From Tweets to Travels: My Social Media Exodus

Paranoia at the Airport or Cautious Traveler in Unprecedented Times of the Almighty State?

Have you ever ditched your social media account while traveling abroad? Well, I did. The problem wasn't escaping America but rather upon my visits back to the States. Perhaps I was experiencing unreasonable paranoia. But to determine that, I suppose I'd better tell the whole story...

Back in 2008, I was working as an online content writer and contracting for three companies. Bright Hub was probably the best of the three. During that time, I reluctantly started my first Twitter account. Prior to this desperate move into social media, I was hesitant about all online activities outside of what was necessary to do work for any of the companies I contracted for. Back in the mid-1990s, the only thing I uploaded online were job ads and resumes for Execuquest and the JobExchange, an organization that published employment ads for the Washington Post and Milwaukee Journal. It was also the first time I had touched a markup language, namely HTML. So, the idea of using the World Wide Web for anything other than earning my paycheck was, for me, an utterly foreign concept. Even in 2004, I didn't use social media aside from emailing people I knew. At that time, I was hired to work for the Engineering Development Company in San Juan Capistrano, California, as a technical documentation writer. The only time I used the Internet was either to look up specs from a vendor of a machine, like the TF700/1100 Silkscreen printers used to make substrates for printed circuit boards or PCBs, or to determine if there was a possibility to run more than one job on a solder-reflow assembly, or I might be looking up compatibility software for microphotography and Zeiss lens devices or updating drivers for printers. And then, of course, an internet connection was necessary for the internal intranet for in-house email for conference reminders (weekly meetings with Engineering management and all team members), linking files, videos, and images in Microsoft Visio, Excel, Word, etc. In my next gig, I self-contracted to ICU, where I sorted through PDFs across a similar intranet. Essentially, and in a nutshell, it was all work and no play for me. At home, I used the World Wide Web for looking up books I needed to study. That's how I spent my weekends—upgrading my skills to keep up with demand and be ahead of the game at work. My writings, design templates, and innovative concepts proved exemplary of commitment to the team—Then they let me go. No long goodbyes. That's the way it is being an employee, even for contract-to-hire gigs. And in my case, I was told that I was going to be offered a full-time job with Endevco/Meggitt. I moved on to other gigs, naturally, as landing a permanent job was a fantasy companies used to lure in the next hardworking fool easily given to promises that no company ever intended to keep.

It wasn't until 2008 that I discovered the multitude of curious outbursts of Twitter. And I wasn't actively posting full-time until the year 2009. The reason I started to explore SNS was in part due to my freelance writing work for Brighthub. At Brighthub, freelance writers (and staff editors) earned commissions from ads sharing across channels aside from the usual payment per article. I was heralded as "Bright Hub's Very Own Thomas Walton." And so naturally, I carried this glory with me to Twitter as the banner of my success story. Well... in a manner. I believe I built a big and strong following at that time (some 2,000 tweeple) due to my expat status (I left Washington State for Hiroshima, Japan, in 2009) and, of course, my stories about traveling the world, international school, and a bizarre fascination with retro games and pixel graphics, among other things like starting a trend of growing a beard. LOL!

Twitter was glorious in those times of yore! Met wonderful people! (I know. That’s hard to imagine today.) Some of my first followers included YouTube pioneer and filmmaker Felicia Day, economist Paul Krugman, author Sarah Barnard, and two more authors, one of whom went on to become financially a super star of self-published authors after selling his stories about 'monsters'. I also came into contact with Christopher Belton, an author of children's books who transliterates his titles in Japanese and shares his life with his wife, children (and now grandchildren) in Yokohama, Japan. I also corresponded with Andrew and Cory Trese, two brothers who have made some of the coolest old-school style mobile games, beginning with Android OS and then progressing into new platforms. My gathering of followers also included people from New Zealand, Germany, China, Japan, America... Everywhere. Multiple industries—Including some actresses and screenwriters, film producers, ESL Teachers, and, as I've mentioned, indie game developers. So for me, Twitter started out as an amazing platform for meeting like-minded people, albeit from all over the world no matter where in the world I was traveling. (Hopefully, Substack will be that next platform for connecting people all around the world.)

Having stated how wonderful Twitter was back in the heyday, one might wonder why anyone would close their Twitter account. My reason had to do with traveling back and forth between countries, some controversial statements I might have made, and an eerie sense of something—err, evil??—trailing my every move across the web. Of course, it is ridiculous to believe that erasing a Twitter profile also erases one's presence from the... 'watchers'. However, given the uncomfortable implementation of TSA and Homeland Security groping average American citizens at airports and running people through full-body scanners during that time period—Well, I wasn't going to take any chances that these organizations serving who-knows-what-master might get too interested in my disclosures about paranormal activities, corruption in society—basically telling the story as it was something I thought might have me blacklisted and make matters difficult when I fly in an airplane or arrive in an American airport. Too precautious, perhaps. However, I had terrible service on American flights as it was. San Francisco was bad; LAX in Los Angeles was by far the worst! The only place in the country where the airport was actually decent was Dallas Texas.

Along these travels I was safe (flew through an incoming super typhoon in 2015). I used kinetic magick which I had practiced for about 15 years at that time. In my arsenal of psionics I also carried a variety of sigils and a pocket sized amplifier pattern.

So, that's my story of terminating my old Twitter accounts. Aside from my greatest loss of followers was my renown for making predictions, using real-time mental projection to stop catastrophes in the world, and working wonderful miracles with a Miraculous Prayer Board. Sometimes closing an old path opens the doors to new beginnings. And this has been the case for me personally.

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