The Swifties were the canaries in the coal mine. Last week, as the fallout from the US presidential election ricocheted across the internet, Taylor Swift fans took a stand. In droves, they left X and went to Bluesky, where, as one Swiftie told WIRED, they could build a new community and not “support Elon [Musk] in any way.” They weren’t alone.
A lot has happened in the week since Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris for the US presidency. For those who spend a lot of time online, one thing in particular stood out: Trump’s relationship with Musk, the X owner who leveraged his platform to support the president-elect’s campaign. On Tuesday, Trump named Musk one of the heads of the new, not-yet-existent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). That same day, Bluesky announced it had gained 1 million new users in a week.
Not all of those new migrants to Bluesky are Swift fans, mind you, but they do represent a certain subset of internet culture: the folks who, unhappy with Musk’s links to Trump and how he was running X, finally gave up and decided to relocate their social media lives. Since its rollout in 2023, Bluesky has been a kind of “loose, slaphappy” place, but in the past two months, as Slate pointed out this week, its become a better platform for sharing news and keeping up with live events, a lifeboat for “left-leaning Twitter refugees.”
Whereas Americans used to swear they’d move to Canada if their candidate didn’t win (as if such a move is easily achieved), now they just set up camp on a new platform. No need to break your lease or sell your house, just post “come follow me on Bluesky” with your new handle. If you don’t like any of your new neighbors, that’s cool. Bluesky offers something most folks call “the nuclear block,” which lets users ensure they don’t hear from someone they don’t want to speak to or interact with.
The internet has always prided itself on being at least somewhat borderless. Firewalls, language barriers, and other hurdles exist, but the web still helps information and stories get from one place to another much more quickly than anyone could travel there. No visa required.
Yet, that pride has always been a bit unearned. There are gatekeepers, trolls, bullies. Musk wanted Twitter to be a town square, but you still needed a device connected to the internet to get there—and had to be ready to dodge insults once you did. Even online, NIMBYs want a say. Who gets to call themselves a “local” on any given platform often gets decided by which mob rules. You can go to Bluesky, the Canada of the internet, but be careful what baggage you bring.
What the reelection of Trump has brought is a redrawing of some of the borders of the internet. New users may want to settle on X; longtime users may be inclined to leave. Similarly, some BookTokkers may be inclined to talk about books elsewhere (we hear that folks are going to The StoryGraph since Goodreads is owned by Amazon) or to find a different -Tok to tick away their time in. Politics are disrupting dating apps. The Onion just bought Alex Jones’ Infowars, promising to turn it into a parody of its former self. When it relaunches in January, satire fans will likely flock. Everyone, it seems, is going somewhere else.
The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter.
All of this, of course, stands in stark contrast to the fact that immigration, actual immigration, was such a contested issue during the 2024 election. During his campaign, Trump promised mass deportations and a crackdown on illegal border crossings if he was elected. He has been. He has also named Tom Homan, a staunch defender of family separation policies, as his “border czar.” Canada is braced for asylum-seekers, but maybe not Americans fed up with who the other half of the country voted for.
Being able to switch social media platforms is a privilege. Even if you believe Bluesky to be full of “theater kid energy,” at least you get to go, and there are 15 million people there with you.
Loose Threads:
A sensual hog named Alf. Remember that Slate story I mentioned earlier? Well, it had a small correction. Originally, it had made reference to some Bluesky lore that it called “a sensual hog named Alf.” It later corrected the piece to say “the meme is actually a reference to the genitalia of the 1980s sitcom character ALF.” Bluesky had a lot of fun with the original version.
Online attacks on women rose after the US election. Much of the harassment was spurred by white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ “your body, my choice” comments on X, which were viewed tens of millions of times. According to a CNN report, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue saw a 4,600 percent increase in mentions of that phrase on X after it was posted.
It’s time for a heart-to-heart. Because red heart emojis and blue heart emojis have whole new meanings post-election.
Mark Zuckerberg did a cover of Lil Jon’s “Get Low” with T-Pain. You can listen to it on Spotify, if you want.