‘LIKE TWITTER BUT SH*TTIER’ – New MAGA Social Media Gets Less Than Warm Reception, Even From Trump
Former spokesman Trump spox Jason Miller has been pitching the idea of a new, Trump-based social media platform for months. The pre-celebrated notion had some false starts, enthusiasm remained assumed.
Now the theorized service has become a kind of reality, as Miller’s new platform GETTR soft launched on a Thursday, seemingly out of the blue.
The official launch is set for July 4, according to reports; an obvious thematic decision for the service which bills itself (like Parler and other social media alternatives) as the last haven for free speech on an internet controlled by Big Tech oligarchs and dictators. Aside from today and the Fourth of July launch, the app itself has been available in the Apple and Google stores since June, a fact most of us only found out from Politico today.
For a site that kind of jumped out of the gate without warning, there were some surprisingly high follower counts already on some accounts, as GIGN’s Reed Richardson, formerly of Mediaite, noted in some initial tweet reactions.
Lol, do they expect people to believe this is legit? Former Trump comms guy Tim Murtaugh supposedly has more followers *after one day* on GETTR—the shameless Trump Twitter knock-off site—than he has accumulated after 12 years on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/SV8z4TCOyn
— Reed F. Richardson (@reedfrich) July 1, 2021
Lol, do they expect people to believe this is legit? Former Trump comms guy Tim Murtaugh supposedly has more followers *after one day* on GETTR—the shameless Trump Twitter knock-off site—than he has accumulated after 12 years on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/SV8z4TCOyn
— Reed F. Richardson (@reedfrich) July 1, 2021
The numbers match so closely, for Murtaugh as well as for author and combat vet Sean Parnell, that it seems apparent the total includes their number of Twitter followers.
Tweets are being imported also, as happens from time to time across services. In the one below, you can see that the GETTR framing was also applied to the retweeted CNN tweet, though CNN does not have a GETTR account
Whether those are by design, or serious glitches, or simply temporary funkiness ahead of Sunday’s hard launch we can’t say.
What we CAN say is that a lot of people had a LOT to say about the launch of GETTR. Notably not among those people: Donald Trump.
Trump didn’t endorse or promote the launch of Miller’s service, and shortly after the buzz built, we found out that not only is he possibly uninvolved, he may even still be eyeing a competing service.
News: Trump isn’t joining Jason Miller’s new social media platform, Gettr — won’t have any financial stake or participation, I’m told. Apparently the ex president still has plans for a separate platform. Unclear what exactly.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 1, 2021
However, there does seem to be an automated Trump account sending out messages that Trump is sending currently by email. (Dozens of Trump accounts, actually.) There is a similar automated account for Trump at GAB so, again, who knows?
There are other odd things to note.
The top “popular user” in this handout photo from Gettr, the Trump-team Twitter clone, comes from a Kazakhstan-based photographer (@aionyhaust) on a stock-image site https://t.co/lXzUUfkB4T pic.twitter.com/yjrdxEEMVL
— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) July 1, 2021
Going to those accounts through GETTR you now find pics of Biden instead of the stock photos, and one of them featured a message that said “Biden won” before it was deleted.
But no weirdness, glitching, or otherwise has stopped the jokes from flowing, that’s for sure. Some meaner than others, but it’s all in good Free Speech.
“GETTR,” new world wide home page introduced by would-be abortionist and Donald Trump lackey Jason Miller, expected to prove effective at separating troglodytes and online misfits from healthy society.
In DPRK, such socially poisonous elements are reformed through joyful labour. pic.twitter.com/89vPw6WBli
— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) July 1, 2021
would like to introduce the “do not put your real information into that Gettr site what are you people thinking” challenge
— Jared Holt (@jaredlholt) July 1, 2021
Well I guess you can say this for GETTR: They understand their audience pic.twitter.com/zAUdhIm5oZ
— David Gardner (@byDavidGardner) July 1, 2021
There were many, many, MANY examples of this joke.
GETTR? I don’t even know her! https://t.co/amiKG5TGLi
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 1, 2021
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on the bright side if it doesn’t succeed the headline GETTR: DONE is just waiting right there https://t.co/NuUR6pDpWP
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) July 1, 2021
When it fails, I call dibs on the “GETTR Done” headline https://t.co/zxyAO8E16k
— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) July 1, 2021
And plenty more.
RIP Gettr (2021-2021) https://t.co/5JnG2rE8CQ
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) July 1, 2021
Is Borat on Gettr yet though? https://t.co/0T2THZKABq
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 1, 2021
I FORGOT MY GETTR PASSWORD pic.twitter.com/KOMyuPJUio
— TrivWorks (@TrivWorks) July 1, 2021
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Curious to see who joins Trump in the GUTTR, ahem, GETTR. https://t.co/vx6vJfrX4L
— Aisha Sultan (@AishaS) July 1, 2021
“Gettr? More like Guttr amirite?”
“Gettr? Gettr done, heh heh.”
“Gettr? I barely know her!”
“Gettr by the … you know?”(Okay, I’m done, had to get that out of my system, I’m very sorry.) pic.twitter.com/RV65fu4a7a
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) July 1, 2021
Designer: So how do you want Gettr to work? How should it look?
Jason Miller: Like Twitter but obscurely shittier
Designer: Are you sure? That’s what all the other white national….
Jason Miller: LIKE TWITTER BUT SHITTIER
— SchemeToDefraudHat (@Popehat) July 1, 2021
We could go on but I think you get the idea.
Still, you never know, it could take off like gangbusters. Having tried it myself, I can say it’s very much like Twitter in functionality, and mirrors some of the users, their follower counts, their verified status, their actual tweets, and the way you interact with all things.
It’s remarkably like Twitter in another way, too: when you step away from the computer and think about it for a few minutes, you can’t help but shake your head and wonder WTF we’re all doing with our lives these days.