The issue with color on X

There are largely two types of accounts on X: commentators and color commentators.

If you’re unfamiliar with the analogy, commentators in a sports game typically call out their fact-based assessment of the play-by-play happening on the field. A commentator might say “Tim Duncan is advancing up the court. Lining up for a three-point shot. In and out.” A color commentator on the other hand is the sidekick to the host. He’ll add color and perspective to the play. “Tim Duncan really needs to work on his three-point game,” or “Duncan’s been missing a lot of his shots and it's bringing down the rest of his team.”

On X, commentators are largely non-fictional accounts who bring new information into the system. They are plugged into the physical world by some means and relay new information based on their play-by-play observations. A social media network with only commentators but no color commentary is largely what X was before its acquisition as Twitter, which attempted to be an "objective" observer of the game.

Color commentators are largely your anonymous, fictional, anime-avatar accounts that fulfill one core defining principle: they say the thing no one else is willing to say. They function as the free speech engine of the platform. Saying the unsaid requires major ballsage, and most non-fictional accounts steer clear of that path because the risk can be too high.

Anonymous accounts on the other hand largely thrive on the same principle as comedians, which is a meta-level observation which induces shock or humor in the reader. Color accounts largely do not introduce new information into the system, but rather propagate via memes, reactions, shock, and the art of mild offense.

Color accounts are the gossip column of X, and in many ways, the addiction engine. The point of color commentary is in fact precisely that they never run out of things to say, because they are unrestricted in their range. They fill in the natural blanks of time. In the old Twitter you would, believe it or not, actually refresh and nothing new would appear. You’d have to wait until there was new information. On X, you could refresh hundreds of times an hour, and you’d always see something new.

I don’t have an assessment or opinion on the role, influence, or effect of these accounts other than my envy at the ease of their job, compared to non-fictional accounts who must generally practice caution and stay on topic. Veering into color commentary as a non-fictional persona (i.e yourself) can be made to work, but I see it less often. And probably most often by entrepreneurs who are not subject to the implicit free-speech constriction of the employed.

For that reason, succeeding as a color commentator usually necessitates anonymity. Is it a path worth pursuing? To me, using a fake persona would seem to be a means to no end. What would you gain by followers you can never reveal yourself or your real-world work to? Notoriety for its own sake must be the goal (or, a paycheck from the very magnanimous X ad-share).

For the rest of us, it would seem the only way to make non-fictional accounts work is the ability for you to introduce new information into the system (regardless of its quality). To do so must mean that in fact your posts on X are byproducts of your day-to-day, and not whimsical, low-effort musings.

There's a lot you can say about X, but one thing is certain: there is (algorithmically) never a dull moment.

You can follow me on X @moughxyz, where I post a few times a week on stuff like this and software development.