Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | July 15, 2025
I won’t pretend that it was difficult for me to delete my Twitter account. Yes, I had it for well over a decade, but most of my time spent on it happened when lockdown started. My time would be filled with scrolling and posting just like anybody else, but it also felt like I missed the boat. There was an ecosystem of people, trading in what felt like inside jokes among millions of folks, and aspects of it felt impenetrable to me. I didn’t sweat it, because I’ve never been a very savvy social media user. Regardless, it’s not like it didn’t help me!
I’m currently writing this piece thanks to a great recommendation (hi, Kristy) and because Dustin looked at my Twitter, saw I enjoyed Crawl, and asked me to come aboard (Crawl may not have been the deciding factor but it’s in the first email Dustin ever sent me). I was also lucky enough to get other writing work thanks to connections I made on the site. So, I can understand why people avoided leaving the site at first and losing the connections they’ve made. Now? Get people’s emails and get the f*** out, especially if you’re a lovable red monster who isn’t old enough to swim without supervision.
Just in case you may not be aware, X (formerly Twitter) is an absolute hellscape lacking moderation and full of some of the worst stuff the internet has to offer. That’s setting aside that Grok, the site’s AI, got “too woke,” was adjusted to remove said “wokeness,” and started calling itself MechaHitler and spewing antisemitic garbage. While this is likely what Elon Musk wants (allegedly), even he couldn’t handle the blowback and adjusted Grok once more, much to Musk’s (alleged) chagrin. If that wasn’t bad enough, someone hacked into Elmo’s account and started using it to spew equally detestable garbage.
Elon Musk ruins everything he touches (to the point that I can confidently place the blame for Iron Man 2 squarely on his shoulders, regardless of whether he’s using them to hold whichever son he can most easily use as a pawn). Twitter has been ruined and is now X. It has been bad for some time, has only gotten worse, and anyone still there deserves whatever backlash they receive from it. And, yes, that unfortunately includes the Sesame Workshop.
A spokesperson for the family-friendly company made a statement today, deriding the actions of the hacker (good) while saying they’ve regained access to the account (okay?). “Elmo’s X account was briefly compromised yesterday by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” said the spokesperson. “The account has since been secured.” Why?! Why has it been secured, Sesame Workshop?! Yeet it into the f***ing sun at this point!
Some fun has come out of Elmo having a Twitter account, but this is X, dawg. There is no Earthly reason for Elmo to be there, either as a corporate mascot for a kid-oriented program or even as a real-life flesh and fur monster. That’s how the account is operated. It behaves as if Elmo’s cute and fuzzy fingers typed out every word. Obviously, most people should know he’s not really doing that. So, when some asshole decides to hack it and make Elmo behave abhorrently, it’s damaging to Elmo’s persona.
You may be saying, “But Andrew, it’s not like children are reading X.” My counter to that would be: Then who the f*** is this for?! Kids of a certain age, namely Elmo’s (three and a half), don’t have X accounts, so why do any of this?! So that people can have a mental breakdown when Elmo asks how they’re doing?! So that Jordan Peterson can look like a jackass by yelling at it like he’s taking some brave stand against tyranny?! Is that worth all of this (gestures exhaustedly)?!
Sesame Workshop, delete your account. Spend your time doing awesome stuff like teaching kids how to read and share, and unionizing for better protections. You do not need to pretend you’re Elmo on a disgusting site that’s four months away from becoming a Crypto wallet. The risks far outweigh the rewards at this point, and I don’t even need Count Von Count to show me that, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to. “How many X accounts is too many?” he’d ask. “One! Ah ah ah.” … Oh, gawd, please don’t give him an official account too.
