Cultural currency

Twitter’s most unique attribute is the countless number of cultural moments the platform has played host to: celebrity clapbacks at fans, The Rock being the second person to break the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, Wendy’s and other brand accounts becoming human, Trump’s 4 a.m. antics and so on.

Twitter was around for 17 years, and in that time became the de-facto curator of pop culture. The list of moments true and unique to Twitter could go on forever and will be difficult to replicate.

An unforgettable app

So who will emerge victorious and fill Twitter’s big shoes? Who will strike the right balance of essential features and safety measures?

None of these questions can be answered today, tomorrow or next week, but they’ll continue burning up the industry and consuming the minds of everyday social media users. But why do these things matter so much outside our advertising bubble?

That answer is simple: the innate human desire to belong to something. And Twitter, love it or hate it, was and is truly something. It is a collection of memories, communities, safe spaces and inside jokes that so many users, despite disdain for what the platform has become, still refuse to let go and let die at the hand of one overzealous, out-of-touch billionaire. It is a place that can be endlessly imitated but may never be duplicated.

The Twitter experience simply cannot be X’d out.