—were suffering a degraded experience because of all the blow-ins. The phrase has become an instant meme.

You need to know only two things about Bluesky. The first is that its users are trying to make the word happen, although it’s an even worse alternative to than Mastodon’s . The second is that it operates at a high emotional pitch at all times. Whereas scrolling Twitter’s “For You” tab is now like bobbing for apples in a bowl full of amateur race scientists and Roman-statue avatars lamenting that we no longer build cathedrals, the Bluesky equivalent features discussions of whether sending death threats to the site’s developers is acceptable if they really, really deserve it.