A lot of people stay because of lingering attachment to the platform. As weird as it is, changing the branding subconsciously tells the human brain “This is a new platform” and that makes switching mentally easier.
I think it’s spot on. It’s people who were already going through the stages of grief, were kinda stuck in “bargaining” (like: “nah, Twitter is not really dead, it’ll come back”), and the symbolism there about Twitter really being gone-gone fast-tracked them to depression/acceptance.
The stages of grief don’t have to go in that order. People can be angry at Twitter and then jump to acceptance that its never going back. No fast tracking needed.
- Denial: “There is no way Elon would do that to Twitter.”
- Anger: “This is stupid. Why would Elon do this to Twitter? He’s making things so much worse!”
- Bargaining: “Maybe if I hold out he’ll revert the changes. Maybe Elon has some good left in his heart.”
- Depression: “Why do stupid things like this happen to me?”
- Acceptance: “Looks like Twitter’s dead in the water, we should move on.”
You’ve been considering leaving Twitter for a while, and suddenly one morning the bird has flown and Twitter has left you instead.
I think it’s also a clear signal that things are really never going to return to normal, it’s only getting worse from here. Which is easy those of us on the outside to observe, but maybe slightly harder from the inside when you still have most of the community still intact and posting.
