Twitter recently informed me that it was my eighth anniversary of signing up for the site. It’s been a regular part of my day pretty well non-stop that entire time, and has definitely integrated itself into my life in a major way. Recently, there’s been a lot of pushback against Twitter — people saying it’s grown more serious and political, and become an emotional drain. And I get that. I’ve had to force myself to step away from it during crises where there’s a nonstop flood of information. Some people are leaving the platform, or at least muting any terms that are at all political, and I think there’s value in that, especially when social media can sap our mental well-being with a constant barrage of bad news. But I don’t think I can entirely leave, or even hide the conversations I don’t like. Twitter has always been political — just like nearly every conversation is if you boil it down — and while current world events certainly highlight that more, for myself, it’s worth the effort of wading through all of that to stay in the loop.
Jeff was The Cascade's Editor in Chief for the latter half of 2022, having previously served as Digital Media Manager, Culture & Events Editor, and Opinion Editor. One time he held all three of those positions for a month, and he's not sure how he survived that. He started at The Cascade in 2016.
