Emily F. Gorcenski

The Nugget

Curating one's digital presence is a profound act of self-reflection and ethical decision-making, as it shapes how we want to be remembered and what experiences we choose to preserve or forget. Emily Gorcenski emphasizes the importance of this process through her journey of sifting through a decade of tweets, highlighting lessons learned about personal growth and the harsh realities of online engagement.

Make it stick

📚 Curation is a journey: Manually reviewing 40,000 tweets revealed both cringe-worthy moments and significant memories.
💻 Self-revelation through deletion: The act of removing posts offered emotional catharsis and insights into past behavior.
⚖️ Ethical balance: Forgetting can be as important as remembering when reflecting on digital legacies.
🌐 Modern social media struggles: The “hellsite” nature of Twitter highlights the toxic engagement that often prevails.

Ethical Responsibility: Recognizing that what we choose to remember and forget shapes future interactions and societal trends.
Historical Relevance: Some posts have archival value; retaining meaningful contributions can educate and inform others.

Toxic Environment: Twitter rewarded negativity and conflict, leading to a culture of hostility and miscommunication.
Changing Language: Vocabulary shifts lead to intense scrutiny and public shaming, showcasing the fleeting nature of social norms.
Self-Examination: Gorcenski reflects on her own role in perpetuating this toxicity and the lessons learned from engaging in online battles.

Methodical Review: The curation involved manually deleting posts and preserving ones of significance, despite physical and mental strain.
Importance of Context: Many deleted posts were contextually dependent, missing conversations that altered their meaning when isolated.

Navigating New Platforms: Exploring alternatives like Bluesky and bookwyrm.social, aiming to escape the negativity of previous social media landscapes.
Personal Growth: Emphasizing a shift from activism to self-reflection and familial focus while remaining open to future endeavors.

"Remembrance is an act with ethical weight, and, as a corollary, that in the prevention of future suffering it is also sometimes necessary to choose to forget."
"Twitter was awful because it rewarded awfulness."
"The worst part of it was the self-certain belief that in doing so they were engaged in a legitimate and effective form of activism."
"Eventually, trolling right wingers just became who I was... but I realized I wanted to be more than just someone who clowns on completely replaceable conservatives."
"The past is mine to write and so too is the future."

This summary contains AI-generated information and may have important inaccuracies or omissions.