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You don’t have to be Extremely Online to have heard that things are not going great over on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. Since taking the company private, Elon Musk has laid off the vast majority of its employees, ditched legacy verification to promote paid users instead, and tweaked the algorithm to forefront provocative political content and misinformation, and not all users are cool with the changes. According to recent reports, users are deleting their X accounts at a heretofore unseen pace—and a lot of those disgruntled folks seem to be heading for bluer skies.
Bluesky is but one of a host of X alternatives that have wooed some former tweeters over the past two years, and over the past few months, it has started to look like it actually has the opportunity to become the “new Twitter,” thanks in no small part to a rapidly exploding user base—the site has grown from fewer than 10 million users in September to nearly 16 million today, around two million of those since Nov. 6.
Mastodon might be more tech-forward and egalitarian, but its complexities can be off-putting to newcomers. Threads has a vastly larger user base, but as a subsidiary of Meta, it suffers from many of the drawbacks of Facebook and Instagram (overly aggressive algorithms, owned by Meta). Bluesky, on the other hand, is a decentralized social media network that recreates the feel of “old Twitter” in basically every way—from the layout, to the functionality, to the vibes, I’d swear I was back in 2008.
People are actually using Bluesky now
That wasn’t exactly the case when I joined in mid-2023, when the site was still in its invite-only beta and few people seemed to be using it. I reluctantly remained on the increasingly toxic X because that’s where everyone I followed was posting. But not anymore: Anecdotally, I’ve seen dozens of my once-active Twitter mutuals finally embrace the new network, whether they’re still using or cross-posting to X, or ditching the latter entirely. It’s expanding fast enough that there have been some growing pains (the site was briefly down earlier today, and may go down again.)
It’s not just that I’m following exclusively terminally online weirdos (though I probably am). As an open source network, Bluesky’s metrics are all public, and its recent growth isn’t just about adding users: Following, liking, and posting are exploding too. Turns out social media is more engaging when more people are actually using it.
And then there’s the matter of who is using it. Before it was X, Twitter had a reputation as being a sort of online “town square.” Though it had far fewer active users than Facebook, it was the site where everyone could talk to everyone else—you could follow a celebrity, politician, or newsmaker, and tweet directly at them. They might not respond (or even see it in the flood of their mentions) but it was the place where people who had something to say were saying it to each other.
It’s too early to say that all of those people are going to move over to Bluesky, but a lot of them are. The past week has seen folks from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Dionne Warwick join or reappear on the site. The Guardian announced it was quitting X, and it only seems like a matter of time before the news org starts posting on Bluesky. In short, it feels like something is happening. Momentum exists where it didn’t before, and all it took was a massive political upheaval. Fun!
Speaking of which, is it true that it’s just “liberals fleeing X,” as the Washington Post chose to frame it? Maybe! If that bothers you—whether because you don’t consider yourself liberal or because you have an opinion about “representing the other point of view” or the danger of “online echo chambers”—I’d remind you that no one is obligated to use a service that makes them feel bad.
There’s no algorithm (unless you want one)
The other big benefit of Bluesky is that it has rejected the very thing that made social media so toxic and addictive (in the worst way) over the past decade: Algorithms designed to give you what the site thinks you want, rather than what you might actually want. I’m old enough to remember when both Facebook and Twitter offered simple chronological feeds. You could log on and only see the kind of content you wanted to see, without being tricked into scrolling infinitely or interacting with rage-bait. Those days are long gone.
But not on Bluesky: While the site does offer an algorithmic “Discover” feed based on your interests, it’s entirely optional. The default feed is entirely algorithm-free, offering up only a chronological list of posts and shares from people you’ve chosen to follow.
After years of being unable to quit Facebook and X even after my feeds had filled up with ads, hatred, racism, and AI garbage, simply being able to see only the things I want to see feels quite like stepping out of a boarded-up house filled with putrefying air and into the sunshine of a bright, clear day. (Someone funnier than me describe Bluesky as a lifeboat speeding away from a sinking cruise ship whose remaining passengers all have norovirus.)
The vibes are good
Again, speaking anecdotally, because there’s no algorithm working overtime to make them angry, Bluesky users seem to be having fun—the vibes, as they say, are good. If you’re good about curating who you follow, you’re more likely going to be seeing posts that are interesting or provocative or funny or moving for you. You’ll still see posts from outside your immediate bubble as your follows share others’ content, so things can still very much go viral, but it’ll be on the merits, rather than because the person posting it paid $8 for the privilege.
I think this is a good thing! Not because I’m any more popular on Bluesky (my average post still hovers around two likes), but because using it doesn’t make me feel awful, even when the world is awful (which it usually is).
It’s easy to get started
Perhaps most importantly, the current exponential growth of Bluesky is continuing because its pretty easy to get started using it. There are tools to easily find everyone you followed (or who followed you) on X. People are also sharing user-created “starter packs” of like-minded folks you might want to follow, based on your interests (everything from “Moviesky,” filled with “film Twitter” refugees, to “Blacksky,” home to many Black creators).
You can even use a Chrome extension to import all your old tweets to the new platform, if you are a deeply unwell person like me.
It’s still social media
I’ve just told you all the reasons I have been having fun on Bluesky, but it’s still social media, which means your relationship with the site will only be as healthy (or unhealthy) as you allow it to be. We still live in way-too-interesting times, and it’s easy to fall into doomscrolling or get into nasty arguments with strangers in which you’re each fiercely defending your reactionary viewpoint on a massively complex subject you understand about 5% of (or is that just me?).
While Bluesky has a robust moderation tool—people have dubbed it the “nuclear block”—that allows you to boot bad actors from your mentions and keep them from seeing any of your content, sometimes the best course of action when social media is getting you down is to drop the phone and go touch grass—or look at the actual blue sky.