COLM TOBIN: From twits to Threads, is social media world about to unravel?

WITH the launch of Threads in the US, reaching 100 million users in the first week, it looks like we have another social media platform on the horizon.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Threads is Meta’s answer to Twitter and could well be the place you end up wasting the next 10 years of your life in, if you’re not careful.

The launch of the so-called ‘Twitter killer’ is just the latest in a long line of social media platforms which have been carving huge swathes in our collective attention spans in recent years, turning us all into anxious, argumentative eejits and more or less ruining American democracy in the process.

That’s an angry assessment, I admit, but that’s what a decade of tweeting does to you.

If you ask me, we need another social network like we need another trip to the Titanic in a dodgy submersible.

I used to be a fiend for the ‘aul Twitter, of course, eventually building up a following of over 80,000 people. There was a time I would view this as a source of pride, even something to shout about, but these days it feels akin to admitting you used to sniff glue behind the bus station.

Since weaning myself off Twitter my mind has calmed, I’ve reconnected with real life and am just a lot happier. Ditto Instagram, Facebook, and the rest of them. I’d highly recommend it (although I’m probably preaching to the converted here, seeing as you all swan around the place with your surfboards in West Cork.)

In many ways, the launch of Threads is a play by Meta to capitalise on the reputational implosion that has befallen Twitter since Elon Musk took over as chief Twit. But Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg hardly inspires much confidence, either, given the accidental role he and his company had in the rise of Trump.

The chief executives were recently rumoured to be facing off against one another in a cage fight as if the dick-swinging competition that is running social media companies out of Silicon Valley wasn’t alpha male enough for them.

How we’ve come to a position in society where a couple of tech bros could carry such sway in our public discourse is perhaps the bigger question we need to answer in the years ahead.

And it makes the call for a strong, independent, well-funded public service media so much more pressing, despite the mistakes that have been made in Montrose in recent times.

Holly giving it no welly

DID ye see the spread about Holly Cairns in last week’s Sindo? What did ye think? The shtyle!

I thought it was an interesting move from the new leader of the Social Democrats and perhaps a sign that Holly has her eye on the votes of middle Ireland, instead of the low-hanging fruit of disaffected Labourites.

Like, it’s easy to be cool and trendy and listed in the What’s Hot column of The Irish Times magazine every Saturday, but appearing in the Sindo? In the magazine?! Wearing a load of H&M outfits?! Well, that’s a risky one in today’s increasingly toxic and judgemental environment.

And there is no crowd more judgemental than the progressive left, where no mistakes are forgiven and missteps live long in the collective memory.

Take the poor Labour Party, for instance. Once they were riding high and looked to be ushering in an era of soft-socialist utopia. A few years later they were dust. Boy, did that end in tears? And they have been flagellated (and self-flagellating) ever since.

Ruth Coppinger of the Socialist Party wasn’t so pleased with Holly’s profile in the Sindo.

‘Talking to Fine Gael, accepting cringe label of the “Irish AOC”, modelling an outfit costing €1,000+ that a woman worker could only dream of in a cost of living crisis — it seems and the SocDems are letting us know that they’ll change absolutely nothing,’ she stormed on … ahem, Twitter.

Ouch. As George Orwell famously said, the left seeks traitors and the right seeks converts.

AOC, for those who don’t know her, is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an American politician and activist synonymous with the Esquire magazine end of socialism. See also New Zealand’s Jacinta Ardern and Finland’s Sanna Marin, both of whom rode an ideological wave of progressive feminism all the way to the top seat.

Maybe Holly and Co are smart enough to know that the real action in Ireland doesn’t lie on the fringes, but in the sort of progressive centrism that brought both Ardern and Marin their success. And brought about marriage equality here.

But it’s a tricky one to balance. The trouble with Irish politics is that you always need to keep the home fires burning.

So while Holly was staring out from magazine covers all over the country this weekend, Leo Varadkar was doing a magical, mystery tour of West Cork, pledging to revitalise Fine Gael’s fortunes in the area.

He went deep behind enemy lines and even had the temerity to drop into Courtmac, a DHZ of Tánaiste Micheál Martin (designated holiday zone).

It was not subtle on Leo’s part. He stopped just short of travelling around in an open-top Leyland Touring Car.

With Margaret Murphy O’Mahony announcing that she is running again for a Fianna Fáil Council seat and Christopher O’Sullivan making plenty of hay at the Trials of Tubbers on Oireachtas TV (the new Netflix), West Cork could suddenly take a central role in the fortunes of all these parties in the next few years. Some of us political anoraks will be rubbing our hands together in glee.

The chips are down in RTÉ

THERE was more terrible news for RTÉ earlier in the week. Amongst the host of other huge problems facing the incoming DG Kevin Bakhurst, the main canteen was shut due to a rodent infestation. 

If it were an episode of Fair City, this scene would have been cut for stretching credulity. 

After a week of drip-fed revelations including the infamous Marty Morrissey’s Motor Car incident, this was the last thing they needed in Montrose. Rats and sinking chips are the least of the national broadcaster’s problems, of course. How to get rid of all those has-beans will be the tricky part.