Nibel, who had amassed a following of 450,000 through his daily posting of memes and breaking news under the handle @Nibellion, has announced his departure from the social media site today.
“After some introspection, I’ve made the decision to focus my time and energy elsewhere and move on from Twitter,” Nibel tweeted today, from a now locked account. “This marks the end of my video games coverage and my active participation in this platform. Thanks to everybody for the fun times!”
Based on their previous work on Twitter, Nibel acknowledged there was some significant trouble developing a successful Patreon and that, as of right now, it would be shut down and users given a refund after a week. The planned Discord server –which originally would have had a channel for followers to join– will also no longer launch.
“Today, I will move on from both Twitter and Patreon. There won’t be any games coverage from me on either platform,” Nibel wrote.
A key factor in his abrupt departure seems to be the noptrious new head of Twitter. Nibel criticized Twitter’s leadership in a brief blog post that was published on their now-defunct Patreon, particularly its new billionaire owner Elon Musk’s “seemingly infinite immaturity.”
“Then there is the elephant in the room which is the platform itself,” Nibel continued. “I don’t think that Twitter has yet experienced good leadership, and this trend will not change with Musk either. I do not trust the platform. I do not trust Musk and seemingly infinite immaturity. I do not think Twitter will fall apart instantly but that it could die a slow death. Why waste more time?”
Nibel could be on to something; jumping off the ship early seems to be an understandable response, especially in light of new Twitter policies reported by the Verge which state that Twitter may soon begin charging $20 per month for accounts to remain verified, which confirms the legitimacy of users and brands by displaying the platform’s recognizable blue tick.
Existing verified users who don’t pay up will lose their blue tick under these plans after 90 days. Musk reportedly threatened to fire Twitter engineers if this plan wasn’t implemented by November 7th.
Whether the future of Twitter exists, we are already witnessing the cornerstone of the new Era-of-Elon shaking. Nonetheless, we hope to see Nibel return in a more pleasant environment where his content is treated better by the platform.
