ChitChatChatanooga

because I deleted twitter and my brain is broken

Okay. After Elon Musk - aka Space Karen* - acquired Twitter and immediately started using it to spread conspiracy theories, general bullshit, and his bigoted ideologies about LGBTQ people, I tapped out. It was, for me, an immediate and easy hard delete on my account(s). Look, there are a billion reasons that folks could justify staying on the platform (combatting Musk & others’ nonsense directly, supporting sex workers, funny jokes, sharing newds with friends…the list is plentiful), but I just don’t have the energy in that forum. As a platform, Twitter mostly felt like a nightmare much of the time anyway; in the end, the good just didn’t outweigh the bad.

Sadly, there was a time when I found Shark Tank to be extremely watchable.

So look. If you’re still Tweeting, then you do you. There are problems with absolutely everything - Substack included - and I’m in no position to judge. Twitter’s negativity was just one thing I found easy to identify and extract from my day-to-day life.

Still, there are micro-thoughts, ideas, questions, and nonsense that pop into my brain that ultimately feel most appropriate for a tweet-length format. And I do kind of miss that outlet. These ideas don’t need to be essays, plays, television shows, or therapy sessions. They just need to boop boop go out into the ether. Well. I guess they don’t need to… They want to. I want them to.

Whatever. Here is the new outlet. I’m embracing a new part of the Substack platform - the Gangletown Subscriber Chat (aka ChitChatChatanooga because I’m nothing if not insufferable).

This is a conversation space in the Substack app… it’s kind of like a group chat or live hangout. There, I’ll post my would-be tweets (but with a bit more care and curation so that I don’t spam you into oblivion), and you can jump into the discussion to yell at me or shake your head with second-hand embarrassment.

To join the chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app, now available for both iOS and Android. Chats are sent via the app, not email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens.

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How to get started

1. Download the app by clicking this link or the button below. Substack Chat is now available on both iOS and Android.

2. Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.

3. That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.