INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Editor note:Drew is a geek who first worked at AOL when he was 16 years old and went on to become a senior writer at TechCrunch
He is now the VP of Communications for venture equity fund Scaleworks.
There are a few ways that people use Twitter, but for the most part
the ones who have pushed the social platform into the national lexicon are regular users who like to communicate with each other using the
They&re the ones who use it a lot
They&re the ones who make Twitter go.
Now, mind you, I&m an extreme case
I&ve shared my cancer diagnoses, my stem cell treatment, new jobs, my wedding
And the loss of my father Barry.
rest sir.
— drew olanoff (@yoda) September 2, 2015
Today, Twitter announced that it will reclaim
That is, if you haven&t logged into yours for a long time, it is considered inactive and will be included in the reclamation process.
At
first I thought that was pretty cool
There are a ton of accounts that get squatted on, forcing new users to use crappy AOL-like names, such as Joe583822
And these accounts aren&t even in use! As in not active.
No big deal.
But then I saw this:
Here's some more info on the Twitter user cull
As it stands, every person who has had Twitter and died more than six months ago will be deleted from the site & UNLESS someone already has
https://t.co/jupCD04m5D
— Dave Lee (@DaveLeeBBC) November 26, 2019
My heart sank
You see, I didn&t think about this.Itisa big deal.
My father Twitter accountisn&t active.He passed away over four years ago
My Dad was a casual tweeter at best
He mostly used it because I, well, overused it
Once in a while he&d chime in with a zinger of a tweet and I&d share it humbly with the folks who kindly follow me.
How bout them
Cowboys
— Barry (@barryolanoff) October 28, 2014
He got a kick out of that, and so did I
I still read his tweets, and from time to time I still share them with you
It my way, odd or not, of remembering him
His tweets are timestamped moments that he shared with the world.
And Twitter is sweeping them up like crumpled-up paper and junk in a
dustbin.
twitter THIS
— Barry (@barryolanoff) May 26, 2009
Surely, my father isn&t the only person who has passed away and left a
Twitter account unkept — or, as the company puts it, &inactive.& I can think of a few others
And I get even more upset at the thought of their thoughts disappearing
I might not remember everyone we&ve lost, but not being able to recall something they&ve said or shared in the past is depressing.
When
people ask me why I use Twitter so much, it mostly because I see the platform as a living organism
In fact, it awful sometimes
Lately, a lot of times.
During events and during holidays it almost as if that tiny little app on my phone has a pulse
Because of course it does: It full of human beings with feelings and real thoughts
That what makes Twitter Twitter.
twitter is open IM, i get it
— Barry (@barryolanoff) May 26, 2008
And just because someone pulse no
longer beats doesn&t mean their thoughts no longer matter.
I sincerely hope that Twitter didn&t think about this first and reverse course
Perhaps they&ll offer a way to memorialize an account
I don&t have my dad login
I can&t &wake up& his account to keep it safe
I am truly sad at the thought of losing some of his quirky nerdy tweets.
Especially this one:
Call me on cell phone in hospital
— Barry
(@barryolanoff) August 7, 2013
My dad thoughtI was the only person on the damn site and I never corrected him or schooled him on Twitter
He used it the way he wanted to, and that reminds me of the person he was
If you take that away from me, then what is Twitter anyway?
Andrew,
You make me proud to be yourfatherandI see in you things thaat are yet
done things that are yet accomplished, make me proud
— Barry (@barryolanoff) June 15, 2008
Facebook allows you to memorialize someone
page and that pretty great
Unfortunately, my father page was deactivated and deleted without my having been consulted
By the time I realized it was gone, Facebook told me there was nothing it could do
It was really traumatizing for me and my other family members
So many interactions there, thoughts, smiles
No, a time capsule.
Just gone
Like my dad.
Big tech companies are good at a lot of things, but what they seem to lack is collective empathy and heart
When humans use the things you build and you stop treating them like humans, but rather like bits and bytes and revenue dollars, you&ve
And maybe it just me getting older, but I&ve had about enough of it.
To quote the late great Barry Olanoff:
Bullshit
— Barry
(@barryolanoff) April 7, 2015
Think about it, Twitter
Because every time you make me question your humanity, I&m one step closer to not being that whale of a user that helped get you here in the
