Some thoughts on Threads, the latest Twitter-killer launching today with a flurry of hype:
Maybe I’m wrong and this is the one that will dethrone the bird app, but we went through this with Mastodon. And Substack Notes. And Post. And BlueSky. And…
I could never really get a handle on Mastodon, and I was never invited to BlueSky in the first place, but it’s looking very much like copycat Twitter is as toxic and mob-fueled as OG Twitter. As much as we complain (often with good reason) about the Elons and Zucks of the world, a social network is ultimately as good as its users.
If Threads actually works, I’ll likely join up at some point. But for now I’m taking a wait-and-see approach, and enjoying life without being able to even lurk on Twitter without opening an account.1
The great Jay Nordlinger has some thoughts on people who say “never apologize.”
Which caught my attention, because that’s a phrase I’ve used many times.
…Apologies are an interesting issue. Traditionally, parents have required their children to apologize, when those young’uns have done wrong. “Apologize to your brother!” That sort of thing. This has been considered part of moral living.
I have quoted a headline. The article underneath it began,
Last week, a local Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty attracted attention for quoting Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. After the local paper reported the story, the group added additional “context” but kept the quote. Eventually, after it faced even more scrutiny, the organization removed the quote and apologized in a statement posted to its Facebook group.
That, however, was a big mistake, according to advice at the Moms for Liberty national conference’s media training session Friday.
“Never apologize. Ever,” said Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. “This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.”
I can see it the other way: Refusing to apologize, when you have something to apologize for, makes you weak.
[…]
Maybe the word “never” should be avoided. “Never apologize. Ever,” said the Florida Republican chief. “Never complain, never explain.”
Never say never?
Al Sharpton has stubbornly refused to apologize for the Tawana Brawley hoax. He said that Jesse Jackson had made a big mistake when he apologized for referring to New York City as “Hymietown.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump had some advice for Howie Carr, the Boston columnist and radio host. Carr had mocked Senator Elizabeth Warren with a war whoop. (At the time, the senator was identifying herself as Cherokee.) According to Carr, Trump told him, “Whatever you do, don’t apologize. You never hear me apologize, do you? That’s what killed Jimmy the Greek, way back. Remember? He was doing okay till he said he was sorry.”
Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder was a sports commentator who was fired by CBS after making a remark about black athletes. He said that they were better than white athletes because they had been “bred” that way in slavery.
Refusing to apologize appears to have worked out well for Sharpton, who has achieved a degree of respectability I couldn’t have even imagined twenty years ago. And the other guy, well…I don’t want to trigger you with bad memories of January 2017 to January 2021.2
But I’m pretty sure Sharpton has convinced himself he did nothing wrong, and I don’t think Trump is psychologically capable of admitting error in the first place.
I’ve wasted enough of my life on social media to know that when you’ve become its main character for the day, an apology is not going to get the mob off your back. If anything, it’s perceived as a sign of weakness.
If you sincerely realize you did something wrong, though, apologizing for it is part of making you a better person, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
Confession: I did, very briefly, have a relapse and created a new Twitter account earlier this week. I thought I could keep it under control. Some of you might have noticed me following you.
After about a half hour, during which I couldn’t stop checking it, I nuked my account again. I don’t need to once again get hooked on a drug that makes you feel worse whenever you ingest it.
Trump actually did issue an apology after the Access Hollywood tape dropped, but it was about as convincing a performance as his work in the Bo Derek movie Ghosts Can’t Do It.
Related: there is a former President of the United States who was in a movie called Ghosts Can’t Do It.