And so we come to it again. It is that time of year when we put on our David Attenborough voices, and talk in low, slightly wistful tones about the great migration that is about to unfold. Everywuh you look, creatures great and small are beginning their treacherous juhneys across a vast and inhospitable wilduhness to happiuh hunting grounds and more pleasant pastures under the clear blue skies. The hullabaloo that accompanies them is impossible to miss — across the plains, the cries go up from elders to alert the rest of the herd of the imminent departure.

Though some may never return from this arduous trek, most will. Disavow yourself of the mental image of elephants and zebras crossing the African savannah — that’s not what we’re here for. This migration is metaversical in nature: it is time, once more, for people to announce they are leaving Twitter.

This year’s exodus came later than usual, prompted by Donald Trump’s bulldozer of a victory over Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, with grown men and women across the country — and its second largest airbase, the UK — deciding that Elon Musk, the platform’s owner and the Orange Man’s endorser-in-chief, was at least partly responsible for this travesty. Not the economy, you understand, oh no. Nor immigration, nor the preoccupation by Democrats with shoulder-chewingly stupid culture war issues the average voter thinks are at best mad and at worst satanic.

No, no, it is all about Musk — who is at once the world’s wealthiest evil genius and also a gibbering moron, according to people who thought Cacklin’ Kamala was a born winner. Musk, we are told, has ushered in a stream of “hate” ever since buying Twitter and rebranding it 10, warping the minds of the impressionable and irreparably damaging the future of the West by facilitating Trump’s return.

This is not Musk’s only crime, though. He has also tweaked other aspects of X’s features, including the block function, making it possible for those on the receiving end of this internal exile to see the posts of their nemeses again without being able to interact with them. This was for a fair few blockees how they were reminded of the existence of their blockers, many of whom they had long since forgotten. Often, in the same instance, it was also how they learned said blocker was off somewhere else.

Musk has also moved to erode the power of institutions and individuals who lived their lives high on the power of credentialism, and the authority this brought them. The changing of blue tick criteria and the emphasis on community notes now means many who were once feted on the site by virtue of who they were must now work harder for their dopamine. But above all else, Musk has refused to silence a swathe of right wing voices who always existed but lived their X lives in the shadows. The platform became more right wing, and for many that was just too much. Having been reliably told throughout the past year that the crude reply guys were just Russian bots and that their gal would ride over them on a wave to victory, they and their allies over here — the infamous adults back in charge of the UK — are doing the grownup thing and going off in a huff to play somewhere else.

Bluesky, the new promised land, now has as many daily users in the US as Threads, the last promised land. At just under three million people, it’s a lot if, say, the objective is to invade Nicaragua. But in the game of social media, it’s still dwarfed by Muskland.

Is this the insurgent platform that will upend everything? Perhaps. Those who have left all seem a lot happier. But then, we only know that because many of them are telling us that on X. “Everyone’s so much kinder” they say. “It’s just like old Twitter.”

Old Twitter was awful … We remember how insufferable it was when it was dominated by the people who are fleeing

If true, there’s little fear of this new horizon taking the mantle. Old Twitter was awful. For most, there isn’t even that nostalgic hiraeth one can have for a past moment when it comes to how things used to be. We remember how insufferable it was when it was dominated by the people who are fleeing. It did not pass us by when the most interesting, irreverent and incendiary anons were disappeared by the regime overnight. There’s a reason a man usually preoccupied with Mars colonisation was prepared to spend a catastrophic amount of money to stop it becoming any more sinister in its operation.

By all accounts, that aspect of the old Twitter has returned with the new. For every propaganda leaflet wafting back this way across the void to tell us how plentiful the joy is on Bluesky, the odd refugee with tales of censorship is making it back through no man’s land as well. It turns out Elon is not the reason why people try to tear each other’s throats out when discussing gender or Ukraine. Perverts, racists and Arsenal fans can be found beyond the confines of Jack Dorsey’s brainchild. And even in an echo chamber, rising volumes can still make life very uncomfortable.

I don’t need to give an endorsement for Twitter, which I continue to call it like an old colonial refusing to let go of calling his homeland British East Africa. The user numbers speak for themselves, quite aside from it being the fiefdom of perhaps the world’s third most powerful man. Perhaps Bluesky will go from strength to strength, or perhaps it will collapse into the abyss along with Mastodon, Gettr and the rest. Either way, you’ll hear about it when most of those who joined the great migration, as usual, come crawling back to Twitter.