It's insane how random it can be to lose access to an account I have used for 11 years. After using Twitter for so long, I've been uncertain about what I want to do with that platform. I hate so many things about Twitter, but I recognize it's a useful tool for promotion. I was going to delete my Twitter account on July 1st, but changed my mind largely due to drama that took place in the Smash Community. That drama is the most unbelievable shit-show I have ever seen in a video game community that I was part of. I could go into a long rant about my thoughts on what happened, but I'll save that for another time. It's ironic that Twitter's poor moderation was the primary factor into why I was going to leave because of what happened today. I lost contact with followers I liked thanks to Twitter's abysmal moderation system.

Fast fast forward to August, I put a lot of effort into my my Twitter account and gained over 90 followers so far this month. That is a huge jump for my account largely because of the hashtags #NoTulsicratUnder1K and #NoLibertarianUnder1k. I'm vocal on that platform with my support for Tulsi Gabbard as a politician and my support for Libertarian party candidates such as Vermin Supreme and Jo Jorgensen. I also followed people who liked my tweets, which gained me additional followers.

My Twitter account got additional activity today because Vermin Supreme retweeted one of my tweets. This is not the first time he retweeted me, but it got more traffic than previous instances he retweeted me. I followed everyone who liked the tweet, then got locked out of my Twitter account for "automated behavior that violates the Twitter Rules." I can't unlock my account because Twitter wants my cell phone number. Not only do I not have cell phone service, but I wouldn't want to give it to them because they have a history of shady behavior. Twitter should not be trusted with anyone's phone number, yet my account is locked because I won't give them a cell phone number I don't have. My Twitter account now looks shady to viewers because I followed people who liked what I had to say in a tweet.

This puts me in a weird position where I'm very worried about the future of social media. I want to accomplish a lot on Newgrounds in the future, but it will require me to promote my material on other platforms to get the type of traffic I need. There aren't many successful people on Newgrounds who rely entirely on this platform to promote their content. I often share content I like from Newgrounds to other platforms in hopes that it inspires more people to visit this website often.

The downsides to our reliance on very few social media websites has never been more obvious to me than today. I try my best to follow Twitter's guidelines, but Twitter is a website that can trash a person's internet career at random. A good example of this is the website OnlyFans. I personally hate that website because it lacks a good search feature. People who want to make a lot of money through OnlyFans have to rely on other websites to promote their account, which is difficult because very few modern social media websites allow porn. Someone can rely on Twitter to promote their OnlyFans account, then get banned from Twitter and not be able to pay rent during a pandemic when the job market is garbage. It absolutely amazes me a website like OnlyFans is so successful because it forces people to have a strong social media presence on other websites for promotion. It seems like a backwards model for a website, but that's modern social media. Modern social media websites are horribly designed, yet people are reliant on them for promoting their work.

I look at the situation we have with social media and wonder what the fuck are people supposed to do? I tried making an account on a forum the other day and never received an activation email. A lot of websites with an old school mindset are not well maintained and expensive to run. Like if I were to put a lot of effort into a website with good hosting, it would cost me a lot of money. So I rely too much on these social media websites and it screwed me over today. I have no clue when I will be able to access my Twitter account again. If I get cell phone service next year, I am not giving Twitter my phone number. Is my Twitter account I invested over 11 years into now over? I'm just blown away by this situation. I can't even call a phone number for customer service because Twitter doesn't offer that. I have to hope a human being responds to my email about my locked account.

There are also a lot of risks to staying on mainstream social media websites. I have said a lot of edgy things on the internet that would kill some people's careers. The main reason why I previously did not link to my Twitter account on Newgrounds is because I tried to have my Twitter account be somewhat anonymous for awhile because I was paranoid about employers. One of my plans this year was to find a local job, but those plans were ruined by the pandemic. Now I'm at a point where I give less of a fuck about what a potential employer sees on the internet because the economy was ruined by our government. Life seems like an uphill battle right now, so I might as well be transparent about what I think about all of the bullshit going on right now.

The plus side to all of this is that I plan to blog on my Newgrounds account way more often. I was going to wait until I had cool stuff prepared for the website, but I need to buy things I can't afford right now to accomplish some of my goals for this website. So for the rest of this year, I will primarily use Newgrounds as a blog. I hope people here enjoy my future blog entries because losing my Twitter account just freed up a ton of my time for other websites.

-Willie Corley