The ‘hell website’ we simply couldn’t get enough of has died [xxx add details here]

Serving a short term as the Queen of our dark hearts and home of shitposting, Twitter has died. An official notice has been fixed to the railings of 1355 Market Street by staff who have been locked out since November 18. A statement from Muskington Palace last week signalled health problems were serious: “How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start out with a large one.”

[Insert tech news site] interrupted its normal broadcast just after [insert time] following a statement from Muskington Palace saying “Punting relaunch of Blue Verified to November 29th to make sure that it is rock solid”. The Palace is very prone to sharing details about Twitter and a recent statement saying “Btw, I’d like to apologize for Twitter being super slow in many countries. App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!” was read as a sign things were serious.

This was followed by a poll to Make Twitter Great Again and the reinstatement of Donald Trump, Kanye West, Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson’s Twitter accounts. Users began preparing for the end by hasilty posting their Instagram account details to Twitter last Friday. The news is leading all major media outlets across the Western world and in New Zealand this [insert day here]. This was the official announcement from Dril, published in 2017: “i truly believe that i will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity when i get every single post on hthis fucking website deleted by 2022”.

Mastodon is the reluctant new King, with confirmation that they will be called [insert name, probably Mastodon]. The new King has issued a statement, describing the death of Twitter as [insert statement]. Details of how the federated states of Mastodon will rule is being hastily fleshed out among instance moderators. Birds are expected to descend shortly after Twitter’s passing to escort the fail whale to its final resting place at [insert place name] where it will be reunited with your drafts, Vine, Twitter Music and 140 characters.

It is very eerie re-reading [insert years Twitter was active] of tweets about how everyone truly hated Twitter but remained trapped because literally nowhere else was as good for talking shit, rubber-necking both literal and figurative crime scenes and doing memes/takes/#nzpol. It has been the wish of many that it would all somehow end, but absolutely no one accounted for Elon Musk buying it and the firing of staff via an opt-in Google form.

Tributes and obituaries have been prepared. [Insert number] Substack newsletters have detailed histories and recountings of its short but extraordinary life where it has been described as both vital infrastructure and completely inconsequential. The Herald, RNZ, TVNZ, Newshub and Stuff are all running special live coverage on Instagram. John Campbell was dressed in a dark suit and black tie, in keeping with his dress code for when your advice to “drop him” manifests as the literal option.

Bookshelves everywhere rejoiced at the prospect of finally getting a look in. Twitter’s family all traveled to Instagram and Substack and made it in time before it died. It’s not yet known whether the Duchess of Sussex will travel to Piers Morgan’s house to dance on the grave of his DM’s.  

Jacinda Ardern’s statement expressed New Zealanders’ deep schadenfreude at the passing of Twitter at the hands of Elon Musk, describing him as [a megalomaniac billionaire, probably]. Not making it to 21, Twitter never made a Vine 2.0 video where it outlined why it existed because Vine being rebooted never happened, but we can only imagine it would be a hypnotic loop of “My whole life, whether it be long or cut short by Elon Musk fucking around and finding out, shall be devoted to the service of our great family to which a small but self-described powerful user base belong”.