Did you just say "said nobody ever" to someone who literally just said that? There is clearly at least one person who feels that way.

I'm surprised that up until now I've never seen someone on HN comment about following artists on Twitter. This is all I ever use Twitter for, never tweet myself, and unfollow people who only make passing statements that can be made up in a few seconds. My feed is almost entirely filled with people who use Twitter as something like Deviantart or Pixiv to upload original artwork and only use the character count for writing a description or title, or sometimes nothing at all and only posting artwork to speak for itself. This is entirely separate from some people's impression of Twitter as a breeding ground for arguments. People don't really argue as much in this specific subset of Twitter for some reason.

If Twitter went away then that specific platform would also go away. True, it's sad that said platform is also a hub of tribes and divisive arguments and design patterns that support mindless retweeting, but that's just how social media that needs to keep expanding its audience is designed. If an audience wanting to be a part of that culture by giving in to those patterns without slowing down to analyze the ulterior motives of social media companies like HN commenters often do motivates artists and creators to bring their work there, as they now have a sizeable audience, then I can't really complain or force them to move elsewhere. That would just be exacerbating the same issue of being divisive. I can't force these people off Twitter just because most of Twitter personally bothers me.

Yet, that still isn't enough to prevent the occasional content creator from retweeting something from a different handle that shows up on your timeline, and that specific retweet has nothing to do with the content you want to see and delves into divisive or political territory. But you also receive value from the person who retweeted it through their art. It just goes to show that separating these things is a human issue with no easy solution, and it's tempting to get frustrated at the status quo.

> My feed is almost entirely filled with people who use Twitter as something like Deviantart or Pixiv to upload original artwork and only use the character count for writing a description or title

Me too! If I discover an artist I like, I'll scroll through their feed quickly before I decide to follow. If they tweet mostly one liners or politics with only the occasional artwork, then it's a pass from me.

One other thing I'd suggest is muting certain keywords. Adding political terms to your mute list can clean things up significantly.

> Did you just say "said nobody ever" to someone who literally just said that?

No they did not. If you read it carefully you'll note there's a slight change. I missed it too on first read.

I made a minor but critical small edit to what the person just said. I switched "unknown artist or developer" to "unwanted company or brand" - which to me at least, is a super accurate change in majority user base between Twitter 2010 and Twitter 2020.

Now ask yourself if anybody ever said what you're responding to?

You could’ve put the changed parts in italics (you’re still in the edit window and can do it). Most people wouldn’t realize this while they scan through replies, especially when you appear to be quoting verbatim.

Man, I did not see that change... I read it a couple of times, too, to make sure it was the same.

It felt tongue in cheek to me since they went on to somewhat agree that signal boosting via retweets at least used to be nice. But I agree, it was a bit weird of a response.

Why would you follow people that retweet brands? Retweets work just fine as a discovery mechanism for me still. (EDIT: not to forget, you can disable retweets for people you want to otherwise follow nowadays)