A collection of tweets and memes about Twitter’s possible collapse.
Twitter users worried about a possible site collapse shared memes and tweets with #RIPTwitter.
Hundreds of employees are leaving amid Elon Musk’s calls for an “extremely hardcore” workplace.
One employee who remained told Insider “outages of some kind” seemed like a certainty.
Some Twitter users, worried that Twitter could face a prolonged outage amid reports that hundreds more employees are leaving the company and the offices are closed, took to the platform to share tweets and memes with the hashtag #RIPTwitter.
Elon Musk gave Twitter employees the choice to stay and be “extremely hardcore” to work on his plans for Twitter 2.o, or to leave with severance. Employees had until Thursday at 5 p.m. ET to click “yes” on an email to confirm they wanted to remain at the company, Insider previously reported.
Amid concerns that teams in charge of “critical services” were already stretched thin, one employee told Insider that “outages of some kind” seemed like a certainty. A former Twitter engineer previously told Insider, “If an issue does occur, recovery will take longer because the people tasked with maintaining core services have been laid off.”
Bracing for the worst, many began eulogizing the platform on Thursday night.
A photo shared by Pete Haas shows “Mad Men”‘s Don Draper presenting an idea of “Literally just Twitter without Elon,” with the tweet “Ex-Twitter employees pitching investors next week. #RIPTwitter.”
—Pete Haas (@dimeford) November 18, 2022
Tyler Roney, a meteorologist in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, posted a throwback to the Nintendo DS chatroom with the tweet, “Well, if this is it, see you guys over here. #RIPTwitter.”
—Tyler Roney (@TylerJRoney) November 18, 2022
Musk also contributed to the Twitter eulogies sharing a popular meme of a “The Flash” character making a peace sign at a grave site. Musk’s version of the meme showed the Twitter bird logo on both the character and the tombstone.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Nithish Billava replied to Musk’s tweet with the same meme, but with Musk’s face over the tombstone saying, “Fixed it” with the sweat smile emoji. Another user, @hopesnft, replied to Billava’s tweet with Musk’s face over both the character and the tombstone tweeting, “double fix.”
—hope (@hopesnft) November 18, 2022
Martina Gluscevic replied to Musk’s tweet with another popular meme of a little girl smirking at the camera while the house behind her is on fire. Gluscevic’s tweet shows Musk’s face on the little girl’s face and the Twitter app on the house.
—Martina Gluscevic 🐾 (@MartinaGluscevi) November 18, 2022
Other Twitter users compared the demise of Twitter to the sinking of the Titanic.
One user with the handle @OhHELLNawl shared a photo of the orchestra from the 1997 film “Titanic,” tweeting, “It’s been a pleasure tweeting with y’all for the past 13 years. #RIP Twitter.”
—toby is the scranton strangler (@OhHELLNawl) November 18, 2022
Stand-up comedian Gianmarco Soresi tweeted, “Imagine people who died on the titanic finding out we compared that to this,” and replied to the tweet saying, “this is way worse.”
Another user, @joblessthursday, made a reference to US elections by tweeting “IF YOU’RE STILL ON TWITTER STAY IN LINE. IF YOU’RE STILL ON TWITTER STAY IN LINE. IT IS YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT.” During elections, especially the 2020 US presidential election, politicians and activists use the phrase “if you’re in line, stay in line,” to tell voters to stay in line to vote even if their polling place closes.
Despite the droves of employees leaving Twitter, Musk tweeted that he’s “not super worried” about the platform because “the best people are staying.”
As we wait to see what happens next, Twitter users continued bidding adieu to the website on Friday morning.
As English author Neil Gaiman put it, “It definitely feels like the end of the party.”