Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Bluesky displayed on a cel phone with the app open on a computer monitor on Nov. 14 in Pasadena, Calif.Mario Tama/Getty Images
On the 1980s sitcom Family Ties, a teenage conservative played by Michael J. Fox clashes with his liberal parents. But it was Justine Bateman, the actress who played one of his sisters, who celebrated Donald Trump’s recent victory with this viral post on X: “Decompressing from walking on eggshells for the past four years.”
Anti-wokeness may not have decided the election, and plenty of critics of progressive sanctimony preferred Kamala Harris. (Hi!) But a perception of Democrats as the party of political correctness didn’t help matters. And the circa-2016 liberal belief that Mr. Trump won because voters are bigots was challenged by the strides he made this time around with Black and Latino voters.
This might seem, then, like a moment for figuring out how to decouple progressive sanctimony from progressive politics. Instead, Mr. Trump’s opponents appear to be regrouping on the newly popular social-media platform Bluesky to talk among themselves.
Bluesky is a text-heavy social-media platform similar to what Twitter (now X) was under Jack Dorsey, who helped found both Twitter and Bluesky but is not currently running either. It costs nothing, and it’s ad-free and relatively easy to use. Right now, it’s functioning largely as an alternative to X, owned by the Trump-aligned Elon Musk.
To get a sense of the atmosphere on Bluesky, peruse the endless stream of posts from users – including from major figures – referring to themselves as “refugees” from X, terminology that made its way, uncritically, into Slate coverage. The idea that switching over to a different platform for your socials has anything in common with fleeing a war zone is not just clueless (which is jarring on a site so otherwise attuned to hypersensitivities, though some have called it out in its usual sanctimonious tone) but also indicative of self-seriousness levels. The “Discover” tab brought me to a post that began, “I love that a week ago I never thought I’d log into this app ever again and now I’m clinging to it like a scared orphaned bear cub, getting pulled out of a forest fire.”
But the flight to Bluesky is a concern, not because X is the superior platform, but because at a moment when persuasion and communication are vital, Mr. Trump’s loudest and most influential critics are building an echo chamber.
Recreating one’s social media from scratch is a hassle. Bluesky facilitates this through “starter packs,” or user-generated lists of suggested follows. These, too, give a sense of the scene: left-leaning categories and lists of progressive journalists, academics and so on. There’s an “anti-capitalist” starter pack, as well as one for asexual and aromantic VTubers. Even a “problematic faves” starter pack – which someone put me on, alas – has liberal commentators and, like, The Atlantic.
At this point, you’re either thinking, Finally, a Twitter for people like me, or running screaming in the other direction.
The platform feels like a collective endeavour toward a gentler world. Etiquette guides abound. Dunking – sharing a bad take for the purposes of mocking it – is discouraged. The people who skeet – what posting is popularly called on this platform – are better than that. But what’s missing from Bluesky isn’t merely Nazis, but the centre-left, the unclassifiable, and all snark unaccompanied by righteous political aims. It has no irreverent humour, no bite. Political uniformity breeds humourlessness. This is not because conservatives are funnier than liberals – anti-woke comedy is as tedious as woke – but because if everyone is “walking on eggshells” then no one risks being a bit silly.
At its best, Twitter/X could be funny in a way that transcended culture wars. Stuff like the Nathan Fielder 2015 post, “Out on the town having the time of my life with a bunch of friends. They’re all just out of frame, laughing too.” It satirizes trying to come across as popular. This would feel out of place – unseemly – on Bluesky.
The closest I’ve seen has been Jerry Chen’s much-shared Nov. 13 skeet: “mental health break? you bet it did.” Bluesky as postelection self-care.
Where does this atmosphere come from? Bluesky began as an invite-only platform. While it is now open to all, its origins had the effect of recreating the old-Twitter blue-check regime, wherein media insider sorts set the tone.
Some is also built into the platform itself. The account of a British barrister who I take it has the “bad” views on gender identity has been flagged with an “Intolerance” tag, for “Discrimination against protected groups.” You can read her posts, but they’re individually hidden behind a kind of trigger-warning wall. “Sensitive” and “Rude” material gets similarly flagged.
It’s not easy to find, but you can change these default settings. Nevertheless, they prioritize a sense of safety over exposing anyone to ideas they might disagree with or tones that may diverge from the Be Kind vibe. The same functions and norms that guard against political extremism overshoot the mark.
There are also apolitical explanations for Bluesky’s relative surge in appeal. As X has grown more and more clunky to use – ubiquitous and ridiculous ads (unless you pay), bots promoting explicit materials, an incentive structure aimed at making outrage-bait content go viral – an alternative holds intrinsic appeal. Clever posts on X have dwindled as well. Bluesky allows unimpeded links to news articles, unlike X, Facebook and Instagram.
And, in terms of viewpoint diversity, the reality is that many progressive-leaning individuals and institutions have left X or likely will soon. The Guardian has announced as much. National Public Radio, beloved of American liberals but not exclusively so, did the same in April, 2023.
So now there are two Twitters. If you don’t want to silo yourself off – or log off – you need to be on both. Toggling between two platforms is annoying, but that’s not the main issue.
If the idea is to create a safe space for the like-minded – in politics and in affinity for scolding – then fair enough. But if the aim is to defeat authoritarianism, I’m not persuaded that Bluesky helps. It’s not just that the platform as it currently exists sheds no light on why Mr. Trump won. It’s that left-liberal smugness was part of the problem. And you can’t point that out on a platform going all in on the same.