KEEPING TWITTER FROM BECOMING "X"

There are many things that make me question why I’m still on Twitter. The new, ridiculous name is just one of them. It’s like the app is going through its awkward Prince/Puff Diddy phase. Just because Facebook is trying on a stupid name change doesn’t mean Twitter should follow. But monkey see, monkey do. These boneheads are billionaires?!

 

In truth, I’ve never really understood Twitter. A tech leader at work talked rhapsodically about it back in 2009. He was connecting with golf lovers in North Carolina and guys who gave insightful critiques on the latest software. Golfers! Techies! It was the pitch from hell. But my first book had been published the year before and I figured I could do some belated promotion or at least build a following for the next book release. (Sigh…still waiting.)

 

The way I remember it, the Twitter stream felt overwhelming. As I’d read tweets, the app would tell me there were 28 new tweets, then 56, then 140. How was I supposed to keep up? I rued dropping out of that speed reading class I took on weekends in high school. (The microfiche slides really did smell like vomit.) When I tried tweeting, I kept being dashed by the character limit. I had to be more concise in sharing my thoughts about the Beijing Olympics, Michael Jackson’s death and Adam Lambert on “American Idol.” When I’d cut things down, I wondered if I was really saying anything. 

 

I’m still wondering. 

 

Maybe that’s the problem. Over time, tweets changed. Influenced by more visual social media like Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok, tweets started including photos, memes and giphy attachments. The images were supposed to draw people to your words but then it got to the point where the words were superfluous. Any aspirations of connecting gave way to accruing likes. 

 

Like the picture of my breakfast. (No, there’s no such thing as too much syrup.)

 

Like the photo of a waterfall from my hike. (Or is it a shot of the leaky faucet in the bathroom?)

 

Like my haircut. (If I were bald, I’d have twenty percent less Twitter content.)

 

Despite all my griping to friends who aren’t on any form of social media, I’ve adapted. If I don’t have a photo for my tweet, I search Google Images to paste something. Notice my tweet! Like it! Comment! Retweet! These are the basic needs we seek to have met on Twitter.

 

There was a time, somewhere around 2015, when I couldn’t check my Twitter account in public. I’d be sitting in a café, taking a quick writing break, checking to see if the Katy Perry-Taylor Swift feud was trending again, and a photo of naked man would pop up…or, more often, a photo of a certain part of a naked man would, yes, pop up. Porn photos, porn clips. Aack! I’d blush and break out in sweat as I flipped my laptop shut or threw my phone into my open backpack.

 

I’d spent considerable time building my Twitter following to prove to literary agents I had a means of promoting my still-unpublished Epic Gay Novel. (It’s hysterical! It’s heartfelt! Unfortunately, it does not include zombies, magical realism or space aliens that fall in love with inflatable Rock Hudson dolls.) I specifically followed gay men, hoping they’d follow back. This is when I realized how much gay men liked gay porn. They posted it. They retweeted it. I blocked the most frequent offenders. It meant a potential loss of buyers for my Epic Gay Novel, but I made a calculated decision that they were too busy watching porn (and ordering inflatable Rock Hudson dolls online) to read my book. Sure, there are references to porn in the book but, without pictures, they would come off as drab as my graphic-free tweets of 2009-2014. 

 

I suspect the Twitter police finally took action. I don’t see porn or any element of nudity anymore. It’s safe to login again at Starbucks or on public transit. I don’t have to wait until I’m home to view snazzy haircuts and yummy brunches (How is there not a world shortage of maple syrup?).

 

But a new, problematic trend emerged. My stream has been increasingly cluttered with guys posting shirtless selfies. 

 

Look at me! I’m at the gym. My bicep grew, didn’t it?

 

I’m cooking. Topless! (Why risk getting marinara sauce on a sweatshirt?)

 

Like my haircut? (I groomed my chest, too.)

 

Sigh. Gays love skin. 

 

That’s okay. I just grew up being told there’s a time and place for everything. I can Google shirtless guys. I’m sure there are sites I can bookmark. I can even make a certain shirtless cover shot of Ryan Reynolds from Entertainment Weekly (June 26/July 3, 2009 double issue) my screensaver. 

 

I don’t log into Twitter to see men flashing pecs and biceps. As regular as it’s become, it’s still annoying. Pec-man, for whatever reason, needs people to like his photo. I suspect he likes his chest. Other people liking it is its own endorphin rush. Is this narcissism? Is it extreme neediness? Is this a brazen If you’ve got it, then flaunt it mindset? Beats me. All I know is I don’t want to see it.

 

It's not healthy for me and I have a hunch it’s not healthy for a lot of people. One person’s body pride can make another person feel envy and even shame. I have lived a lifetime sizing up my body against others…along with my own brutal self-assessments. I’ve worked hard to get close to self-acceptance. Still, every half naked Twitter post tests me. It’s unwelcome. Call it foolish, but I still scroll Twitter in search of people who have something to say or, if nothing else, a cool beach shot that makes me suddenly Google the Whitsunday Islands. Gym selfies irk me. They feel invasive. If I wanted to be immersed with gym bods, I’d get an Anytime Fitness membership instead of working out alone in the tiny but well-equipped fitness center in my building.

 

A month ago, I began blocking Pec-men and Bicep Buds. One of the first things I discovered was that I didn’t actually follow most of these guys. That was, in and of itself, a relief. I’ve tried to be discerning about whom I follow. These posts were Twitter’s doing, coming through on my phone on the stream labelled “For you” which includes some people I follow but also spits out unwanted content arising from the site’s #$%*^ algorithm. Since I identify as gay, Twitter decided I wanted to see shirtless studs…even though my history of likes has never endorsed clothing-minimal posts.

 

(I have another Twitter account (@gregorywalters –Follow me!) that’s more focused on books and writing. It’s also flooded with folks I don’t follow. I don’t mind as much. Mostly it’s meals from vegans and posts from miniature schnauzers who’ve figured out how to create their own accounts. They really are a bright breed.)

 

I blocked body-baring bros ruthlessly. For the first couple of weeks, this meant I was even more focused on such posts. I was stopping on each one, rather than quickly scrolling past. 

 

Block. Ha! 

Another block. Yes! 

 

It felt cathartic. No shirt? No stream for you!

 

Twitter and its cursed algorithm got the message. Guys in my feed are now fully dressed. One has an affinity for bow ties. Another wears different glasses. I like their quirks; I “like” their posts. Twitter no longer makes me feel like I need to squeeze in a longer bike ride or gnaw on celery stalks for dinner. At last, the bare-chested boys are at bay. Let others reinforce their need to be seen. I can scroll without the muscle assault.

 

Now if only more people on Twitter said something. Original thoughts and not lazy retweets. Of course, if that ever came to be, I’d feel less need to head out and have real conversations with people off-screen. I may never figure out the purpose of Twitter. Maybe that’s a good thing.  

 

 

“EASTSIDERS” REVIEW, PART 2, aka MY ADMISSION THAT I’M A REPRESSED GAY

It must have come down to another thrilling laundry night, sitting semi comatose on my bed, slayed by a touch of heartburn after shoveling down a soggy nuked plate of veggie nachos. I clicked the Netflix button as a way of muting doomsday election talk on CNN. Fifteen minutes passed as I scrolled through the options, nothing coming close to even a maybe. It was a déjà-vu feeling, like when I used to look at profiles on dating sites. Nothing. Nothing. Blech. To avoid any further thought in that regard, I swooped back up to “Continue Watching,” glared at “The Politician” (as if the evil eye would make it go away) and began season two of “Eastsiders.”

A couple of things were readily apparent. Between seasons, the show’s creator, main writer and actor who played Cal, Kit Williamson, had been to the gym. A lot. Apparently he was very proud of this because he was now shirtless or wearing a tank top whenever possible. Sigh. It reminded me of the daily gym selfies of certain guys on Twitter. Um, thanks for another unsolicited peek, but your abs are basically the same today as yesterday. No number of “likes” will make their selfies stop. These guys only want more. Look at my pecs, man! Hey, I’ve found another pose to show off my biceps. It looks perfectly natural, yes?

It also reminds of the pre-Twitter world, when certain big-boobed women habitually wore low-cleavage tops, drawing my eyes to that For Your Consideration gap between boobs. I swear I didn’t want to look. I was so clearly not a breast man. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have any latent kinks about my breast feeding days. Hell, I have a hunch I was raised on formula. I suppose I could clarify this with my mother, but it’s one of a thousand things we can’t possibly talk about. When I was a child, my mother used to talk loudly over tampon commercials—effectively so, as I never figured out what they were advertising—and my father would ham it up every time a TV show (e.g., “Dallas”) had a kissing scene. (“John!” he’d exclaim, followed by, “Mary!” It didn’t matter who the TV characters were. He stuck with John and Mary.) Anything sexy or sexual had to be neutered. I suppose this is why I still feel so desperate for big-breasted women to try a sweatshirt every once in a while and why I felt uncomfortable with Cal appearing constantly on screen so...uncovered. “Eastsiders” had an affinity for bed scenes, not just for sex, but for long conversations that could have played out quite nicely fully clothed in a hipster cafe. (Yes! Show me more of Silver Lake.)

The other big change was that the episodes had gotten longer, now consistently lasting between twenty-five and thirty minutes. The show began on YouTube, initially funded through Kickstarter so shorter episodes were a budgetary necessity. With the backing of Vimeo for the second season, presumably the episodes could run longer and I imagine the platform pushed for a more conventional running time.

Thom, great hair; Cal, not so much.

 

The show didn’t get any better; I just got used to it. If I’d had a more exciting social life—or any social life—I would have turned my back on “Eastsiders.” I’d be spared the internal conflict of stare/don’t stare at actor Kit Williamson’s bad haircut (again, part of his second season new look), a terrible barber shop accident involving aggressive, though incomplete, use of a razor. (Yes, this was a look five years ago. I contend that nobody ever carried it off.)

I’m not sure when it happened, but I think it was at the end of the first season that Cal and Thom broke up. Good. Too dysfunctional. I’d had enough of Cal looking mopey miserable. But, of course, they got back together, probably after a few episodes of the second season and they went formed some sort of open relationship. I think that’s the gay equivalent to struggling straight couples deciding to have a baby. That’ll make everything better.

It’s probably part of my repressed upbringing, but I’ve never ever come to terms with open relationships. They used to all-out piss me off. There’d be two gay men, holding themselves up as a happy, loving couple, having sex on the side with twinks and attracting the attention of single guys that I was trying (hopelessly) to attract. Couples were not supposed to be part of my competition. Yellow flag! Red flag! Get off the damn field!

As if then—finally—David Thomas would finally notice me as someone more than the really uncoordinated dude who always ended up right beside him during Saturday morning step class.

Objectively, I can accept other people’s open relationships. Their consent, their agreement. Okay. I get it. Works for you. None of my business.

But I always go back to being subjective. Open relationships represent everything I don’t like about being gay or just being a man. Thinking with penises. Why should we accept and celebrate fucking around? Why must loyalty and commitment be considered as archaic, staid ideals for the hetero bunch?

Obviously I could go on (and on) about open relationships. It’s not good for me. I don’t have high blood pressure meds.

“Eastsiders” wasn’t content to stick with the open relationship shenanigans. (Yes, I just used an old-fashioned word. It so suits me, don’t you think? Really, I just like shenanigans because it sounds a bit like Bennigan’s, a restaurant chain I often went to after college in Texas for baskets of fried veggies with ranch dip and amaretto sours. You’re only allowed to order food that comes out brown on a plate when you’re in Texas. It’s a law or something.)

“Eastsiders” wanted to bring more attention to itself—and Kit Williamson’s gym body—by introducing Thom and Cal to threesomes. Go ahead and agitate this viewer some more. In my mind, threesomes are not as objectionable as open relationships. You’re still with your partner. Presumably you’ve fully discussed limits and safe words and earnestly agreed to fair sharing of the mattress impostor. But you’re still double dipping. That third person could have been out for a scintillating conversation at a cafe with me. He likes oat milk lattes, too. By god, we’re a match! But then, how is my latte invite supposed to compete with sex with a couple? Now where did I put my red and yellow flags?

I figured the threesome story idea on “Eastsiders” was just for a Very Special Episode, a sitcom concept that was quite popular in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Like when the lead character lost his virginity on “James at 15” (which, by then, was “James at 16,” a more respectable, though still edgy, age for first-time sex to be flaunted in front of a TV audience). Or when Natalie lost her virginity on “The Facts of Life.” A V.S.E. didn’t always have to be about sex. Maybe there was one with Cindy getting braces on “The Brady Bunch”...I don’t know. It’s telling, isn’t it, that I remember the sex ones?

“Eastsiders” made its Very Special Episode very, very special. One three-way was followed by another and another and as many others as they could squeeze into twenty-seven minutes. Cue my inner Church Lady: Well, isn’t that special? Yes, hammer. That is my head you’re hitting. Um...thanks?

Guess they needed to get that out of their system.

But they didn’t. Threesomes became any enduring aspect of this couple’s relationship. As if to show this was a bad move, Cal and Thom even got robbed by one of their pickups but, being fully committed at least to dysfunction, they continued their threesome ways. Dandy.

My selfie

It wasn’t just the sex that bothered me. (You don’t have to believe me. You can forever view me as a Victorian era prude, if you wish.) As the show “progressed”, I had a hard time liking characters. Definitely not Cal. Thom felt more evolved, more outside of himself, more willing to give and perhaps stop looking at hookup apps on his phone and to fully commit if only Cal opened up more and asserted what he wanted (if, in fact, he wanted anything). Time and again, they professed their love by saying basically, no matter what, we’re stuck with each other. Warms my heart.

Jeremy was more likable, a kind soul, but his lack of direction (a millennial stereotype?) annoyed me instead of becoming endearing as it did with the characters on the far superior Netflix stream-able “Please Like Me.” Bisexual Ian didn’t make any impact, another directionless soul. Was he truly bisexual or did he just go whichever way the wind blew for a blowjob? Why make an effort if you don’t have to? Derrick, the conventionally relationship-oriented doctor who gets involved with Jeremy, just came off as dull and humorless, no surprise for a show that thumbed its nose at traditional pairings. I wanted most to like struggling gay event promoter Quincy and his drag queen partner Douglas. They were interesting to watch, a type of coupling I hadn’t seen much of before, but they didn’t get enough screen time and Douglas was only starting to break free from his aloofness as the series wrapped.

For all its poking around at different relationships, I stuck with the show, not just out of a commitment to seeing it through, knocking it out of my Continue Watching menu, but because, despite all its efforts to indicate otherwise, “Eastsiders” was committed to relationships, after all. The last episode is built around a wedding, one that looks to be an unconventional spectacle in the planning stages, but celebrates love, individuality and partnership in the end. They got there and so did I. Not sure that it was worth it, but at least I can wrap this post with a Pet Shop Boys song dancing in my head. 

Fade out.