Another day, another weird, creative Twitter account. Many of these haven't yet made the jump to Bluesky, which is a shame, but in the curious case of Shibuya Meltdown, I think it's almost fitting. Make no mistake – Twitter (oh, sorry, X) is a site in steep decline, and Shibuya Meltdown's pictures of passed-out salarymen in and around Tokyo's Shibuya area reflect that oddly well. Granted, it's certainly not worth staying on Twitter, but the allegorical potential here is strong. Bear with me.
Who among Twitter's remaining userbase (who isn't a Nazi, that is) doesn't feel like this right now? I have a sinking feeling that the hangover is beginning to set in for Twitter users – much like a Shibuya partygoer, they're waking up in unfamiliar territory with a headache, surrounded by people they don't know and aren't really interested in getting to know. With the site's new far-right base taking the mask off more and more every day and people like Kanye spouting hateful vitriol consequence-free, staying there is looking like an increasingly difficult prospect.
This will probably be my last entry into this series, at least until a similar ecosystem of creative gimmick accounts asserts itself on Bluesky. Everyone who counts is moving on from Twitter, and I never thought I'd be saying this, but it may be time to follow Reddit's example here. You can't stay passed out in the Shibuya Scramble forever – you've got to either move or get run over.
Previously:
• You can rent a fake Shibuya Scramble crossing for $8,000 a day
• Shibuya Crossing: A glimpse of the world's busiest pedestrian intersection in Tokyo
• The water tables of Shibuya's RURU Café
• Just look at this banana vending machine in Shibuya, Tokyo.
• Tokyo's busy Shibuya area before and during the pandemic
• Short video about the fake Shibuya Scramble pedestrian crossing
