Whatever else you’ll be able to say about X, beforehand often called Twitter, it’s by no means actually boring. The 17-year-old social media web site that we’ve caught round with all the time has one thing occurring; within the finest instances, it may be both humorous or so odd which you could’t assist however snort.
Case in level: all through 2023, Twitter customers determined to put up whole films on the positioning. Sometimes they have been break up into a number of elements, different occasions it was a complete film in a single put up. This all began again in April with the double characteristic of Super Mario Bros. and Avatar: The Way of Water, with the latter unfold throughout three posts. In really unbelievable high quality that you simply’d in any other case see on DVD (or, y’know… watching it in theaters), each movies have been on the positioning for a number of hours and closely watched—Mario hit 9 million views, whereas Avatar’s complete couldn’t be decided because it acquired deleted first. And although each films finally acquired taken down, the account accountable is each nonetheless up at time of writing and instantly adopted issues up by importing the whole lot of 2007’s Bee Movie.
Just for enjoyable, I saved a tally of the flicks that I noticed have been uploaded to Twitter, or ones that my fellow io9 employees and a few pals knowledgeable me of. That record consists of: John Wick: Chapter 4 and Creed 3 in May; Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, The Flash, Titanic, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in June; Spider-Man: No Way Home, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and the 2011 Wonder Woman pilot in July; Barbie, the primary Saw, and Saw X in October, and eventually Oppenheimer in mid-November. There’s likelihood I’ve missed some, however that doesn’t take away from the truth that it occurred, and of the accounts that posted these films, solely two or three have had their accounts suspended—however it’s unclear if that was due to the film uploads particularly or a separate matter.
You can thank Twitter Blue for this chaos. Last November, the corporate’s new boss Elon Musk determined that the premium subscription service would permit paid customers to add longer video and audio than the usual size of round two and a half minutes. Those with Blue have change into extremely chaotic with the characteristic; together with the flicks above, I’ve seen full uploads for episodes of Regular Show and SpongeBob SquarePants at totally different factors this 12 months. Most did it simply to say they might, whereas the one who uploaded Rise of the Beasts acknowledged it was particularly to spite Paramount and stand in assist of the then-striking actors.
The diploma to which individuals on Twitter simply don’t give any levels of fucks is without doubt one of the finest issues about it. As the positioning appears to be confronted with collapsing in on itself each different month and everybody’s acquired parachutes able to deploy over to different websites, many customers have caught round—partially as an act of defiance, and in addition as a result of Twitter is so extremely lawless in a manner that may’t be totally replicated. Apple made the selection to add all the pilot episode to Silo on Twitter (ditto Netflix with the Stranger Things pilot on TikTok), however it wasn’t the identical as seeing some random particular person simply put up a surprisingly good rip of Blue Beetle or no matter else, simply because they have been bored. There’s an artwork to Twitter’s insanity that may’t be replicated and makes it sort of exhausting to interrupt off from, since you’ve put a lot of your self into the positioning and also you need to see what full stupidity will crop up subsequent in your feed.
In the identical manner that watching a very good or crowd-pleasing film in theaters or with pals at house offers you a way of neighborhood, the identical is true for watching films on Twitter. It simply has the additional advantage of being waaaaaaaay cheaper and nobody’s acquired to spend 5 minutes combating the UI.
Want extra io9 information? Check out when to anticipate the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and the whole lot you want to find out about the way forward for Doctor Who.