This article was republished 8 March 2026 for International Women’s Day to highlight the incredible women of Bylines Network
Some of us have been on Bluesky since late 2022/early 2023, the first emigrants. With invite codes and all. It was slightly mysterious, exciting and utterly bizarre. And frankly, not at all welcoming at first, I must admit. We felt a bit like the first settlers in the West. We had to justify our existence, justify our bios, justify our political views, even our European viewpoints because it was all quite US-centric at the start.
But now that nearly everyone’s here, we’re recharging. Regrouping. Reconnecting. Readjusting.
Twitter has now become the former lover-turning-vicious stalker whose phone number we haven’t quite managed to delete from our phones just yet. But we won’t engage any longer either because we know it’s not good for us. Instead, there is a new someone on the horizon. Someone attractive, interesting and kind enough to invest some effort into developing this potential relationship.
Brexit and Xit
The similarities between Brexit and Xit are obvious. (This is the only time I will ever call it X because it was and is Twitter for me no matter what anyone says!)
Brexit caused me and my family to face some difficult questions. I’m a European-born citizen with settled rights to stay in the UK and despite my unfortunate ‘mistake’ of a non-UK birth location, we reached the point where my little family and especially our London-born offspring with dual citizenship, felt and still feel the need to reconsider the best place for our home. In the same way, Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover and gradual destruction of the platform has led me to re-consider my social media home base.
European citizens living, working, settling in the UK for a decade or more ended up having to apply to stay in our own homes and without a voice or vote in any of the general elections with Brexit. When Musk lurched to the far-right and oversaw all the influx of bots, trolls, unjustified vitriol, mis-programmed algorithms and un-censored attack, we all, British or not, have found ourselves ending up without a voice on Twitter. Musk’s repeated Nazi salute at the US inauguration says it all, doesn’t it?
But just like we didn’t just leave the UK on first instinct because of Brexit, I chose not to leave Twitter because of Musk and a cohort of imbeciles taking over and destroying what we and so many millions have grown to love. But equally, we will not simply stay and put our heads in the sand. I was willing to stick around for just a bit longer, monitor the situation and resist as much as we still can on this anti-social hellhole. But today’s inauguration disaster made me change my mind. Twitter is dead, deceased and gone. I will leave immediately, delete all tweets and deactivate the account I held for 15 long years.
The focus shifts to Trump
For the longest time in the UK, we were focused on getting the Tories out (#GTTO), and that happened and we should still be celebrating. But the joyfulness of the election victory of those who aren’t Conservative voters disappeared almost as quickly as the mild hangover after UK election night. Not because we regret the outcome, but because the adults who finally moved into No. 10 now realise, day in and day out, that things are much, much worse than anticipated. As if that wasn’t enough to bring one’s mood down, we then found ourselves as an addendum to the blue resistance against the Grand Old Party and their beyond-awful presidential candidate with Musk as his right-hand man.
For so many years, we argued about Brexit and sat around dinner tables, wine glass in our hands, kids playing in another room, and we argued against the stupidity of those 17.4 million who voted away their rights, who believed the lies, who fell for the manipulation. Last November, we saw 77,303,573 US voters do exactly the same, thus handing Trump a fairly slim win, but a win nonetheless.
Making other plans
More so the US election than any UK political event before, the direct result of what’s happening in Washington is that we learn to refocus our existence on the nucleus of our own families. On our circle of friends. On our small little communities. May you rejoice in quilt-making or knitting gloves and scarves till January 2029! Gardening? Cricket, hockey or Junior League Coaching? Whatever it is that distracts you from the atrocities happening further away and around the globe, more power to you. Neighbourhoods help. Online groups such as Nextdoor, OneRoof, Hopplr and NearGroup are facilitating this inwards move. Freecycle, Sharebay, and Marketplace are being boosted with offers to share goods and services.
Lend a helping hand to someone nearby who needs it. Connect with those who make up your ‘real life’ little world. Everything and anything that helps you forget about what’s going on a few miles down the road or thousands of miles away from home. Because it’s all oh-so gloomy, depressing, and frankly scary.
And while we refocus on real life communities, we also go, search for and find our virtual ‘tribe’ again whether it is on Telegram, on Discord, or on the best plan B on offer right now, Bluesky, to use as a much-needed online resistance hub.
Fighting back
Because we will resist. Of course we will. Anyone who was an adult and of voting age in 2016, whether in the US or in the UK, knows the drill by now. We don’t always get the result we want when it comes to elections. But we will keep fighting those in power peacefully to make sure they know we still exist. And if they don’t acknowledge our existence, they are certainly bound to fail at the next election. It might take longer than we want but eventually, democracy will win. Resistance will win. Common sense will win because hope dies last.
All well and good, in theory. But at the end of the day, when we lie in bed at night, not quite ready to sleep, or during those 3.30am wakeup times when our heads race through doomsday scenarios ad infinitum, we all come back online just to have look around and learn what’s going on around the world. To put things into perspective. To try and understand the correlations. Why? Because we need to believe in Good vs Bad. We need to trust that good deeds will be rewarded somehow. Not right away, maybe, but eventually, right?
For that, our digital muscle memory is now leading us to Bluesky. Our new social media home. Twitter is a deathtrap now. Facebook is a joke. Instagram and Threads are data thieves, so Bluesky is the only acceptable option at this point in time. Sure, there’s a risk. There always is. But we want to give it a try. Because this is what life’s all about. Seeing potential where others see risk. Believing that we can make a difference.
Welcome, skydivers! We can do this!
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