I sacrifice for my readers. I’ve even dipped my toes into QAnon for your entertainment. So, in the interest of keeping you informed, I decided that I would join Parler, the new social media app where all the cool kids are going. And by cool kids, I mean the biggest losers on the internet, including avowed racists, Bongino sycophants, and Laura Loomer. Oh, and Jesse Kelly. Of course.
Parler is, allegedly, the “free speech” alternative to Twitter. The platform professes to welcome all, but it is undoubtedly aimed at the MAGA crowd. It is not really new, having originally launched in August of 2018. Anyway, the big “Twexit” got underway, much to the delight of Dan Bongino, who happens to own a piece of Parler as of — huh, look at that — as of about a week ago. What fortuitous timing. This week, however, it received an influx of new users, after among others Benny Johnson of… well, I don’t know, guess he’s famous for something — announced that he was leaving Twitter behind to join Parler.
As I type this sentence, on June 25 at 3:48pm, his last tweet was 51 minutes ago.
I’m not on the right, not a conservative, and most definitely not on the MAGAtrain. I am 100% not the target demographic of Parler. But needs must be met, and OT always needs content. So, using a newly created burner email, I signed up. I made up a generic username, threw some American flag emojis around it, and made my profile a closeup picture of bikini boobs. I filled out a profile professing my love for God, country, boobs, and Trump, and stepped into the world of Parler.
Immediately, I am greeted by the “welcome wagon”, two or three people who say hello and welcome new users. I don’t know if it’s automatic or if it’s the same users every time or what. But I thanked them, and “upvoted” their post to me, which they refer to as “parleys”.
So, a parley is analogous to a tweet. In the same way you can “retweet”, on Parler you “echo” or “echo with comment” (echo is very fitting for Parler in general.) You follow and gain followers, respond to parleys, and send DMs, all just like Twitter. They even have “verified users” like Twitter, but with a caveat: on Parler, verified means a real user and not a bot; it does not mean the user is who they say they are. I looked into becoming verified myself; it requires an upload of my government-issued photo ID. I will pass.
I start fishing around the site and see the usual suspects like the aforementioned Bongino and Loomer. Devin Nunes is big there. Cernovich, D’Souza, Posobiec, Charlie Kirk. Trump is not there — not yet — but his family is, as well as an account that purports to be his campaign. The tweets — er, I mean parleys — from these accounts are of the sort one would expect: eye-roll-worthy to most normal folks, but mostly benign. Pablum for your average Parlerer- or is it Parleyer?
These former Twitter brands have found an audience receptive to their bloviating. Wonderful. And also, how boring.
Seriously, it took me a long time to gather enough thoughts and material to write this, because spending time on the app was just. so. boring. Each user congratulating the next for his or her contribution to this giant echo chamber. The same Bongino and Washington Examiner articles posted over and over again. Stylized images of Trump as American hero. People posting Babylon Bee articles captioned “is this true?” And, surprisingly, an inordinate amount of discussion of Twitter and how courageous they all are for breaking free of its confines in favor of this brave new world. I nearly expected a video of one of them hurling a sledge hammer through a computer screen. There is very little debating of ideas, no personal banter, no fun; just platitudes espousing how great it is not to be a lib. It is one, big, monotonous circle jerk.
It’s not all far-right or even all conservatives. The Krassenstein brothers, also banned from Twitter, have active Parler accounts. Lots of normal, rational right-leaning folks have accounts as well. Unfortunately, I suspect most decent people will be turned off by the vile nature of much of what passes for discourse
“Free speech” is supposedly the platform’s big draw. But free speech at Parler seems to consist mostly of calling AOC a cunt, advocating the vehicular manslaughter of protesters, and professing one’s self to be unapologetically racist. I mean that literally — several profile bios use exactly those words. Much of what I have seen there is just over-the-top ugliness for shock value; like a couple of kids out of mom and dad’s earshot, cursing for the first time.
I understand that Twitter appears to have an unfair bias in favor of liberals/the left. I think Jack Dorsey once admitted as much. But most conservatives have not been run off from the platform, even if some of the more vitriolic rhetoric is unwelcome. And honestly, I cannot bring myself to care when grifters like Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl or Alex Jones or the Krassenstein brothers are booted off of one social media platform or another. When you can’t play well with the other children, sometimes they don’t let you on their playground.
I follow a lot of conservatives, libertarians, and others. I engage in debates with them frequently. I would be just as bored by a bunch of self-congratulatory liberals with no competing ideas to break the monotony, and adjust my follow list accordingly. All I can say after my foray into Parler is that I am not missing anything. I hope none of the Twitter accounts I genuinely like defect permanently. I’m not too worried though; the people I count among friends will not last long in a place that hate-filled.
I personally don’t anticipate starting up a legit Parler account any time soon. Besides, it still won’t let you edit your tweets. I mean parleys.
Oh boy, another social media platform to ignore.Report
It’s all bores with their hobby-horses.Report
I’m glad you “took one for the team,” Em.Report
Seems like it ought to be dismissable.
But that’s kind of what I said about FOX News once: “This is just obviously not even news, it’s nonstop opinion and editorializing.” Yet FOX News has gone and created this alternative reality where (for instance) everyone from Mexico is an “illegal immigrant” slavering at massive welfare checks and committing violent crimes under the malign protection of a sinister vampiric figure that’s vaguely shaped like Nancy Pelosi, who somehow hates white American people with jobs unless they’re gay-married to box turtles. Or something like that.
And there are people who seem to believe that shit, and who find themselves immersed in a world where they’re surrounded by other people who believe that shit and they believe it because they’re all repeating it to one another all the time with no dissenting voices. They’re subject to a Pauline Kael effect — “No one I know is in favor of banning chokeholds!” — and get an existential shock when they encounter someone who actually disagrees with them. A shock which they interpret as a threat.
Wash, rinse, repeat across the entire internet, and soon enough, you have 2020.Report
2020 just released a bunch of polls which showed Biden has huge leads in lots of purple states that went for Trump in 2016. The same polling had Biden within the margin of error in Texas, Texas. Speaking of Texas, it turns out that a pandmeic is not able to stop delusions and owning the libs so Abbot paused the reopening.
A lot of this is because a depression, pandemic, and waves of peaceful protest does not help an already unpopular President to paraphrase LGM. But another aspect is that Trumpian and Fox News tricks do not work against an old, white guy. This part is depressing but seemingly true. On Fox, The Democrats are the party of AOC but not (((Schumer))) and (((Sciff))).
The GOP seems to be on the way of becoming a rump party for white people (mainly white men) without a college degree and a huge amount of Eric “respect my authoritah” Cartmen in them. Now there is also ONAN which apparently makes Fox looks like the Nation.
I suspect that even an absolute rout in November would not stop the GOP from getting crazier and crazier.Report
boobs, and Trump
But I repeat myself.Report
Boobs deserve better man.
Plus I’d be really annoyed if estrogen gave me Trump instead of boobs. I’d have some stern word for my doctor.Report
*snerk!*Report
How is this not the featured comment?Report
So something even worse than twitter? The internet never fails to provide; there is no floor.Report
“It’s my Parler and I’ll cry if I want to.”Report
I’ve been thinking for quite some time that monoliths in social media aren’t really going to work. I see some people are starting to agree with me that a more balkanized collection of smaller platforms, each with its own culture and norms, is going to work better. Consider that stuff that is par for the course in some people’s homes might get them thrown out of others.
We all know this. Parler may or may not become one of these places. It kind of reeks of money with little understanding or desire to serve behind it, but who really knows? I’m fine with that. One size does not fit all.Report
The streaming-service model, except for social media.
Problem is, if you have friends on three different media platforms (and each only on one platform), you’re gonna have to either not keep up with friends, or keep up with three platforms. Well, at least the platforms are mostly free, unlike Netflix/Hulu/Disney+/HBO Go/NBC streaming/CBS streaming/whatever started up this week to yank its content off the other platforms and charge a separate fee…Report
For several years I was increasingly convinced that Social Media is 100% absolute crap and a waste of time. Nothing’s changed that. Sure, I’m concerned about any large company restricting user content while at the same time “professing” free speech bromides, kinda like how the press “claims” they are politically neutral, but what seems more to the point is the obsession with self validation users use it for. How many times did I roll my eye at my last GF when the last thing she did before going to bed each night, was to post pics and comments on Social Media. The first thing she did when she woke up was to see the responses. I’m having coffee and reading the local paper. The other damn thing that annoyed me was that she consumed all her data plans checking social media and then asked me to look stuff up on google or such. “Ah, you’ve got a search engine in your hand”…”.but I’m out of data”….”then stop using Facebook on your phone all day” Maybe it’s because I stopped giving a damn about what most people thought of me. Life is too short to worry about fools and their opinions.
I still look at social media that other folks have posted in places, just like I watch/read the news….each side of the news. There is no real similarity between the two perspectives.Report
This will not allow Devin Nunes to escape from the wrath of his cow
https://www.newsweek.com/devin-nunes-cow-follows-parler-1513345Report
If I had to graph total amount of information on a website by number of participants, it’d be a strong increase up to about 50 then basically level off. A graph of total content (as opposed of information) by number of participants would continually increase, meaning (information)/(content) peaks at 50. A graph of hostility by number of participants would be nearly zero through about 10, then continually increase.Report
So it’s basically Twitter without the ADs? Cool.Report