Why I'm not ready to abandon Twitter and convert to Threads

& readers have a difference of opinion about the f-word tweets

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Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Threads has not sewn me up as a user

I’ve resisted signing up for the Twitter wannabe social media platforms — Mastodon, Bluesky and like that — as I’ve waited to see if one such platform would rise to the top as a serious contender to replacing the troubled micro-blogging site of which I remain a regular user.

But at the news of the wildly successful launch last week of Threads, I gave in and created an account. Or, that is, I added Threads to my existing and largely dormant Instagram account (27 posts in the last seven and a half years). With a reported 100 million sign-ups in just five days, Threads sounded like more than a passing fad or niche alternative.

But though I have Threads account, I won’t give up Twitter yet because:

• Threads doesn’t have a desktop or iPad iteration. I spend a lot of time with both my desktop and my iPad — old school of me, I know — and this limitation (similar to Instagram’s limitation, vexes me.

• Threads doesn’t have hashtags or topic-search functions, making it very difficult to follow breaking news stories.

• Threads doesn’t allow users to create sub-lists of certain people, publications or industries to follow on particular topics. I have a Twitter list I call “Chicago-centric” that consists only of users who often tweet on newsworthy local topics. Instead, Threads relies on the same annoying “we think we know what you want to see better than you do” algorithmic method of populating your feed that Facebook does.

• Threads confronts me with posts from people I don’t follow and don’t care to follow.

These, however, are fixable problems, and given the vast resources of Meta (the parent company for Facebook, Instagram and now Threads) I’m hoping that in a few weeks or months I can leave Twitter for good.

What about you?

Notes and comments from readers —lightly edited —- along with my responses

Tom G — The special Twitter poll in which every entry used the word “fuck” was unworthy. Not because of the bad language, because none of them was remotely funny. You should have offered the option, “fuck all of the above.”

Steve R. — I’m no stranger to the word "fuck", but none of the entries your special poll was enhanced by the word. Dropping in that word is a really cheap way to get a laugh. I’m a person who only uses it when I'm really shocked or appalled or really need to get a point across.

Bob E. — I hate to admit it, but the collection of f-bomb tweets was, without a doubt, in my not-so-humble opinion, the funniest collection of tweets i've ever read in the Picayune Sentinel. I’m still laughing at the “clean house'“tweet. And I wish I could send the “doctor” tweet to my daughter the doctor — she wouldn't get it but the tweet describes her.

Zorn — These notes reflect the mixed response to this foray into dubious taste. My feeling is that the winner —

“My visitors cancelled on me at the last minute, so here I am with a clean house like a fucking idiot” — @Anniewritess.

— referenced above is funnier than “My visitors cancelled on me at the last minute, so here I am with a clean house like an idiot.” The word isn’t shocking, but it adds a punch and underscores her sentiment. Kind of like how “fuck all of the above” is funnier than “none of the above.”

Bill H. — You wrote about how you were titillated as a child by historical drawings of bare-breasted women on ancient Crete, but what about the bare breasts in National Geographic?

The photos of partially clad primitive tribespeople did not escape the notice of me and my little friends, to be sure. It was kind of forlorn, now that I remember it.

Lester J. — Suggestion: Open up Tune of the Week to readers, invite us to send in our favorites, including not just string band music but any genre, perhaps with a short intro. I’d recommend a favorite classical piece, the 3rd movement scherzo from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, an astonishing, rollicking, rock n rolling 16 minutes that could be easily imagined as God (on French horns) trying to calm the unruly hoi polloi (the rest of the orchestra). 

Zorn — I did that last September at about the one-year mark for the Picayune Sentinel and am likely to do it again for the 100th issue in early August. Remember that I limit it to one song or tune because it’s based on the time when I got the chance to choose one song to play during the morning-drive show on WXRT-FM 93.1 in the summer of 2002. One song to share, to sum up my musical tastes and perhaps in some ways my personality.

Tom B. — Are my eyes deceiving me or did the Tribune actually use an Associated Press wire story in covering a home White Sox game over the weekend. I’ve noticed the paper using the AP for some Blackhawk and Northwestern football games on the road the last couple of years, but using a wire service for a home game is a new low.

Zorn —Your eyes are not deceiving you.

But I don’t think readers are poorly served by a wire-service game story instead of a staff-written game story every now and then. It’s a holiday week in the middle of summer and the AP employs good writers. I’m not sure how new this development is, as I don’t pay that much attention to bylines on game stories, but I don’t think of it as a “low.” Suboptimal, at worst.

I do think it’s a bizarre waste of increasingly limited resources to send sports beat reporters on lengthy road trips to cover dismal teams with no remaining playoff hopes. Enterprise reporting and commentary are where newspaper sports sections can demonstrate their worth in an era when game stories are posted online minutes after the contest is over, and I applaud publications that direct their resources wisely.

Michael M. — I was inspired to call the Tribune customer service line —312-546-7900— in the Philippines to ask for a lower rate. Here’s how that went:

Female operator : You’re already getting the lowest rate. 
Me (persistently): There isn’t a lower rate? 
She: Well, I can give you (she then quoted a price 32% lower than the "lowest rate") if you approve. 
Me: I approve. 
She: OK, it starts Sept. 1, on the next billing cycle. 
Me: Can’t you start it immediately?  
She: Well, if you want it to start immediately, we can do that.  
Me: Yes.

Zorn — For those who accuse me of picking on the Tribune’s subscription practices, just know that I get way more letters like this than I’m printing.

The semifinal round of the Picayune breakfast cereal tournament

In the June 29th edition I asked readers to take a click survey to rank their favorites among the top 10 best -selling cereals. Several readers complained that some favorites and old standards weren’t on the list. So I made two more surveys, one that pitted less-sweet cereals against one another, the other that matched up sweeter cereals.

From these three surveys I’ve gleaned the top four in each category:

Sweeter: Honey Nut Cheerios, Honey Bunches of Oat, Frosted Flakes and Granola.

Less Sweet: Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Chex (all varieties) and Special K.

Click here to rank each set. Thursday we’ll match the winners against one another.

Ya gotta see these tweets!

Here are some funny visual tweets I've come across recently. Enjoy, then evaluate:

Vote for your favorite. I will disqualify any tweets I later find out used digitally altered photos. I’ll share the winner in Thursday’s main edition.

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll! and the highly controversial F-word Tweet Poll.

Thank you for supporting the Picayune Sentinel. To help this publication grow, please consider spreading the word to friends, family, associates, neighbors and agreeable strangers.

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