So Chris has started a newsletter

The Bird Site in Bad Decline

I loved Twitter. Probably too much. I joined the Bird Site on December 9, 2008 from Safari on my very first MacBook while sitting in my childhood bedroom, putting off studying for my first round of exams in undergrad. I had no idea how it worked. Any of it.

A day later, I fired off this absolute banger:

One word, no caps, and a question mark. “twitter?” Groundbreaking stuff.

At the time, I was entirely consumed by Facebook. In 2008, Facebook was still very new to me and, after starting at McMaster, I began to use it more to connect with new friends and classmates. My status posts were inane, my photos blurry, my responses inscrutable, except to those in my closest friend circles. But it felt homey and safe.

Twitter was a backup. It didn’t have the same functionality as Facebook and, at the time, seemed like a paired-down version of a more popular product? A whole site dedicated to *just* status posts? How could something like that last?

Two years later, I joined the editorial staff of my campus newspaper, The Silhouette. Learning from the journalists around me, I realized that Twitter wasn’t just a place to repost your Facebook status updates. Facebook was for updating friends about your life. Twitter was about sharing information. I began to use the site more for that purpose, tweeting about current affairs, updating people on my professional experiences, and trying to push a little engagement toward The Sil.

I unceremoniously quit The Sil in early 2011 to run for a position on the governing body of the McMaster Student Union, the Student Representative Assembly. I thought I was going to change the world. This was, in retrospect, a terrible decision. At least Dave Thomas had the good sense to go MSU to The Sil rather than vice-versa.

Shifting from the world of journalism to the world of electoral politics, I began to realize that Twitter wasn’t just a place for sharing information. It was a place for sharing information useful to your agenda. As a member of the MSU’s unofficial progressive caucus (as an aside, we adopted a pejorative given to us when someone vandalized the MSU’s Wikipedia page, saying all we cared about was peace and love and unicorns and communism, thus becoming The P.L.U.C. Front), I worked with some incredibly talented colleagues to advance an anti-discrimination policy, promote sustainability and justice initiatives, and (one of my big areas of focus) support Hamilton’s burgeoning LRT project. I worked with folks in the MSU to start a campaign encouraging students to tweet #WeNeedLRT every time a bus was late or too full to stop or left them out in the cold because of service disruptions.

All of this fed into my failed bid for the presidency of the MSU in 2012. As the progressive candidate, flanked by a rebellious left-wingers, establishment moderates, and incredibly popular fixtures on the campus social scene, I needed to stand out. My platform focused on improving transit, building community gardens, lowering beer prices, giving the presidential residence to a deserving first-gen Hamiltonian student, and reforming the MSU’s internal democracy. Some solid, left-wing populist stuff.

But rather than slap that on posters or come up with some catchy, all-encompassing slogan, we opted for a basic branding strategy: #erl2012. Just a photo of me and “erl 2012”.

The “hashtagization” of the campaign was an attempt to intrigue people. I was already somewhat known as a progressive advocate, but we wanted to push people to the website and start some social media chatter.

It didn’t work. I lost that campaign and moved onto grad school. But my interest in Twitter only grew with time. Through grad schools, through a 2014 municipal election campaign, through world events and personal issues and everything between, I had found a place where my voice carried. It did not carry far, but it carried nonetheless.

By Hamilton’s 2022 municipal elections, I had perfected my Twitter strategy. Punchy, witty, informed tweets about important issues. Keeping people in the loop by putting my research into action and employing my skills to influence the conversation. Engagement was up, people were interacting, and I had a modest following nearing 2,000.

And then came Elon.

In the weeks and months since the transfer of power over at Twitter, the site’s core traffic has declined noticeably. The vibrancy of my feed has diminished, replaced with worry over what will break next. What feature will be arbitrarily changed? How many spambot follows will I get tomorrow? In what way will Elon make our lives more miserable because he felt particularly unpretty that day?

Something that has been in my life for 15 years is falling apart. The network I built, the place I shared my research, the forum in which I could share ideas and discuss those concepts with friends, neighbours, and followers is crumbling. An empire of discourse in bad decline.

It hit me hard. Maybe harder than it should have. But, after a few weeks of contemplation, a good friend suggested a newsletter. I had created a Substack ages ago and, for some time, have been subscribed to the best internet culture newsletter out there, Garbage Day (you’ll likely see a fair amount of GD influence here). Having written for sites like Raise the Hammer back in the day and contributing to The Spec on occasion, a newsletter feels like the right step. Writers gonna write, and all that.

It has taken a while, but the idea is finally becoming a reality. And now, I’m inviting you along for the ride.

What’s the deal with this Substack thing?

Here’s what you can expect from The Sewer Socialists:

• Medium-to-long form essays and research notes on important issues in Hamilton and the wider Southern Ontario region. These will be on things like planning, the environment, politics at the local, provincial, and federal levels, and some cultural things as well. I’ll try and dive into things other folks may not be looking at, like school board issues, partisan concerns, and urban design.

• Updates and links to other important issues. What’s happening at City Hall, checking in with ongoing issues, and recaps of things I think are important or that deserve more attention.

• Linking folks to worthwhile causes, big rallies, events, actions, and general organizations doing great work on the ground in the area.

These posts will happen every Thursday (absolutely no guarantee on the time, though) and be available here on Substack and emailed directly to subscribers for free. While Substack offers a paid option, as a modestly compensated postdoc, I figured this would be a nice hobby, rather than a paid side gig.

Weekly newsletters will look just like this. Headers for important stories, graphics and images where appropriate, and outside links to sources. Next week, I’ll debut my first real edition, so you’ll get a better idea then.

Who do you think you are?

Excellent question. I’m Chris!

I earned my PhD from McGill University in 2022, focusing on municipal government through a political geography lens. I also have a Masters of Urban Planning from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Masters of Arts in Labour Studies from McMaster University. I’ve been published in academic journals and in the popular media, and am currently under contract with McGill/Queen’s Press for a book on partisan participation in Canadian municipal government.

I need to make one thing abundantly clear: I’m not a journalist. I’m a researcher. I won’t necessarily be getting big scoops and interviewing folks. Hell, some of the stuff I talk about might be a little dated by the time the newsletter comes out. But what I’ll provide is thoughtful commentary that is well-researched and accessible.

Similarly, I am not ideologically neutral. I approach things from a left-wing perspective. I look to dig down and understand the economic and social roots of the issues we face today. I will present the data in a way that does not obscure the facts, but encase them within progressive commentary.

I encourage good faith, fact-based debate and recognize that persuasion is at the heart of democracy. But you’ll get progressive commentary from me, underscored by a commitment to the environment, human rights, and economic justice.

That sounds amazing, I’m 100% in.

Awesome. I’d love if you subscribe and share to your socials. Yes, even Twitter. I look forward to seeing how this experiment plays out with all of you.

Cool facts for cool people

• A provincial by-election has been called in Hamilton Centre for Thursday, March 16. During the 2022 Provincial General Election, Hamilton’s core riding had a voter turnout of 38%. Which is honestly, not enough. In a time when the Greenbelt is under attack, provincial policy is fixated on increasing housing supply rather than building social housing or co-ops, and conflicts of interest seem to be raining from the sky, it is so, so, so important people get out and vote. The four major parties have nominated candidates. The two hard right populist parties may run folks (and I’m about 75% sure we’ll see the return of Natalie Xian Yi Yan as a candidate), though given the drama happening within Ontario’s Communists, it may be unlikely they’ll run a candidate. I’ll likely write more about the by-election in the coming weeks.

• Car Wars: The Motorists Strike Back. Here’s an interesting tweet from BC about an interesting back-and-forth between users of the Mobi bike share program and one vigilante motorist who thinks taking air out of bike tires will give them back one, maybe two parking spaces. All that seems petty, but not entirely unsurprising, given the direction of Vancouver’s new pro-business, right wing municipal government.

• Toronto’s mayor, John Tory, will be resigning tomorrow. Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie, currently a councillor in Scarborough, will become acting mayor and the city will work on putting together a by-election. That by-election should be mildly interesting, with provincial conservatives (both partisan and otherwise) already looking at who they can place into the position. If it isn’t Brad Bradford or Sean Chu, I think there might be one or two more Fords out there who haven’t run yet…

P.S.

Here’s a little bit about the name “The Sewer Socialists”.