The year Twitter died: a special series from The Verge

Twitter was so many things.

Elon Musk killed Twitter. First, he did it figuratively: firing most employees, destabilizing it as a technology and a business, leaving the platform virtually unusable for those who remained. Then, he killed it literally: renaming it X, giving Twitter a final ending after 15 years of chaotic existence.

But in death, there is understanding — now that it’s over, we can reckon with what Twitter really was: a news cycle accelerator, a tool of mass harassment, an idealistic money-losing workplace, and an infinite joke machine.

2023 will go down as…

THE YEAR TWITTER DIED

• Link
• Link
• Link
• Link

Image key

• Haunted moon
• Blue check
• Jack Dorsey with Death and Bitcoin
• Unicorn
• Macaulay Culkin
• Really big beet
• Karen
• They’re good dogs Brent
• Dril
• Goblin, ghoul or zombie with no conscience
• SpaghettiOs commemorating national tragedy
• Can of beans, uneaten
• Tim Robinson in hot dog costume
• Not a pipe
• Traffic light sign
• Goblin, ghoul or zombie
• Roald Dahl’s Charlie Bucket, dead
• Teach a kid to podcast
• A beer
• X
• September 21
• Cat exercising
• Aerobics instructor in Myanmar dancing through the coup
• Elon Musk being hosed
• The Worst Guy You Know
• UFO
• Bot
• Llama
• NPC
• These are my only moods
• Horse, front view
• A cat holding a sign
• Naomi Wolf’s nemesis, a vaccinated teddy bear
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Woman prison guard