Everyone’s favorite birdsite. Some of this is meaningless now, but keeping it around for archival purposes. I would love to just be like “ohh go to mastodon!” “make a blog!” etc, and while i DO think those are things people should do, I fully understand that not everyone has moved to other platforms or will ever, so having ways to access it being more pleasant are essential imo~
Step One: Quick and Easy Solutions to Bigger Problems
One of the easiest and best ways to improve the twitter experience is removing any and all algorithmic posts from your feed. Since it focuses on engagement, you’re gonna see a lot of dumb, low-hanging fruit style takes and anything that warrants a lot of replies (often not good)!
Browser Extensions
Tweak New Twitter is an extension for default web twitter that does exactly that, along with a good amount of other engagement and annoyance-reducing features.
Settings I recommend!
Always use chronological timeline
Hide “What’s Happening”, “Topics to follow” in the sidebar
Hide “Who to follow”, “follow some topics” in the timeline
Hide “more tweets” when linked to a tweet
Hide tweets quoting accounts you’ve blocked or muted
Hide explore
This will clean up most algorithmic things on the site, only showing you who you follow and hiding the rest. I believe by default it will move retweets into a separate timeline, which you may want to disable if you don’t want that feature.
Additionally, while I don’t use it anymore, Twitter Demetricator can be nice to add. It hides metrics such as like and follow counts, further reducing the desire of “number go up” or adding additional value to a tweet based on the numbers.
Another one I love, Old Twitter will revert the twitter UI to being how it was in 2015. Truly a better era.
Tweetdeck + BetterTweetDeck
I personally use tweetdeck most of the time for twitter, since I have two accounts and it makes managing them both at the same time much easier. Not only that, but by default it doesn’t have ads or algorithmic timelines. However, it’s nice to get some additional improvements!
It’s pretty complicated to get Tweetdeck working in 2023, and it might not even be possible in the future, but for now dimdenGD made a firefox extension that will allow you to access it again
BetterTweetDeck adds lots of extra features and tweaks that make for a generally better experience. The preserving media aspect ratio is my favorite, since I follow a lot of artists (no bad crops!).
Third-party apps (as of 2023, can be ignored as none of these work)
On my phone, I use and highly recommend Tweetbot. While twitter themselves severely reduce features available through their API, and therefore limit what is available on third-party apps, most day-to-day features are available on Tweetbot. No ads, chronological timeline, great themes, and many other features make it one of the best twitter experiences out there.
The main missing features are group DMs and native poll support, so I have the official app installed but buried in a folder just for notifications of group DMs.
I don’t use android, but I’ve heard good things about Fenix and Talon
Notifications
Turn them off!!! Trust me, you don’t need them. Leave on replies and direct messages since those can warrant a time-sensitive response, but you don’t need notifications for likes, retweets, photo tags, “suggested tweets”, or anything else twitter tries to use to keep you engaged. If there’s no reason for you to immediately do something to that notification, then you should turn it off.
Step Two: Higher Effort, Less Reward, Still Important!
Honestly, with the above steps, you should already have an infinitely better twitter experience. Though, there’s always room for improvement, especially if you’re like me and use twitter too much. Now for the things that take a lot more effort, but will overall result in a much better twitter experience!
Completely from memory, add the users that you remember really enjoying reading the tweets of. Not the ones that you feel obligated to follow or feel are “important”, but truly the ones where you always think that they have good tweets.
If you’re using tweetbot, set that list as the default timeline (tap where it says “Timeline” and switch to the list). If in tweetdeck, add the list as a column and remove your home column. If in web twitter, just go to the list itself and try not looking at the home timeline.
Use just this list for a while, and if you find yourself missing a specific person, add them to the list! But try to keep the list to less than 80 users.
Once you’ve only used this list for a while, go through your following list and unfollow some people. Anyone who you absolutely didn’t miss the posts of, or anyone that you feel may have made your experience worse. The eventual goal here is to whittle down your main follows, either unfollowing or muting anyone who’s left not added to the list.
Another important aspect, once it’s reduced a bit, is to turn off retweets from certain people. This one will apply to some more than others, but some people have okay tweets but either retweet too much, or retweet things that are mostly negative. So going into their profile and turning off retweets is essential for people like that (though keep in mind that this function doesn’t work in lists, so this will mainly apply when you’ve lowered your actual following count).
If you really want to be able to turn off retweets in a list, I recommend just making a second throwaway account that exists purely to act like a list. A downside of this is that you can’t invisibly follow people like you can with a list, though it does mean that you’ll still retain access to their tweets if they switch to a private account. In tweetdeck, tweetbot, and the default mobile twitter app you can set up multiple accounts pretty easily, so it isn’t too much more work to using it than using a list!
I personally recommend following no more than 250 people. For example, I follow 240 and when I wake up in the morning there’s been around ~80 tweets since I fell asleep, and there’s often 30+ minute gaps between tweets in my timeline, which are all healthy amounts! A constant stream of information will just cause your feed to be overwhelming and distracting.
Division of topics using lists and alt-accounts
One of the biggest issues I see with the way twitter works is the collapse of many different topics into one feed. For example, you have posts about the news next to posts about new music next to art next to hot video game takes. It can be exhausting and jarring reading these things in such an unorganized order, and that’s where lists and alt-accounts come in.
If, for example, you want to keep up with news posts, don’t put them in your main feed. Make a new list on your account and read that instead. If you want to exclude retweets from a list, make a new search using the list ID. When you open a list in the website, the url will be something like https://twitter.com/i/lists/14633396. Use the number at the end in your search, using the pattern list:14633396 to show that list without retweets. You can use filters like filter:links to only show tweets with links, exclude:replies to not show any replies, include:nativeretweets if you do want to see retweets in a search, or any combination of those! There’s more that can be found in the advanced search panel or by googling around for them.
This one is highly specialized to me, but I’m mentioning it as an example of how I use and enjoy twitter. I have two accounts, my main that I use to follow people generally, and a second one that I only use to follow artists that I like. This second account is set up as a column in tweetdeck that only shows tweets with images and I’ve disabled retweets on a lot of accounts that I follow. This turns this column into a feed of nice art from artists I like (and artists they like, with retweets). And then since I use a second account, the likes on that account are just my favorites of my favorites, and create a nice feed to scroll through! Also that way, instead of the context collapse of twitter where you have art next to takes next to news, things are separated out and I can more easily choose what to look at. It’s honestly great! It turns twitter into what I often use Tumblr for, a nice feed of good art.
This no longer works, even in old tweetdeck, sadly. In addition, I have a search column in tweetdeck using the query "melonbooks.co.jp" OR "booth.pm" OR "alice-books.com" OR "base.shop" OR "inprnt.com" list:[list id] include:nativeretweets. This will show me any new links from artists I follow for new art books or prints on common art stores. Super helpful since many artists don’t use things like mailing lists and the tweets can get lost in the feed. You can’t normally search the following list of a user, so I use the service vicariously.io which will auto-generate lists based on the following list of a user.
Mute, Block, Soft-block
See someone’s tweets show up a lot that you don’t like? Don’t want to see those tweets anymore? Mute and/or block them! It’s that easy! You are under no obligation to keep up with whatever they’re saying, except for rare circumstances there’s no real reason to force yourself to read the tweets of someone that you don’t care for. Whenever I look at a tweet and I see someone saying something dumb or posting something clearly in bad faith, I often just block them on sight. Sure, chances are I’ll never see them again regardless, but life is too short to expend energy getting mad at someone on the internet.
Additionally, if someone followed you that you don’t really want following you, soft-blocking is always good. Soft-blocking is when you block and unblock someone who is following you, as it will then make them unfollow you without any notification of that to them. A caveat to blocking/muting, by default twitter won’t hide quote replies of that account, you’ll need to enable the option “Hide tweets quoting accounts you’ve blocked or muted” in Tweak New Twitter, mentioned above!
Inspired by the XXIIVV webring (which I’m part of), this is a list of websites that I like, either people that I think are interesting, or services that have a philosophy that I enjoy.
Lots of great stuff this year! The fall anime season alone was incredible, and there’s still a ton I have to catch up on. Some music releases I was really looking forward to that ended up not really clicking for me (Charli XCX, Bladee, etc) but there was a TON I loved, especially track wise. Also I only read one real book, The Spear Cuts Through Water, but it quickly became one of my favorite books.
Some stuff I did this year!
Got my ears pierced (which still haven’t healed LMAO)
Saw Bladee/Drain Gang live :’)
Met Jeff Wiggins and got a pop’n music controller (cleared some uhhh 30s i think??)
Saw My Chemical Romance live after that show was delayed two whole years
Took a trip to NYC to visit john hill and it was ~3 days full of non-stop activities! Playing DDR and visiting happy99 were highlights for sure
Flew to San Francisco to see Second Sky 2022 (and mariah) which was GREAT and I would absolutely do again. Seeing Taku Inoue specifically ruled, such an incredibly fun set. Got me planning out a Japan trip in 2023!!!!
Favorite tracks: Object Permanence, Formative Age, In Loving Memory
Actual Life 3 by Fred again..
Only learned about Fred again.. this year when he was on the Second Sky 2022 lineup, I checked out the first thing that appeared when searching for him on youtube which was one of his piano lives and I was like “oh cool he’s like a dancey piano guy, that’ll be fun during the sets” and then he came out with his Boiler Room set and I realized how wrong I was. GREAT album!!!!
I rediscovered Geotic’s 2020 Oxperls this year which honestly gets retroactively put on my favs list since god that thing is incredible. BUT this album is also great, I love the return to a much more drone/ambient style for him on this project.
peak passive listening, great to put any/all of these on shuffle and go for a walk
en by ryutist
RYUTist rules!!!!! I love when jpop idols work with super interesting producers/composers and make super unexpected stuff. This whole album is great but たったいま:さっきまで is my standout for sure
things i have to listen to more but really liked so far
uragaeshi by ilie
honeybee table at the butterfly feast by teen suicide
春火燎原 by haru nemuri
it’s hard to see color [when you’re so impossibly far away] by jaron
one of the hardest tracks of the year, just absurdly aggressive, absolutely hits everything i want out of this style of hardcore, 200 bpm and no one section lasts longer than 20 seconds
I truly do love pairing japanese idol groups with absurd net-label-esque production techniques. The Sophie samples at 1:53 into a full-band rock section right after rules.
So wonderfully textural, that signature Ryan Hemsworth (co-)production, that vocal processing, that key change!!!
Anime
Bocchi the Rock!
Absolutely the best anime of the year, no bad episodes, incredible animation, super funny while also being wonderfully heartfelt. Dearly hoping for a season 2. Literally bought a guitar to start learning because of this show!
Lycoris Recoil
Great original concept with some weird execution! I cared so much more about the main two characters and their relationship than I did any of the surrounding stuff. Gimme a spin-off manga about just their antics
My Dress-Up Darling
Super cute! Really nice character animation!
Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit
Incredibly comfy as always, made me write down a bunch of places I want to go when visiting Japan
Mob Psycho 100 III
Honestly???? didn’t like this season as much as the rest. It’s a very nice conclusion for the show, but the pacing felt weird and I wasn’t anywhere near as invested in the story arcs here.
Movies
Aftersun
Gorgeous, that dance scene near the end is incredible. Highly highly recommended
Top Gun: Maverick
I’m rarely a “gotta see this in theaters” kind of person but this one earns it!
RRR
An instance of a movie I wish I saw in theaters! Well, other than the length since I paused multiple times to take a break and get a snack lol.
The Batman
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Games
Beatmania IIDX 29: CastHour
Another year of sinking an absurd amount of hours into this game!! Cleared a 10, some 9s, lots of 7s and 8s, and got a lot more AAAs all the way up to 6s. Feeling great about my progress in this game!
Fortnite
The ultimate hangout game, I used to play Apex all the time which, admittedly, is the much better game! But Fortnite is just so casual in comparison that it acts as a great vehicle for conversation and just Hanging Out while still having fun mechanical engagement which I’m always in the search for more of.
Tunic
God I loved tunic, reminded me so much of the experience of playing Fez, finding all of these hidden secrets and puzzles and needing to do some real lateral thinking to figure some of them out. Love it!!!! I fully admit to using a guide for a good amount of the end-game stuff though
Neon White
It’s so rare that I strive to 100% a game but I absolutely had to here. It helps that I never got tired of that soundtrack and the mechanics felt just perfectly tuned to me getting better and better times.
I barely played any video games in 2020, after developing some form of RSI preventing me from using a game controller comfortably. As always, a lot of these games didn’t come out in 2020. Beatmania IIDX and Stepmania/DDR have completely dominated my game-playing time, 2020 truly became the year of the rhythm game. I started playing IIDX in November 2019 and by the end of 2020 I was 2-Dan (二段).
Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere
Disc Room
YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story
428: Shibuya Scramble
Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r]
Kentucky Route Zero Act V
Beatmania IIDX 27 Heroic Verse
Stepmania
Anime
Okay honestly 2020 was not a very good year for anime, imo. Or at least not the kinds I wanted to watch.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
DECA-DENCE
Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul
Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club
Vtuber clips
Much of the second half of 2020 was spent watching vtubers, mainly from hololive. The debut of Hololive EN especially changed my media consumption habits, meaning I was watching a lot more streams than I ever had before.
For the last few weeks I’ve been commuting into work via bike. I love it!! When I was commuting from Fitchburg it would take me around two hours each way, car then train then walking, to get to work. It was awful!! Now that I live in Somerville, biking into work takes around 18-25 minutes. Not only is it significantly faster, but it’s a much more enjoyable experience. I love biking without headphones in so I have time to think. It gives a nice transitional period between work and home without needing to fill it with endless content and media.
I played very few games that came out in 2018, and rather my year was filled with either very small indies, or things that came out in previous years. Regardless, there’s a lot of stuff that I really enjoyed! The full list (in order of completion) is at the bottom.
I almost always try to use vanilla javascript if possible when writing personal projects, but a thing I constantly miss from more OOP languages is the ability to separate code into classes. A nice method to get a similar functionality in js is to use functions as classes.
I went to the Unity Farm Sanctuary over the weekend with Sabrina! This place was great, and if anything is moving me closer to being a vegetarian it sure is this. I never realized just how soft (and loud) chickens are, and dang they’re cute.
