Sharknado's 10th anniversary is a reminder of what Twitter TV used to be

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/arts/television/tv-twitter-end-of-an-era.html

On July 11, 2013, a superstorm made landfall on the internet. “Sharknado,” the meteorologically and ichthyologically dubious disaster movie, premiered on Syfy, and Twitter lost its collective mind.

Like many an actual storm, this happening was the product of two fronts converging: The old pop-culture force of television and the newer one of social media. “Sharknado” did well enough on cable, but it was a smash on Twitter, where its ridiculous premise — a maelstrom dumping rain and carnivorous sharks on Los Angeles, with only Ian Ziering standing between us and doomsday — lent itself perfectly to instantaneous reactions and drive-by jokes.

The ensuing snarknado also seemed to goose the TV ratings. Hundreds of thousands of viewers switched on the movie after it began, suggesting that they’d gotten wind through Twitter of the bananas spectacle that was unfolding.

“Sharknado” may not be long remembered as cinema, but it is a historical emblem of the way millions of people shared the experience of live TV at a certain time. A decade later, that time is ending, because of the ways Twitter and TV have changed.

Like foil-tray frozen meals, which were used by airlines before Swanson branded them as “TV dinners,” Twitter was not initially invented to be an adjunct to the tube. But it turned out to be a delicious accompaniment to have on your lap during a show. It, like a TV broadcast, was live and linear. It made the entire world into an improv “Mystery Science Theater.”

There were, of course, many Twitters existing in parallel: Politics Twitter, Sports Twitter, Black Twitter, Weird Twitter. But Twitter and TV went together like extreme weather and marine predators. You might tweet after reading a book or going to a movie. Twitter especially fit the immediate, real-time experience of watching a TV show as it aired.

The platform, founded in 2006, also came along just as TV’s cultural cachet was rising, with a growth in ambitious, talk-about-able appointment series. “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” premiered during its run; twist-heavy serials like “Scandal” and “Game of Thrones” delivered the kind of OMG moments that got them trending regularly. Twitter lent itself to appreciating great TV and to goggling at trash; it was equally a vehicle for “Isn’t this amazing?” and “What the hell are we watching?”

From its beginning, TV has been both an isolating medium — you in your living room with your stories — and a social one. When the first sets were rolled out as curiosities in the 1940s, spectators gathered in bars to watch boxing matches. The Super Bowl, the biggest TV show of the year, became a secular holiday gathering that rivals Christmas. And before the work-from-home era, networks were conscious of the “water-cooler effect” in offices.

Twitter made the watch party global. It invited comments and conversation from fans and critics; series creators logged on to engage, and sometimes fight, with the audience. It created a feedback loop for shows to respond to or push against.

Twitter had grander ambitions and darker influences too — the Arab Spring, the 2016 presidential campaign. But TV Twitter wasn’t entirely about escapism. It promoted conversations, for instance, about how “Thrones” used and misused sexual violence. It lent itself to communal deconstruction of debates and election nights the same way it did to “American Idol.”

That also meant that it was susceptible to the problems of Twitter at large: trolls, harassment, the general souring of the vibes.

Social media is only as virtuous as the people using it. With Donald J. Trump in office, using Twitter as a cattle prod to shock the country to attention multiple times a day — often over cultural topics like N.F.L. protests or “Roseanne” — there was a sense that every day on the site was a battle. That attitude was reflected in users who saw themselves as soldiers, eternally fighting to shift the front lines of the discourse an inch or two in the correct direction.

Then came Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive and Twitter power user who paid $44 billion in 2022 for the dubious honor of becoming poster-in-chief. He ran the site haphazardly; there were new charges and limits and outages, as well as the restoration of tweeters banned for abuse and disinformation.

But beyond that, Musk just gave off the sense that the most unpleasant aspects of the site were his favorite parts. “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter,” he recently posted, “than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.” Good luck with that ad slogan!

Like all reflections on Twitter, mine is vulnerable to mistaking my experience as universal. I cut back on tweeting a couple years ago, and I’ve scarcely posted since last fall — less out of business or political objections than from hating the way the site made me feel like an exposed nerve.