Accounts from Twitterland

by Ryan C. Molen

Twitterland had 300 million registered citizens in 2016. Think of it as a country: it’d be bigger than Indonesia, Japan, and Pakistan. A country that knows no borders, a nation of millions of citizens staring emptily at their screens, scrolling their lives away.

Before I sleep, I tweet “goodnight Twitterland!” followed by numbers. My numbers the other night were 165, 366, 42. This tweet’s like my digital bundy clock. I tweet no more until the next day. The numbers are countdowns to events I’m excited for. I must power through: it’s only N days to this, or N days to that! I can’t kill myself just yet!

I always wake up at 6:30 am. My morning ritual: reach for my phone and check my social media. Wearing my eyeglasses, brushing my teeth, and washing my face come after that. On school days, friends often tweet at two a.m. about their exhaustion, their stress, and their to-do lists. One announced: this pain from writing three papers is temporary, but my GPA is forever. Another said: the 5^th all-nighter this week, let’s go go go! Their breakdowns are displayed for the world to feast on. I worry about them sometimes.

A list of things I have counted down to: the release of Lady Gaga’s album Joanne, the release of Star Wars Episode VIII, Christmas, graduation day. The night before what I was waiting for, the countdown hits zero so in the morning, I can finally celebrate. Sometimes I don’t get the numbers right, though.

During finals week, our counseling office recommended finding a destressor to help us cope. Exercising is at the top of the list. Next is finding a routine to stick to before sleeping. A skincare routine or some yoga before bed stabilized stress levels, they said. I always thought these took too much time. A tweet takes only fifteen seconds to compose and send.

I hope I make it to the day when the countdown to graduation day hits zero.

My mother cautions me not to be on my phone the whole day. Why not? All the other kids do it. She says my phone might suddenly explode. Or the wifi signals will fry my brain and make me stupider and I’ll fail college and I’ll never have a decent life. Hold up. My head is already mush, Mom. It’s been broken for months now. Maybe the extra frequencies will be the finishing blow. Finally.

Where do you draw the line between a healthy habit and a crutch? If I can’t tweet before I sleep, I end up restless. Something on my to-do list is left unchecked. My mind can’t shut off. If there’s one thing I can consistently check off my to-do list, it’s my goodnight tweet. This is one of the few things I’m good at. When the wifi doesn’t cooperate, the habit crumbles, and so do I.

“Wow, I know I’m screwed for the night when I see the goodnight Twitterland tweet and I haven’t started studying yet,” one friend once tweeted. “Yeah, he’s really got it all together, huh?” another friend replied. The truth is, I never sleep right when I tweet it. Maybe the habit builds a persona that makes it look like I’ve finished all my tasks by 10 pm, and I’m happily getting eight hours of sleep every night. Largely untrue. It makes me uneasy to be praised for a lie.

I once argued against a middle-aged woman about Duterte kissing an Overseas Filipino Worker in South Korea. I asked, would she allow her husband or her son to do the same? She sent a flood of dirty insults against me, my mother, and my school. She ended her outburst with “Magpakamatay ka na, hipokrito! Nagbabanal-banalan pero masusunog ka rin naman sa impiyerno!” (Go kill yourself, you hypocrite! You pretend to be holy but you will burn in hell anyway!) I clicked her profile. The account was made a week ago, and she had three followers. Her bio read: #ChangeIsComing | Loving Mother of Junjun, Jomar, and Kheisha | Saved by the Grace of God.

I like being on Twitter. Every time I open it, I encounter a new meme. Or a new joke format. Even though the joke formats get old sometimes, they’re always fresh when I tell them to friends in real life. They think I’m such a witty and funny person! Who needs a personality when you’re a Twitterland citizen?

Other arguments on Twitter: Liza Soberano, a rising teen star, was grilled because she was cast on an evening telenovela about the ancient Filipinos. Her face was too white to represent our Filipino ancestors. I am Filipino, she insisted, I loooooove sinigang! I can’t believe Liza rewrote the Constitution’s provisions on citizenship with that single tweet. Who needs to know jus sanguinis and jus soli?

Liza’s tweet also sparked a war between adobo and sinigang—which one was the real national dish? The battles were fought on Twitter polls. Then came people posting their best plating of their own adobo and sinigang. Imagine a country where people were that passionate over the West Philippine Sea issue or Congress’s proposal for federalism. That country will never exist, never in my lifetime.

I keep saying goodnight to Twitterland. No one has ever said good night back. Not yet.

I began the habit when I saw a video clip of Lady Gaga accepting her crown as Queen of Twitter. This was back in 2010– she had the largest number of followers at the time. She was in her dressing room, and she had a large crown, sunglasses, and a scepter. She addressed her subjects. She called her new kingdom “Twitterverse.” I thought this was cute. I wanted my own little world too.

I broke my habit the night Sam ended things with me. I was already curled up in bed, hot tears on my face. I’ll tweet it the next day, I thought to myself. I shouldn’t be awake at this time. I don’t need to broadcast my pain at three a.m. to a world that does not care. Everyone’s too busy with their own pain to care, after all. Maybe I should stop the habit.

Who am I kidding, though? There’s no time out from Twitterland. Or the Internet. Once you log in, you can never log out. Twitter never tires from churning out content. Watch out, New York, someone’s out for you—this is truly a land that never sleeps.

Is there really a person behind each account? A living, breathing, human being? Some Duterte trolls make me question that. How can someone have so much time to spend in front of a screen, spewing lies and nonsense?

I’ve read somewhere that habits are formed in twenty-one days. To completely undo them, you should avoid doing the habit for twice as long as you have been doing it. This nightly ritual has kept me going for seven years now.

Twitterland is a land of no growth, improvement, or learning from a mistake. Everything is a touch move. Even verified accounts aren’t immune to this. This principle is so powerful that the only way to defeat Thanos, one person suggested, was to dig up his homophobic and transphobic tweets from nine years ago. Then he’ll be canceled for life.

Yet Donald Trump still has a Twitter account. Guess the rules in Twitterland aren’t enforced much either. Nothing different from the real world.

You know, there’s probably a very good reason the counseling office didn’t suggest Twitter as a destressor.

I wonder if there’s Twitter and wifi in heaven. (Bold of me to assume I’m going there, of course!)

Or if there’s heaven in the first place.

I wish God would give me a sign when I’m about to die, so I can at least change the tweet to “goodbye Twitterland.” Imagine if I died in my sleep and the last tweet I sent was “goodnight Twitterland.” That’s tragic, isn’t it? I’ll be remembered as that loser who had no loved one to greet goodnight and the weirdo who tweeted the same greeting with random numbers every night. This is going to be a puzzle to the historians who stumble upon my account fifty years in the future.

I try to reach out to my friends when they tweet their frustration. I send them a few heart emojis and a tweet going along the lines of “Things will work out! I’m sure you’ve got this!” A friend once replied to me privately: “Actually, no, things didn’t work out. I failed.” These tweets are just a bunch of pixels, really. I never know if I’m making a difference.

Another memorable time in Twitterland was the rescue of Thai boys trapped in a cave. I didn’t know how it started; when I saw the tweets about the news, I already tweeted goodnight. The next morning, the boys were rescued. Supportive tweets poured in from everyone. Congrats to the rescuers! They’re heroes in my heart. Thank the Lord all the boys are safe! Someone should make a movie out of this. Scarlett Johansson should be in it. Scarlett as one of the rescuers? The rescuers were all men though. No, she’ll star as one of the Thai boys.

I can’t wait for graduation. I’ll see all my friends tweet happy photos of them in their togas. Everyone sending each other tweets of gratitude. You look great! I’ll miss you! Goodbye, college crush. Hang out soon, please! All followed by dozens of heart emojis. Then in a week, we’ll never speak again.

My favorite Twitter beef was between Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift. Taylor was fuming over Kanye West for making a song called “Famous,” which had the line “I made that bitch famous,” referring to Taylor. Taylor and the social justice warriors cried foul. Enter Kim Kardashian, dropping video clips of Taylor speaking with Kanye, clearly approving of the profanity. Thanks to that incident, I don’t remember how badly I bombed my calculus final exam that day, and how that score will destroy my GPA. All I remember is how badly Kim Kardashian destroyed Taylor Swift’s reputation with her tweets. Get her, Kim!

One time, a notorious Duterte supporter posted a Twitter poll: “Sino ang tunay na bise-presidente? Bumoto at magkaalaman na tayo!” (Who is the real vice president? Vote and let’s finally find out!) The options were Bongbong Marcos and Leni Robredo. A few minutes later, the poll was at 92% Robredo and 8% Marcos. People swarmed the supporter’s profile with insults. Ashamed, the supporter deleted the post. Yet people were quick to take screenshots. Memes were born left and right. Twitterland’s a circus that goes on and on and on.

Lady Gaga’s “Twitterverse” sounded a bit too large in scope. I prefer “Twitterland.” Sounds more quaint. Sounds more like home; maybe even like a hometown. Sounds like someone waiting for me at the end of a long day. Something to look forward to before I slept. Calling it a “land” made it sound more like a place, a defined area where I belonged too well.

Earlier this year, a big rule in Twitterland had changed: a maximum of 140 characters per tweet became 280 characters per tweet. Tweets turned to larger blocks to accommodate the longer text. Gosh, these new tweets are novels, a friend remarked. Goes to show that some citizens of Twitterland haven’t read anything longer than 140 characters in a while. At least with more characters, you can sound literate. You don’t have to contort your grammar and syntax to make your message fit the limit anymore.

It’s not like my goodnight tweets have benefitted much from this. The message is the same, night in, night out. I leave you temporarily as I must sleep; but I will return to you, time and time again. Plus, I don’t have that many things to count down to. I’m actually running out of them.

As graduation season approaches, my batchmates post pictures of their college constants. All in wacky, coordinated outfits. “They’ve been with me every step of the way,” they proudly proclaim. Too bad I can’t take a picture of my Twitter account and goodnight Twitterland. Now they’ve been with me every night, every step of the way.

Do I say goodbye to Twitterland when I graduate? I’ve sent around two thousand goodnight tweets now. I’m getting too old for this crutch.

The 1975 released their album A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships two nights ago. I listened to the album right when it went live on Spotify at 12 midnight. One song talked about a lonely, lonely man who was best friends with the Internet (Here’s the link: https://spoti.fi/2RpAxj4). The man shared all his fears and desires to the Internet. The track ended unceremoniously with the man’s death. That’s absolutely pathetic. Imagine having no friends and you’re stuck on the Internet your whole life! I’d never fall into that trap, I thought, as I grabbed my phone and aimlessly scrolled through my Twitter timeline for the next two hours.

I don’t think God gives a heads up when he’s about to take your life. So if you see me tweet “goodbye Twitterland,” please reach out to me. Even if you don’t personally know me. Something’s up for sure. Please help me.

Hey, I better make it to graduation. I’ve already spent thousands on my graduation photoshoot, and I’ve already shared my casual shots on Twitterland. But not yet my toga photos. The world’s got to see them!

RYAN C. MOLEN is currently a student at the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health. Back in college, he was active in HEIGHTS, the official artistic and literary publication and organization of the Ateneo de Manila University. His works have been published by HEIGHTS and The First Line. When he is not swamped by schoolwork, he enjoys reading, writing, listening to music, making Spotify playlists, and generally spending (too much?) time on the internet. He hopes every person has a long list of days to count down to.