Why Was Tucker Carlson’s Twitter Debut a Flop?

Tucker Carlson explaining how he played your parents’ economic anxieties into xenophobia and racism like he was playing a marionette (photo by Gage Skidmore)

Author’s note: This article is biased. Extremely biased. Everyday I wake up hoping to read that Tucker Carlson has died from a combo flesh eating bacteria/elephant stampede. Also I’ve made a conscious decision to not include the first episode of Tucker Carlson’s Twitter show because gross.   

It’s weird to think there’s been a lot of good news surrounding Tucker Carlson recently. First the strange vindication of Fox News as an entire entity being outed for lying about the presidential election. Then Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News for being too much. I mean how much of a hate filled, warmongering asshat does a person have to be for Fox News to be like, “Ew, no”?

Carlson then decided to move his show to Twitter, possibly to be as racist and transphobic as his hollow little heart desires. Fox News has now sued Carlson for breach of contract for his social media streamer. Which brings us to Tuesday’s inaugural episode of the Tucker Carlson Variety Hour, which apparently did not meet expectations despite a huge push from Twitter’s algorithm.  

Why did this happen? Let’s make some purely speculative hypothesis(es?)

Boomers Aren’t On Twitter

According to marketing sites, Twitter’s user base is more than half people under 30. Whereas more than half of Fox New’s demographics come from people 50 or over. Which, as someone that has worked in digital marketing since 2017, that should have been enough to say, “Eh, maybe not.”

Studies have shown that Gen Z’ers aren’t particularly fond of far-right extremism. As far as I can tell, mostly what they like are clothes we wore when I was in high school and responding to everything with “Bruh”. 

Which actually makes me wonder about Fox New’s ratings in the first place. Because I think of my own parents and they’ll turn on a cable news network and then go about their day, not once even looking at the screen, and they’re a Nielsen Family! So, I’m curious as to how many of Tucker Carlson’s viewers were either not in the room or fast asleep.

Twitter’s App Fucking Sucks Now

It is no secret I harbor no love for Elon Musk. But it has been quantified that engagement is down across the board and that site functionality and glitches have been a real issue since the Mars Emperor took over. From personal experience I hate it now. 

Has this happened to you? Scrolling through the timeline you see a post from some funny video account, so you tap their profile to see more funny videos. But as you scroll down your thumb moves ever so slightly to the left, so the app decides, “Oh so you’re done with all this” and immediately takes you back to the top of your home page? I mean that’s what I want from a social media app right? To make it as needlessly frustrating as possible to kill time?

The Deep State Got to Us

Oh no, Jewish space lasers and alien Democrats brainwashed all of our minds. Soon all children will be transgender and Das Kapital will be required reading for all gay kindergarteners. The country around us will fall apart in debauchery and sin, while Hollywood’s pedo ring will force child actors to build new pyramids for our reptilian overlords. Also don’t eat pizza or something.  

If I were a betting person I would put money on it being a combination of poor market research, and choosing a dying platform. In any case, here’s a song of which I have been absolutely obsessed.