Good morning! I wish the conditions were better, but it’s so nice to see so many familiar avatars. Oh, and hello to the blue subscribers in the front row. I know Twitter would have appreciated your support. We have, of course, gathered here today to remember our beloved social media platform. Twitter, as we knew it, vanished from this earthly realm on October 27, the day a billionaire with terrible ideas and a worse sense of humor bought it.
Personally, I have so much to thank Twitter for. Sure, it reconnected my brain to a little tweet factory, constantly auditioning all the unusual things that had happened to me to test their tweet worthiness. And what if it turned my attention span into Swiss cheese? Twitter was there for me in some of my most desperate hours, like time I thought I was going to die in a missile attack on Hawaii or when I mistook a laundry basket for a trash can in a hotel room in Williamsburg.
Twitter has given us all so much. It helped us keep an eye on Pépito the cat. It allowed us to laugh and circulate the dumbest jokes imaginable. It united us all in the sheer ecstasy of two llamas evading capture. Of course there were trolls, the Dilbert man, hate speech and names so bad you wanted to throw your phone in the sea. And if you knew Twitter in early 2010, you also knew it during the awkward phase. There were serious hashtags, automatic Foursquare check-ins, and Follow Fridays. Really ridiculous stuff.
But it turned out to be something great. A place where funny weirdos and smart people hung out. Where Vine flourished, his soul rests. We could collectively scream in horror after watching the Cats (2019) trailer and cluck at rich people who are forced to eat bad cheese sandwiches.
It was hard to watch Twitter struggle at the end. The confusion, screams for help. It got messy. Who can forget Mario who turns us the whole bird? I will have to deal with that emotional trauma for a long time to come. But we can take comfort in knowing that it wasn’t U.S Twitter. The Twitter we knew and loved is in a better place — on to that awesome server in the sky, roaming free with 30-50 wild boars. That’s the Twitter I’ll remember, and I know you all will too.
As a reminder, we will meet on Instagram after this service for coffee and light refreshments. It’s down the hall – and remember to leave your old verified badges at the door when you go out.
