Maybe Twitter *Is* Real Life
If anything, political Twitter is underrated
“Twitter is not real life” is such an overused critique of modern politics that it’s become a cliché.
The latest invocation arose amid chatter to impeach President Donald Trump. Impeachment opponents warn that support on Twitter for Democrats to move forward with their investigation does not equal support from voters. Not long before that, Nate Silver and other pollsters were cautioning against following Twitter sentiment rather than public opinion research, and center-left pundits such as Jonathan Chait were lamenting Democrats’ leftward shift as an appeasement of vocal Twitter activists. Popular YouTuber Dave Rubin uses “Twitter is not real life” as his profile tagline (on Twitter, of course).
The conventional wisdom is that political Twitter’s influence is limited — that tweets are ephemeral, most Twitter controversies don’t matter (except on Twitter), and the importance of Twitter discourse is overrated.
To be sure, people on Twitter — particularly those who are active on “political Twitter” — are not a representative cross-section of Americans. Only 22% of U.S. adults use the platform. About 80% of tweets come from about 10% of the population, and a lot of that activity isn’t about politics.
