I unfollowed you on Twitter . . .

 Okay, I've been pulling on a certain plug for weeks, and I'm about to completely yank the cord and removed that connection. It started with just unfollowing every single person and entity that I follow on Twitter. It's not the app it was, by any stretch of the imagination. When it first went south, I remember a few diehards planting their feet and saying, "I shall not go," but I never felt that impulse whatsoever. 

Sure, over about fifteen years I got the followers built up to four digits -- that kind of ego-salve is hard to give up. But it was one person's massive ego that really ruined Twitter in the first place, and that seems a bit of a lesson and warning in itself. And lets get real here -- that follower number is largely due to the BBC Sherlock explosion of last decade. Most of those folks have probably drifted off, and ninety percent of them never clicked the links to go to any of the blog posts or podcasts anyway. It was a pretty number while it lasted, but for practical purposes, not worth much.

Sherlockiana has never been a large numbers field for most of us, as the highly collectible nature of its books, monographs, and other limited creations will attest. If you can reach a hundred Sherlockians with a non-pastiche bit of writing, you're doing good. (And probably even with a pastiche -- those things are the true oysters of Sherlockiana that a modern Sherlock Holmes could babble about whilst pretending fever.) The internet has connected us more, given us more range, and Zoom has done some wonderful things, but we still have a lot to learn about its best uses. We're evolving.

Whilst none of us know what path the future will take with this stuff Bluesky has really become the best tool for weaning one's self from Sherlockian Twitter. (If you need an invitation to that and I know you're a real human, let me know and I'll send you one.) And Facebook is still the eternal Facebook it always was, just as problematic but wonkily useful.

So if I unfollowed you on Twitter lately. Sorry about that, but you do what you gotta do.