Woke up to open my phone and see a bunch of panicked tweets by Americans clearly up way past their collective bedtimes mourning the very soon to be nearly certain end of Twitter. It would appear Elon Musk manage to fire and/or drive out almost the entire intellectual capital and technical backbone of the company. Tech companies are people companies. Without the people who make the tech work, you are left with a blank screen and a little bird. Add in mass panic amongst millions of users, and lots of strange cryptic goodbyes, like I’m maybe leaving but not sure yet but just in case you can find me at these three websites you are not using now on a regular basis. It is the strangest thing.
I don’t want to open any more accounts. I can barely manage as it is to post regularly on Twitter, write this Substack once every two or three days, and share curated photos on Instagram because that’s what the modern world expects. And yes, it is like a part-time job in and of itself.
But for me, and many others, Twitter was not a hell site. It was a place where we connected with like-minded people from around the world to do good.
I am literally writing this sitting in an apartment surrounded by boxes and boxes of chocolate Santas for Ukrainian kids in Austria because of Twitter. Because it connected me to a kind man who ordered an unbelievable amount of Christmas joy directly to my living room from his computer in New York City. That is the Twitter I know. The collective hundreds of thousands of Euros of grocery money we donated to Ukrainians in Austria — that would have never happened if Mario hadn’t reached out to me on Twitter (god forbid we use a telephone brrrr) and said let me help you. Let me build you a website. Let me take some of this legwork off your back. We hadn’t met in person. Twitter was our link. We met online during covid, complaining about this government’s fuck up of that (way before it fucked up the refugee crisis).
So I am in denial. I don’t want to go to Mastodon or Discord or all these other things I don’t want to learn how to use. Yes I have Substack (I love this product it is soooooo easy to use for tech-fearful writers like me), and I now learned Instagram Stories thanks to my kids (embarrassing), and I could I suppose TikTok if I really had to, but no one wants to look at my middle-aged face every day. Like, really, no one needs that. I want to work with words, not images. Words and images, ok. But the words are the main course.
So I would like Twitter to live, just a little bit longer. Kara Swisher seems to think it won’t die entirely. I hope she is right. She is usually right about a lot of things. Plus, she too sees the good side of the app. How cute is this?
The farewell from one of the engineers responsible for Twitter’s translation tool made me so sad. That translation tool has been a godsend!
So for as long as the little blue (white?) bird doesn’t physically crash, I am going to keep updating you about Ukrainians in Austria, sharing grocery photos, and for the month of December, updating you about Secret Santa, and the news, provided those who write the news don’t all abandon Twitter immediately, too.
Today, three lovely Russian-speaking women came to my apartment to pick up chocolates, candy canes and wrapping supplies for the Ukrainian kids on their lists. I set up a little “shopping” station on my kitchen table (this is only a fraction of all the treats in my apartment at the moment):
One of the women works in a dorm in Vienna, but a “good” one. When I say good I mean I haven’t received many complaints. I have mailed Hofer cards to residents living there, but I don’t hear desperation from that address. She explained it is working well. Each resident can cook for him/herself in shared kitchens. This is key. This is one of the biggest factors determining happiness or desperation. When refugees can cook, they receive more money in hand from the state, and they are free to choose how to spend their budget. It is such a shame everyone cannot live like that.
I asked her, what is the logic, how did some Ukrainians end up in “good” dorms and others in the awful places I hear from non-stop? It’s a lottery, she said. Luck. I nodded in understanding. That was also my impression. No rhyme or reason. Just being in front of the right bureaucrat at the right time when something opens up. There is no reason a mom with cancer and three kids are in a place where they are fed really truly poorly, and without enough pocket money, while others with no major health problems who could work (but again, the Grundversorgung system prevents this), are living relatively comfortably cooking for themselves in group homes in central Vienna. It is simply a spin of the bottle. And yes, a lot depends on the organization on the ground in charge. Some are better, and some are really, well, let’s say…not great.
My inbox yesterday and today. It continues. All invisible. A teary text from an elderly woman I mailed 10 subway tickets to. Several requests for cards I had to turn down, for now, explaining, the waiting list is closed for the moment. May I have another one? Sorry, no.
I gave an interview yesterday to an Austrian magazine (will link when it is published), and it was such a pleasure to talk with a journalist who came prepared with a full list of questions and had done his homework. He knew the laws, he knew the shortcomings, he knew the problems. I only elaborated and gave real world examples. I didn’t have to spend 30 minutes doing refugee 101 basic education. So nice. Then he spontaneously took my photos instead of having them done today with a photographer, and I was like to myself ohhhhhhh when you are going to photograph a woman you kind of have to tell her ahead of time and I was kicking myself for having not been able to find my concealer while running late out the door. It was dark. Maybe they will turn out ok. It’s not a glamour shot in any case, nor should it be.
I did not deliver any cards today because I don’t have any more to deliver, but I did receive lots of lovely photos. I spoke yesterday about how you see food inflation in real time, how the photos now of €50 are clearly less food than was in shopping carts back in April when we started. This also impacts giving. Of course many people are struggling to get by themselves and cannot donate €50 towards groceries for someone else. A very kind reader sent me a €20 card yesterday. I will give it to a family who really needs a little extra help.
I too am setting aside time each day to look for paid work, a necessity with three kids and lots of expenses. It is not easy, as I have been working hard for years it feels like on various projects but not in a traditional sense. I updated my CV which I am quite proud of (happy to send it if anyone has any leads; I can also work remotely for U.S. companies as an American), but two dear friends were like you have to get on LinkedIn and I opened it and was like holy crap what is this, it is just as awful as I remember when I once opened it a decade ago, and then I heard “pay for premium” and I was like eeeeeekkk. So baby steps. It must be done, I will do it. But it is a big like sticking one of those baby toy wooden cubes in the wrong shaped hole. I am a star and it is a triangle. Sometimes us creative fiercely independent people can be really productive and achieve great things but we are hard to fit into the slots big organizations offer. Not impossible, just have to think about how to repackage myself. Would not be the first time, but requires some effort and luck. In any case, do let me know if you hear of roles you think I might be a good fit for. I am, as I guess most of you know from reading this for months now, a hard and responsible worker when I am passionate about something. Thank you.
Take a look closely at this photo. Love it. Thanks for making it possible for so many months already. Wish we didn’t have to do it. Feels good that we did.
Peppa Pig! We loved her! The cartoon version was also pretty kewl for children's TV.
Thanks kindly for the Kara post. I agree, she is pretty pragmatic and nearly always spot on. I am still a fan of hers and Scott Galloway, but I took a break from those podcasts to focus on Ukraine, trolling through the twitterverse, bonking vantiks; resurrecting my FB--ugh I HATED to execute on that option; and finally, listen daily to @MriyaReport