11 Thoughts on Meta Threads, Twitter, and Christian Nationalism
I have no idea if Meta’s new app “Threads” will administer a coup de grace to Twitter. Threads may very well flame out in a year. But even if it does, it certainly feels like Twitter has fallen and won’t get up.
This is for two reasons.
Twitter’s original, zero-fee business model is simply not possible today, and you just can’t get enough people to pay for the privilege of having their brains attacked.
The only people who love Twitter today are the people who benefit from its problems, and those people actively turn the other 75% of humanity off. An app like Threads may be no better in the grand scheme of things, but it has the benefit of not starting off with a core user base that the normal, offline person would flee at a party.
Twitter’s unique relationship to news and journalism culture is the reason it became what it did. That relationship is no longer unique (hiya, Substack!).
Related to this, the unique relationship that Twitter had to theological conversation, especially in evangelicalism, is the reason it became what it did for people like me. That relationship is no longer unique either.
The one unique relationship Twitter has with evangelicalism is now with the “based”/Christian Nationalist folks, who have poured an immense amount of energy and resources into becoming a Twitter presence.
They did this for three reasons.