Posted on December 2, 2024 Posted by 25 Comments
Today marks a significant day in my personal history of social media, because today’s the day the Bluesky officially became the site where I have the largest number of followers I’ve ever had on any social media site: 206,700 as of this morning. Not Taylor Swift or John Cena numbers, but a perfectly respectable number for a nerd who writes science fiction.
If you’re curious which site held the record before this, no surprise, it was the former Twitter, where I had been active for more than 14 years. Specifically, in April of 2022 I had peaked there at around 206,400 followers. Those numbers began to drop when Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter was accepted, dropped more when he took over, and then fell steadily after I stopped posting on that site in November of 2023. When I finally closed my account there last month, it had dropped into the mid 180k area; I imagine if I had kept the account open longer the number now would be even lower. Since the election, people do seem to be leaving the site in droves.
Bluesky has famously become the beneficiary of that “X-odus,” as the site grew by millions of users in the aftermath of the election. The site (of the very second I’m writing this) has just under 24 million users, which is a fraction of what the former Twitter and Threads, its nearest rival, claim. But it’s not just how many users Bluesky has, it’s which users: Bluesky is now the home of the posting “middle class,” the really interesting people in specialized fields who talk about their work to others in their field, and to a general audience. This includes writers, journalists, scientists, comedians, actors and other creatives and professionals who give a site its jolt of life.
There’s a critical mass of all these folks at Bluesky now, and what’s more, they like it there, in no small part because of the substantive moderation tools, and because every user’s main “following” feed is just that: All the people you follow, when they post, no algorithm between you and them. These are powerful arguments for Bluesky as a service.
While it’s important to acknowledge that time and circumstance do not make this an apple-to-apples comparison, I’ll note that it took me 14 years on Twitter to get to 206k followers and on Bluesky it took less than 20 months. Nearly half of that Bluesky number has come in the last 30 days, with the post-election abandonment of X. Some of that number is likely to be bots and other such accounts, but then, that was true of Twitter and just about every other site I’m on. I do suspect, however, there are currently rather more live accounts following me on Bluesky than I had on the former Twitter — which is to say, accounts with actual people who spend actual time looking at the site. Much of this has to do with the newness of the accounts and of the site in general. We’re in the phase where people come to the site curious and looking to engage. We’ll see if it stays that way over time.
I’m pleased by this follower milestone. Most notably, it makes the point that my abandoning the mess that Elon Musk made of the former Twitter has ultimately come without any real penalty to me in terms of potential audience, and indeed, it’s been objectively beneficial. The engagement with my Bluesky posts, undampened by an algorithm, is substantially higher than had been on the former Twitter, or currently on Threads. And as noted, these followers are mostly real live humans. Plus, Bluesky is just more fun. Beyond that, professionally speaking I’ve seen no real difference in income/opportunities in the past year, although I caveat that with the notation I don’t rely on personal social media as my primary marketing avenue. But even if I did, see above, regarding engagement.
Basically, If some writer/journalist/creative is looking for a sign that Nothing Of Value Is Lost by permanently leaving X, here it is, in big, bright, blinking neon.
This is not to say Bluesky is perfect. With the onrush of new users to the site have come a flood of bots, trolls and chuds, who are trying their best to clog up the pipes with the same crap that’s on X. When they show up in my comments they’re quickly dispatched by Bluesky’s delightfully comprehensive block function, but I’m still having to spend more time dealing with that, especially after the election, than I have before.
Likewise, the influx of people from the former Twitter means a non-trivial number of them have carried over some of the worst aspects of that site to Bluesky: The quote-dunking, the picking of fights in comments, and the general snark-first, “hit or be hit” posture that comes from being on a site where even the most innocuous of comments can get you targeted by awful people, or bots run by awful people. Folks are having to learn the Bluesky ethos of “don’t engage, just block” with regard to jerks, and how to generally unclench when it comes to being on social media. Some are taking to it more readily than others.
Bluesky is having growing pains, in other words. Which is fine! And also a reminder that, however positively one might feel about the site in this honeymoon phase, it is still ultimately just a place full of people online, and you know how people online can get. It’s okay not to overhype the site. As I said over there, it’s a good place! But not The Good Place. Its major advantage at the moment is simply that it’s more pleasant than other similar places online. I chalk that up to its personalization and moderation tools, the “early days of a better nation” vibe, and the absence of a billionaire owner actively trying to use the site to spread disinformation, hate and strife. You know, the little things.
If you follow me on Bluesky, thank you and I hope I am and will remain a quality follow. If you’re not on Bluesky but are curious about it, now’s a fine time to check it out. If you’re still on the former Twitter, well, you do you and I’m sure you have your reasons, but please know all the reasons I gave myself to stay for as long as I did turned out to be unfounded. I’m happy not to be there anymore, and would be even if I hadn’t had Bluesky to fly away to. But I did have Bluesky to fly away to, and I’m glad.
— JS