Tim Carmody

If you’re looking for a historical metaphor to understand the influx of users from Twitter to Mastodon, “colonization,” “refugees,” “gentrification,” and even “white flight” aren’t really appropriate. I’ve used “exile” but it’s imperfect too.

One that might be worth trying is “enclosure.” It’s a LITTLE like what happened when English landlords enclosed the commons and huge numbers of people abandoned farms for cities: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

Nov 18, 2022 at 9:59pmMastodon for iOS
Show thread🚲Nov 18, 2022
@tcarmody I don't see what's wrong with simple immigration ("twimmigrants") as a metaphor. It's neutral and descriptive, captures the fact that you're in a new land with a new culture to try to fit into.
Show threadErin KissaneNov 18, 2022

@tcarmody say more about that plz, enclosure always has my attention

(I’ve been using “expats” bc it implies a lot of useful vibes, but I am not a serious person)

Show threadTim CarmodyNov 18, 2022
@kissane well it's literally a public thing made private, a land-grab of the commons that changed English and Irish culture forever. Benefits: very few of our ancestors will be offended that we're appropriating what happened to them. Drawbacks: enclosure kickstarted capitalism both by transforming agriculture and pushing farm laborers into the cities to create the urban proletariat. Vicissitudes of social media are probably not that significant!
Show threadErin KissaneNov 19, 2022
@tcarmody Totally but like…the commons was pre-social media internet? And then enclosure was the big capture by TWT and FB and so on? Or the current twitter happening is enclosure? (Or birdsite people coming here are doing the enclosing?)
Show threadTim CarmodyNov 19, 2022
@kissane I would say what is currently happening to Twitter is an acceleration of the enclosure by the emergence of mass social media networks (like the enclosures in England were an acceleration of what happened first in Ireland, which then spread to the other colonies, etc.). So what's happening at Mastodon is like the effects of enclosure, specifically the migration of tenant farmers to the cities and abroad.
Show threadErin KissaneNov 19, 2022
@tim I'll buy that. The former quasi-elites washing up in the new places dragging their old status markers also kiiiinda rhymes with the aftermath of the dissolution of the monasteries
Show threadmatthewharrisonNov 19, 2022
@kissane @tim at least 16th century urbanization made the jokes much better.