Nothin' But Blue Skies

Dear Friends, Enemies, Bots, and Whatever Else Is Still Lurking on the Algorithmic Scrapheap Formerly Known as Twitter:

It is with a measured and appropriate degree of regret, but mostly a vast and abiding sense of relief, that we here at Walter Becker Media must inform you that we are officially vacating the premises of X [better known as, and much better when it was] Twitter, formerly a kind-of-fun limited character dive bar before a K-addled overgrown incel, pockets bulging with government contract moolah, decided on a strip-to-the-studs reno in the beloved Move-Fast-Break-Shit school of contemporary design.

And who are we mere citizens to say that the resulting crypto-fascist Chuck E. Cheese — named after the most cliched, pseudo-scientific letter of the alphabet [sorry Q]— is not the very height of contemporary fashion and taste? Not we, O my people. We live to serve.

Unless, of course, we find ourselves regularly regurgitating our meals, and cannot function as good community members and scam targets while gagging and wrenching our days away (and yes, we confess with shame, ever more frequently seeking that sweet release, aided surreptitiously by a little finger down the throat). And as Ol’ Granma Betty used to tell us: “That’s not *healthy*, bubelah! You’re skin and bones!” Indeed, we've already lost 98% of our muscle mass — most of it from the neck up.

So, it’s time to move on. We thought about noping the fuck out without saying a word, leaving a Walter Becker Media-shaped puff of smoke in our wake, but thought it would be best to at least say goodbye — oh, or should we say: Auf Wiedersehen.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Walter Becker Media, how can you leave now? What about the deeply insightful cultural observations? The pithy rejoinders? The occasional, inexplicable references to Wernher von Braun, Richard Lewis, and/or the Iron Sheik?”

And to that, we say: look, it’s been kinda fun. It’s also been fucking weird, because let’s be honest—this place was always a little wobbly, but now it’s careening full-speed down the digital freeway in a fug-ugly Blitzwagen with shit-for-brakes, a busted axle, and hideous wrap-around gossamer “bullet-proof” windows, all of which will inevitably — if past is prelude and data & consumer experience are any indication — burst into a hellish ball of flame at the next slightly damp, gentle bend in the road.

But weep not, O people, for the sorry smoldering mass of mangled Cyberscrap that was once our merry home: It will Live On! ...If only through the recently reported $400,000,000 Pentagon line-item grift—er—expenditure for a very special fleet of “Armored” vehicles, to be produced by — you guessed it — the very self-same engineering “genius” who's currently transporting all here to glass-shattering, bone-crushing agony, followed (eventually) by a fiery incinerated final demise. Make America Combust Again!

But please, take pity, and call us not cowards, snowflakes, libtards. We did our best. When the platform started its grease-lightening collapse into a cesspool of rage-baiting grifters, dudes posting through their second and third divorces, and that one asshole who thinks every historical event is a false flag, we tried to tough it out and laugh it off. We really did. We endured the bot invasions, the checkmark class system, the conspiracy theory of the week (lizard people faked the moon landing/moon people faked the lizard invasion/chemtrails turning the frogs gay).

But, as Grandpa Harry used to say, when you hear jackboots instead of jackhammers echoing out in the street, it’s really, REALLY time to sweep family albums, green cards, and a big buck three-eighty worth of shekels into Granma’s knitting bag — and get the fuck outta Dodge. Or Doge, as the case may be, secure in the knowledge that There Is A Promised Land Where The Bluebirds Sing, just beyond the next hill.

So that is where we shall be: hunkered down with the last remaining scraps of internet civilization, where people speak in complete sentences and Incel Nazi Edgelords haven’t yet figured out how to monetize it. Maybe we’ll send a postcard. Maybe we won’t. Either way, we’ll sleep just fine, knowing we have dropped out of the Hieronymus Bosch School of Attention Economics — taking our eyeballs and clicks elsewhere.

We would like to extend our deepest sympathies to those of you still trapped here, running around like lab rats on an engagement-optimized treadmill of doom. If you’re still here, we hope you’re getting hazard pay. If not, well, Godspeed, little doodle.

With great regards, and minimal regrets

WBM