Twitter has the option to switch an account from “public” to “private”. The owner of a private account can approve or deny follower’s requests, which gives control over who sees what you tweet. This feature has paved the way for private Twitter accounts colloquially known as “PTs”. Whereas a traditional private account may have a couple hundred of followers a PT at most has about 40. On a PT, the owner of the account personally knows the 20-30 people who follow them and uses that account to tweet more personal matters, too sensitive or touchy for normal twitter. Emotional distress, social anxiety, inside jokes, all are fair game for a PT. But the favorite topic of every PT is gossip.

When I first heard about these private Twitters, I thought it was stupid. Why would I create a Twitter account, just to complain to 25 or so followers on the Internet? I could track down those 25 people during the day and complain to them in person. I thought its clandestine nature was wrong. However, Conversations with my high school friends slowly changed my mind. “Oh, you’re being so uptight about this Joshua! It’s not simply about talking bad about people. You just have a space to talk to close friends via the Internet. It’s not a bad thing”. I listened to their arguments and eventually created an account.

I made the account during January of my senior year in high school. It was a parody of all the “traditional” PTs that were floating out there on the Internet. I did not use correct grammar or sentence structure, and sometimes would tweet photos of food with no context. Pictures of lobster bisque were a favorite of mine. In the beginning, this separate account was a fun, nonsensical time waster. But as the months went on, the tone of my tweets changed.

I do not recall when the tone changed. It most likely began as a small comment here or there, but it grew more direct and more rude. I started to question my actions but pushed any doubts aside. I made up multiple excuses in my head: everybody else is doing it, so it’s not that big of a deal that I’m doing it. I mean I’m not doing anything too harmful, most of what I say are just jokes, etc. I was just fooling myself.

While these rationalizations continued, a friend and I began tweeting back and forth on our respective accounts about a girl we knew. This was September of 2015 and I had owned the account for a couple of months now. By this time, we had all left for college. In our minds, there was nothing wrong, slight comments here and there. This girl was an acquaintance of ours and she followed us so she could see our conversations. We never mentioned her by name. One day, I discovered she had blocked me. After discovering this, I took to my PT to vent. I was blind as to how my jokes had offended her, so naturally I blamed her for this. How could I be the bad guy? I wasn’t wrong here! I reflected on the past months I had my private Twitter account. None of these actions embodied me. This surreptitious slander of people who I called friends and who respected me was unacceptable. I should be aiming for things higher than petty squabbles on Twitter.

The next morning I deleted my account. I had become the very thing I disliked. I still was in the dark as to why I had been blocked in the first place. Weeks passed until I finally texted the girl I had been talking about. I apologized for anything I may had done to hurt her. I did not mean to hurt her if I did. She accepted my apology. She then explained that she blocked me because of the things I had said about her. Even though my friend and I had never mentioned her by name, she had deduced that she was the person we were talking about. This revelation shocked me. I should have seen it at the time, but that false sense of PT invincibility had blinded me. I never mentioned her by name, and in my mind, that was enough to cover me. As I recalled my tweets, I realized they were riddled with sexism and misogyny that was blatant to me in hindsight. I was angry with myself. I apologized profusely, saying I did not mean to offend her. She forgave me. I saw her in person during December of 2015. We had not spoken since September. When we met, we were cordial with each other, but I knew any friendship between us was gone. I texted my friend the whole explanation of what had happened and he too understood the error of our ways. But our words had already been tweeted, and we could not take them back.

This story is something unique to our time, the generation of millennials. Ten years ago, none of these social media networks existed or could have been imagined. However, ten years ago people still dealt gossiped behind one another's back. There still was internalized sexism and misogyny. However, what makes this story relevant is the new sense of invincibility the internet give us all. We should talk with people in person, or at least call them on the phone, because we lose something valuable if we simply text back and forth. Instead, we sit behind the screens of our computers, phones, and tablets, and feel we can say whatever we want without impunity. This is never the case. I have become even more mindful of how I use my words whether they are spoken or written. You can never take back the impact of the words you say. No matter your intent and no matter how many times you apologize, you can never take them back. My tweets, even though they are deleted, have done their damage. I did not recognize my own internalized sexism until I hurt someone close to me, a friend who I cared about. Your words have power. Do not ever be frivolous with them.Twitter has the option to switch an account from “public” to “private”. The owner of a private account can approve or deny follower requests, which gives control over who sees what you tweet. This feature has paved the way for private twitter accounts colloquially known as “PTs”. Whereas a traditional private account may have a couple hundred of followers, a PT at most has about 40. On a PT, the owner of the account personally knows the 20-30 people who follow them and uses that account to tweet more personal matters, too sensitive or touchy for normal twitter. Emotional distress, social anxiety, inside jokes, all are fair game for a PT. But the favorite topic of every PT is gossip.

When I first heard about these private Twitters, I thought it was stupid. Why would I create a Twitter account, just to complain to 25 or so followers on the Internet? I could track down those 25 people during the day and complain to them in person. I thought its clandestine nature was wrong. However, Conversations with my high school friends slowly changed my mind. “Oh, you’re being so uptight about this Joshua! It’s not simply about talking bad about people. You just have a space to talk to close friends via the Internet. It’s not a bad thing”. I listened to their arguments and eventually created an account.

I initially made the account during January of my senior year in high school. It was a parody of all the “traditional” PTs that were floating out there on the Internet. I didn’t use correct grammar or sentence structure, and sometimes would tweet photos of food with no context. Pictures of lobster bisque were a favorite of mine. In the beginning, this separate account was a fun, nonsensical time waster. But as the months went on, the tone of my tweets changed.

I don’t recall when exactly I started my internet gossiping. It most likely began as a small comment here or there, but it grew more direct and more malicious. I started to question my actions but pushed any doubts aside. I made up multiple excuses in my head: everybody else is doing it, so it’s not that big of a deal that I’m doing it. I mean I’m not doing anything too harmful, most of what I say are just jokes, etc. I was just fooling myself.

While these rationalizations continued, a friend and I began tweeting back and forth on our respective accounts about a girl we knew. This was September of 2015 and I had owned the account for a couple of months now. By this time, we had all left for college. In our minds, there was nothing wrong, slight comments here and there. This girl was an acquaintance of ours, and she followed us so she could see our conversations. We never mentioned her by name. One day, I discovered she had blocked me and was slandering me. After discovering this, I took to my PT to vent. I was blind as to how my jokes had offended her, so naturally I blamed her for this. How could I be the bad guy? I wasn’t wrong here! As I lay in bed that night, I reflected on the past months I had my private Twitter account. None of these actions embodied me. This surreptitious slander of people who I called friends and who respected me was unacceptable. I should be aiming for things higher than petty squabbles on Twitter.

The next morning I deleted my account. I had become the very thing I hated. I still was in the dark as to why I had been blocked in the first place. Weeks passed until I finally texted the girl I had been talking about. I apologized for anything I may had done to hurt her. I did not mean to hurt her if I did. She accepted my apology. She then explained that she blocked me because of the things I had said about her. Even though my friend and I had never mentioned her by name, she had deduced that she was the person we were talking about. This revelation shocked me. I should have seen it at the time, but that false sense of PT invincibility had blinded me. I never mentioned her by name, and in my mind, that was enough to cover me. As I recalled my tweets, I realized they were riddled with sexism and misogyny that was blatant to me in hindsight. I felt disgusted with myself. I apologized profusely, saying I did not mean to offend her. She forgave me. I saw her in person during December of 2015. We had not spoken since September. When we met, we were cordial with each other, but I knew any friendship between us was gone. I texted my friend the whole explanation of what had happened and he too understood the error of our ways. But the words we said had already been tweeted and even if we deleted them, we could not take them back.

This story is something unique to our time, the generation of the millennials. Ten years ago none of these social media networks existed or could have been imagined. However, ten years ago people still dealt gossiped behind one another's back. There still was internalized sexism and misogyny. However, what makes this story relevant is the new sense of invincibility the internet give us all. We should talk with people in person, or at least call them on the phone, because we lose something valuable if we simply text back and forth. Instead, we sit behind the screens of our computers, phones, and tablets, and feel we can say whatever we want without impunity. This is never the case. I have become even more mindful of how I use my words whether they are spoken or written. You can never take back the impact of the words you say. No matter your intent and no matter how many times you apologize you can never take them back. My tweets, even though they are deleted, have done their damage. I did not recognize my own internalized sexism until I hurt someone close to me, a friend who I cared about. Your words have power. Do not ever be frivolous with them.