Why? Here is a partial explanation.
If you read about the theory and practices of fiction you’ll encounter a term called the Inciting Incident (I’ll call it the IncInc for short). The IncInc is an event that occurs that disrupts the status quo and throws a number of people, including the protagonist, off their equilibrium and propels them towards… something: either a restored status quo or something new and possibly better, like the day two droids showed up on a desert planet which led to a young farmboy becoming David to the Death Star’s Goliath and eventually leading him and his friends to defeating EVIL AS THEY KNEW IT a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
(a lot of beings were hurt or killed throughout all of this but it doesn’t pay to dwell too much on that when thinking about Star Wars)
Or the time the Titanic sank, supposedly killing the heir to a northern England estate, leading to two distant cousins named Crawley becoming acquainted and massive drama ensuing.
(class, justice, equity… mmm, doesn’t really deal with these things in a satisfactory manner but again, let’s not go there)
Or the day that Carlton Douglas Ridenhour realized that his form of music would be his career leading him to shake a nation, if not the world.
(he’s almost 62 now, that’s crazy!)
And so on.
Here’s the IncInc for this newsletter: news of Elon Musk’s planned acquisition of Twitter and howit made me feel. I’ve dabbled with all kinds of writing for several decades, online in various forms for at least 15 years but the thing that has stuck with me the longest is Twitter: the source of spurts of text that can delight and offend with amazing brevity and effectiveness. My hot take on first hearing about Elon Musk acquiring Twitter was that it was a terrible thing and that civilization would end. My halfway to lukewarm take, a week or so later, is that I’m still uneasy about the pending takeover but I’m not fully convinced that it will actually happen. We can talk more about this later.
However, as much as I love Twitter, it provides little room for nuance with the written word and some thoughts require many, many characters to adequately express. And it might just be a good idea to have an extra outlet for self-expression, just in case I really do decide to abandon my Twitter account if E. Musk and team make changes for the worse.
(I almost did quit Twitter about a week ago. This is a pretty heavy decision to grapple with after 14+ years on a social network, it’s like leaving a company or neighbourhood with lots of people that you know and like, even though the place is decrepit and crumbling.)
So my IncInc has caused me to react in an interesting way, reevaluating what I am doing in social media after all of this time and wondering if I should try a newer tool. Enter Substack, where some of the cool people are going. I know little about it but I do like the relative absence of ads so far.
So I’ve microblogged, newslettered and blogged several times in the past and it seems like a time to try again. I’ll probably write about current events, pop culture, and other things that I find interesting. No real idea where this is going but I’ve still got some things to talk about. A lot, actually.
Welcome to How About This.
I gotta say I share exactly your views on Mr. Musk’s possible takeover. News the last day or so that he would remove a ban on a particular individual only pushes me closer to leaving that platform. I’m enjoying your posts here. Keep up the great writing!