From the Editor’s Desk: Not So Social (Premium)

I’ve noted before that the more you get to know most people, the more they disappoint you. But there are also exceptions to the rule, and the truly special people in our lives—and they’re rare—are those who never disappoint you.

I wish I could focus on the latter. But this past week was a reminder of a dark corollary to that original point, and it will be immediately familiar to anyone who has spent time using any social network. Not only will those people disappoint you, but they’ll do so with dizzying speed and alacrity.

People can be tough.

It’s no surprise that our online anonymity and isolation are major contributors to the almost casual toxicity that we encounter every day. But that doesn’t make it any easier. On Thurrott.com, I try to keep things on track as much as I can, but it still surprises me when I need to pull out old chestnuts like “attack the idea, not the person” as if they weren’t common sense and obvious. But people can be awful to each other. It always bothers me.

And it’s worse out into the hinterlands of the Internet, where all bets are off. When I was younger, there were hot-button topics like politics, religion, and sexuality, but these days, everything is a hot-button topic. It’s almost impossible to communicate anything without offending somebody. And then being attacked for something you thought was common sense, obvious, funny, or just innocuous.

But social media is the worst. Social media is the chef’s kiss of toxicity.

I was reminded of this about 18 months ago when I started getting serious about using Mastodon at a time when the quality and reliability of Twitter started circling the drain. But Mastodon, like the people who use it, was ultimately disappointing because the promises—higher-quality discourse, no toxicity—were wishful thinking. As I quickly found out, the people on Mastodon can be every bit as terrible as those on Twitter, which makes sense in retrospect: They’re people. The only difference between a typical Mastodon user and a typical Twitter user is that the former is far more likely to actively snipe at Twitter’s billionaire idiot owner.

But they’re just as intolerant of contrary ideas as the rest of the planet. You can find this out easily enough for yourself: If you ever want a community to turn on you, just suggest that the community isn’t perfect, as I did in that case. The bullying is both immediate and automatic.

I still use Mastodon, for whatever it’s worth, and obviously there are some pros along with the cons. But if my goal is to replace Twitter, and it sort of is, then I will need to look elsewhere. And you know times are tough when the most obvious solution is yet another service owned by Mark Zuckerberg, the king of toxicity, and Meta. Threads launched with all kinds of hype and hope, and while it feels like that has slowed down, there’s also been steady progress. And so I’ve started wondering if perhaps Threads was, if not the answer, at least an answer.

The promises were familiar enough that they should have raised concerns. But I lurked, waited, and watched, and I ignored that itch in the back of my mind. And I saw nothing offensive. Indeed, thanks to the Zuck’s insatiable cross-service linking, Threads seemed to be populated with friends, people I knew out in the world in real life, or at least on Instagram. Could it be? A safe space?

It’s a trap!

My ability to be this naive this far into life is both remarkable and depressing. But the answer, of course, is no. Threads is no different from Twitter or Mastodon. Why would it be? It’s just another Twitter or Mastodon. Chock-full of people. People who seem to be waiting for the right moment so they can be their awful selves as required by their faux outrage.

It started innocently enough. I posted a picture of the first Copilot key I’d encountered on a review PC, garnering the expected spectrum of responses, from those welcoming me to the service (thank you) to the predictable and the weird. The people who openly cheerlead this thing always vaguely depress me, as do the people who claim this is what will get them to switch to Linux; it’s not clear which extreme is worse. But nothing truly antagonistic. Certainly, nothing personal.

And so I worked Threads into my daily workflow. I can’t auto-post to the service yet—a curious omission at launch, let alone many months later—but I pop in with my usual asides, as I do on Twitter and Mastodon. I’m there each day.

And then it happened, and I was immediately taken back to my Mastodon comeuppance, like getting the social media version of the “Do not pass go, do not collect $200” Chance card in the Monopoly board game. Because I can’t auto-post to Threads, I wanted to at least get my recent MacBook Air review out there. I thought it was balanced and fair, and would be of interest to anyone who follows me online.

And maybe it is those things. But I also forgot that people are awful. And that what seems balanced and fair to me can be, for some reason, a direct assault on some people’s sensibilities.

Is it notable that a Windows guy like myself really likes an Apple product? Perhaps. But most seem to not know that I’ve been using Macs for over two decades, have owned over a dozen of them in that time frame, and always have at least one Mac on hand for testing purposes. That I’ve owned more Apple products, have given Apple more of my money, than most of its biggest fans. That I review several laptops every year, and have been doing so for about 25 years. That I actually kind of know what I’m talking about when it comes to this stuff. A weird thing to have to spell out. But there it is.

The reactions to my post on Threads about the MacBook Air also garnered a spectrum of responses, but let’s just say that it was a wider net this time, and not everything was a keeper. Looking back at this just a few days later, I find myself in a curiously familiar and well-worn position. I should have seen it coming, I guess. But I didn’t, and in looking back on it, I still don’t see what the big deal is. Right, I’ll never learn.

And neither will most of you, for better or worse. I’ve had to mute many responses to this thread—I assume that’s what they’re called, because duh—and in a few cases had to block a few people. And if there’s any more representative experience than that on social media, I’d love to hear about it. Actually, never mind.

There was plenty of positive feedback and plenty of non-controversial responses that wouldn’t normally merit attention. But of more concern is the absolute lack of civil discourse I experienced from those who found themselves offended, somehow, because I pointed out two issues with the PC market that they (apparently) personally associate with: The platform maker (Microsoft, in this case) doesn’t seem to care at all about the platform, and we just don’t see that Apple-like attention to detail from the hardware makers in the products they sell. That I actually prefer Windows and PCs to Macs is sort of beside the point. In communicating what I see to be the truth—certainly, an easily defended opinion at the very least—I was committing nothing less than an all-out assault on a core belief system. Or something. That’s what it felt like.

This was a master class in delusional thinking, and having just written about clear thinking a few days earlier, I found this especially unwelcome. And I mean this in both directions. (I’m particularly fond of the often regurgitated and incorrect belief that a Mac is somehow the best Windows PC.) It’s a depressing state of affairs in which people with anecdotal experience at best, but usually no experience at all, have very strong opinions about something. For some reason.

Anyway. I will keep using Threads. And Mastodon. And Twitter. I will keep dealing with people, because I must, and because not all of them are terrible. And I will try not to be shocked every single time the defensible is confronted by the stupid. But it’s difficult. I don’t want everyone to agree with me. I just want people to think, be less awful to others, and not be offended by ideas that are not directed at them and do not impact them in any way.

And I write that knowing that I will continue to be disappointed.