In April 2020, I created my Twitter account with the handle, @jackdomleo7. In December 2023, I deleted my Twitter account with just shy of 20k followers.
From 16th December 2023, if a Twitter account exists with the handle @jackdomleo7, it is not me!
In my first 8 months on Twitter, I had gained the unofficial status of a "tech influencer" and had built a following of 22k followers. From January 2021, the frequency and quality of my tweets started to decline and my "tech influencer" status was fading away until I decided to quit trying to be an influencer. For more on this, consider reading Why I Quit Being a Tech "Influencer".
Between January 2021 through December 2023, my following decreased from 22k followers to 19.8k followers. I went from posting content and being active almost all day, every day in 2020, to maybe a maximum of 5 posts a year in the years following.
I wanted to continue using Twitter normally as a low-profile user, but because I already had a huge following and had built a name for myself, this was not easy. I felt indirectly pressured to maintain my influencer status and keep churning out content, participating in online events, and other activities.
Having experienced being a tech influencer, I was exposed to the darker sides of Twitter and social media. Scrolling through my feed, it was very common to come across a tweet that made me cringe, ick, disappointed, or annoyed - a little too common for my liking.
After a while, I was not getting anything from Twitter, nor was I providing anything. What I was looking for in tech from social media I was getting from LinkedIn. For months, I compared the two platforms, Twitter and LinkedIn, and decided I was only going to continue with LinkedIn.
Winding down my influencer status from LinkedIn was far easier than Twitter and was able to get a normal LinkedIn account within a few hours by removing 8,000 connections I did not know.
By deleting my Twitter account, I have sacrificed or severely harmed any future of being a content creator or a developer advocate (a career path I considered at some point), but I am perfectly OK with this and felt a sigh of relief deleting yet another social media account that takes me one step closer to living back in the real world.
