An X-Rated Company Conversation: Jumping Musk’s Ship

“I think we should delete Twitter,” I said to my computer screen early Monday morning in our marketing team’s weekly meeting as five pairs of eyeballs curiously blinked back at me.

Mental health is always on our minds at Simply Psych because we are in the business of helping mental health professionals. So, we naturally lean into mindfulness in all that we do both internally as a company and proactively as we engage with the world. In today’s digitally dependent society, this means largely online and via social media.

You will often hear us say, “We hate social media, so follow us.” Cheeky, yes, but we mean it, which is why I was quick to speak the idea into existence to our team with great exhaustion. Social media use without a protective layer of #MindfulMedia habits can be harmful.

This whole Twitter fiasco is one of the many reasons we exert the energy to engage online at all. Social media can become (or struggles to do anything but be) toxic very quickly.

The Death of Twitter

The previous weekend, Elon Musk announced – via a series of Tweets – that Twitter would be rebranding to “X,” ending the run of the iconic sky blue bird with a coat of black paint and white crossed lines. Musk touts the rebrand as “art deco” style, while many online users highlighted that the very slightly modified unicode character could be bought off of fonts.com for a whopping $30.

Eyerolls and jokes aside, we feel quite ridiculous at this point to stay on board with Twitter as it makes this alleged cosmetic change. Twitter has died, and what we are left with is a toxic cesspool of misinformation, disinformation, and really just garbage, all with very questionable policies, rules, and guidelines. Dr. Kubler-Ross discusses the stages of grief and we’re accepting that years of time, money, and effort to build a presence on the site will be lost. And we’re okay with that.

Furthermore, in many ways, to support Twitter is to support Elon Musk. The latter is not a person committed to the betterment of all people, and he’s certainly not for mental health either.

So why the X rebrand?

New Thread on the Block

Meta’s owner, Mark Zuckerberg, launched Threads, the new Twitter lookalike, which garnered more than one hundred million users in its first five days in early July. It should come as no surprise that this made Musk a teeny bit jealous. In yet another series of Tweets, Musk proposed the two billionaires fight. Umm, yes… A fight as in the two men wearing boxing gloves in a ring in front of a sold out crowd.

With Threads being connected to Instagram and Facebook, it offers users and companies a simple alternative to Twitter with effortless setup. The new social media platform does lack the exact same functions and algorithm type as Twitter, perhaps either for originality’s sake or to give each user a more friendly experience.

Given the success of Meta’s other social media platforms, it’s easier to have faith in Thread’s ability to turn into something efficient and less toxic. Hopefully it becomes a great tool for brands to share insightful content as well as connect users with their friends and family. At least that is if one is willing to deal with Zuckerberg straightening out the kinks along the way.

Jump Ship or Salvage What’s Left?

How many other teams are having a similar Twitter-turned-X-is-sinking-so-let’s-do-Threads conversation our team dove into? There probably is no one right answer for every person, company, brand, etc. Jack Appleby of Future Social says there is really no reason to leave Twitter for now, “especially if your brand has built an audience there.” Yet, he goes on to tell readers that Musk did indeed “basically [light] a $44 billion company on fire.”

Now, as technicalities and opinions clash in a dangerously beautiful display of fireworks celebrating American capitalism and consumerism in the digital age, users must ask themselves what being a part of these social media platforms means for themselves and their families, teams, businesses, and organizations.

We at Simply Psych say, “delete them all,” but, if you choose to stay, stick with us. We’re in the business of mental health edutainment, human created content (none of that AI nonsense), and most importantly, we help helpers help you. Let us know what you decide!