@TheBeerNerd: "A Goodbye To Twitter Manifesto"

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eJm0_oLy3zUNVbNjGEfScqu1y7YjY9d2jSvnTii8BNs/edit?pli=1

	I was with my girlfriend last night (March 17th) and I decided to check Tweetdeck on my computer. Being a curious woman, she asked if she could see my timeline of tweets. I was hesitant for a couple of seconds, but I decided to let her look. While we were scrolling down, however, I felt kind of embarrassed- not because of the fact that my tweets were bad (they usually are, but that’s not the point), but because I was worried that she’d ask what one of them meant. Just today, something clicked for me: if I’m embarrassed about being on Twitter, then what’s the point of being on there?

	There have been plenty of ugly incidents involving people in our corner of Twitter, but something particularly nasty that unfolded over the past couple of days was the last straw for me. Somebody tweeted a link to a friend’s GoFundMe page asking for money to get a flight from Colorado to New York City so that she could attend her Birthright Israel trip. I never took advantage of the free trip when I was eligible for it due to a few philosophical disagreements that I will not get into here, but I knew many people in college who went and had a great time. I can’t begrudge someone for taking a Birthright trip, but a lot of people in my circle of friends certainly did. Nobody deserves awful treatment from internet strangers- certainly not the friend of someone who, to my knowledge, has never contributed to Twitter’s constant culture of negativity. It was bad enough that people were piling on this person’s friend for ideological crimes, but donating $5 under the alias “Adolf Hitler” was a new, horrifying low.

	I shouldn’t have to make excuses about Twitter drama to people who aren’t in the loop, and I’d have a hell of a time making excuses for this. If I leave out the concept of “ironic humor” while explaining why this happened, you’d probably think that this was flat-out anti-Semitic. But even when I explain it in the proper context, I still have to concede that this is an extraordinarily stupid thing to do. I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you still thought that the person who did this is an anti-Semite. I used to enjoy interacting with my Twitter pals, but today, I feel ashamed and angry about them, and I let people know about that in ways that I sometimes regret.

	Proud ex-Twitter user Cliff Vickrey explained the poisonous atmosphere of “Weird Twitter” here. I cannot stress enough that you should read his blog post [http://www.cliffordvickrey.com/2015/why-i-left-twitter/] - he has a way with words and he’s also very funny. A couple of days ago, I was texting a friend that I first met through meetups with people from Twitter (or, if you want to use the bad portmanteau, I met him through “tweetups”). He told me that no one he knew had a problem with me until I started getting angry about some people on Twitter. Frankly, simply being a part of this circle of people makes me angry, and all the reasons about why Cliff left Twitter apply to me as well. I’ve quit being a regular part of a few websites in the past because they stopped being enjoyable. For that reason, I finally know that leaving Twitter would be my best course of action.

	Don’t worry- this is not goodbye. I won’t be tweeting, but I will keep my account open so that I can leave this note pinned on my page. I really do like many of you, but I don’t feel like alienating any more people than I already have, so I can’t talk to you here. You can find me on Facebook, Skype, or Google Hangouts- just send me a Twitter DM and I’ll give you my information. And please, try to start being nice to each other- I know a lot of you are good people. “Tane” care!