[stevenking86]

I've run an account for an old job I had (promoting a bar), but beyond that I haven't really interacted with twitter, ever. Everything I hear of it is negative. (Note: I only know what happens on twitter from people on podcasts talking about what happens on twitter. So it's possibly not an accurate reflection of the platform.)

I've seen people that I respect appear to lose their sanity from things being said on it. An example is Sam Harris, who is of course a brilliant author and neuroscientist.

He's gone from a person I respected a lot for his thoughts on atheism and spirituality to being a person who I've heard dedicate hours of podcasts to basically complaining about what people say on twitter. As an adult, it's almost shocking to hear someone intelligent revert to anguishing about the same things misguided teenagers might concern themselves with.

He's not the only one. It appears famous people who use twitter end up using it as a scope into what they might perceive the real world to be like. However, what seems to be the discourse on twitter has no relation to the discourse in my neighborhood (in Western North Carolina) or my previous neighborhood (East Village, NYC).

So no, OP, you're not the only one baffled. I'm extremely baffled.