A New Way To Look At It

Twitter is such a gloriously strange place. Every time I log in there I am amazed at just how different an experience it is compared to other social media platforms and the real world in general.

For a long time I was deep in the throes of Twitter. I opened an account when I was like 15 or something. I remember at the time there were only like three other Namibians on there. There was a point when the community was so small that as it grew, many of us knew each other in real life.

There were a good few years of Namibian Twitter where every day was a fight for survival. I remember a time before the ‘woke ‘ era where it was a jungle. There was absolutely zero decorum, I swear. People would fight all the the time, and things were pretty brutal.

It’s a bit different now. It’s still pretty wild, and you could very easily catch a stray bullet if you aren ‘t careful, but these days the drama has ballooned to incredible heights. People have enemies, some move in cliques, people have hundreds of users on their blocklists, cease and desist letters have been exchanged, scams have been documented, politicians have been called out, scandals have unfolded, people have been dragged and cancelled and shamed.

On the plus side, many amazing events and brands were birthed on Twitter. Not to forget that weddings have been eaten, babies have been born and degrees have been celebrated. The support there over the years has proven to be unlike any other. It’s almost like people are part of one big family that fights and laughs and drinks and cries together.

It wasn ‘t until this year that I realised just how insulated we all are on that app. I took a break from tweeting when the year started and forgot about it for a while. Then some or other scandal broke out and I knew I had to log back in for the best content meme-wise.

What I found was a mess.

Now see, what we all love about the blue app is the fact that we get to express ourselves. I think all of us just have too many opinions and it’s the best place for us to articulate them all.

But people rarely communicate this way in real life. People hardly ever call each other out or have an attitude from the beginning of every encounter.

I ‘ve seen countless discussions take place IRL (in real life) with people who have opposing ideas and beliefs, but it hardly ever escalates to full blown arguing and name calling like it does online.

And this is not me trying to distance myself from the issue. I too love a good brawl. I ‘ve been at the giving and the receiving end of many Twitter fights. I ‘ve dragged, judged and crucified. I mean, at some point even I was apparently cancelled (story for another day).

It just took me leaving for some time and then coming back one day to really notice the insanity.

Two minutes into being logged back in, my blood pressure was through the roof. I saw so many posts and statements that I immediately disagreed with that I already began constructing shady and mean rebuttals. I just couldn ‘t help it. There is truly just something about being on that timeline that makes you want to throw down.

This revelation made me realise that not every opinion needs to be expressed. No matter how correct you think you are, your opponent thinks the same of themselves.

The world is so, so big. There are so many people who have grown up completely different from us, with different experiences, values and circumstances, and so everyone is going to have a different way of viewing life.

Logging out has helped me let go of a lot of feelings. For a long time I thought that as a black woman in Africa, I had to be angry all the time and that I had to fight. I thought I had to have an issue with everything and a voice for anything. In a way, I kinda do, I guess, but also: I don ‘t.

I ‘m choosing to just live. To accept some things for what they are, to fight for myself, to have good relationships, to treat others kindly, to care about the earth and to give love.

Any more than that I ‘ll add to my to-do list.

– Anne Hambuda is a screenwriter, poet, columnist and creative thinker. Email annehambuda@gmail.com for more.

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