“Bluesky Has the Juice”: Celebrities Flee “Toxic” X for Rival Social Media Site

Call it a blue wave. A host of actors, directors, musicians, journalists and other prominent people are dumping X (formerly Twitter) and flocking to social media platform Bluesky.

In the past week, an increasing number of bold-faced names have announced that they plan to post less on X, or leave the platform altogether, citing myriad issues with the social media company, including far right content, hate speech, transphobia, racism, harassment, pornography, crypto scams, bots and the political views of owner Elon Musk, the billionaire oligarch who is a vocal supporter and financial backer of Donald Trump.

Musk’s ownership of X and his updates to content moderation on the platform have been pushing brands and media groups closer and closer to the exit. This week, The Guardian media group announced that it will stop posting on X, describing the site as a “toxic media platform.” On Nov. 4, the Berlin Film Festival became the latest European fest to exit the social media platform. NPR stopped using X in April 2023, and luxury fashion house Balenciaga completely deleted its account way back in November 2022.

One of the main beneficiaries of this angst against X has been the Twitter-like social media upstart Bluesky, which has seen incredible growth since the presidential election, with more than 1 million new users joining the site Thursday alone. Earlier this week, Bluesky said it had crossed 15 million users, a massive increase from the 10 million users it had in early September; moreover, the Bluesky app has topped the app download charts on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store in the U.S.

Among the prominent entertainment industry figures who have started to migrate over to Bluesky, or have been posting there more than X in recent weeks, are: Lizzo, Barbra Streisand, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gabrielle Union, Quinta Brunson, James Gunn, Sean Gunn, John Cusack, Guillermo del Toro, Ben Stiller, Flavor Flav, Chuck D, Alex Winter, Carrie Coon, Scott Derrickson, George Takei, Mike Flanagan, Mike Shur, Mark Hamill, Stephen King, Alyssa Milano, Meredith Salenger, Patton Oswalt, Lilly Wachowski‬, Franklin Leonard, Tim Heidecker, Akilah Hughes, Yvette Nicole Brown, Andy Richter, Weird Al Yankovic, Gary Whitta, Titus Welliver, Paul F. Tompkins, Jon Cryer, Ed Solomon, Craig Mazin, Jenni Konner, Jeri Ryan, Ken Jennings, Gale Ann Hurd, Armando Iannucci, BenDavid Grabinski, Marc Bernardin, Duncan Jones, Miranda Cosgrove, Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Sheen, Bill Lawrence, Matthew Lillard, Busy Philipps, Dionne Warwick, Colson Whitehead, Paul Scheer, Bradley Whitford, Mara Wilson, Kashana Cauley, Megan Amram, Brian Duffield and Robert Kirkman.

Several more Hollywood figures, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rian Johnson, Matt Reeves, Edgar Wright, Christopher Miller, Phil Lord, Rob Delaney and Ryan Reynolds, have active Bluesky accounts but haven’t recently posted on the site.

Outside the entertainment industry, other prominent people and leaders, including the likes of billionaire Mark Cuban and Democrat superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also begun to use Bluesky in earnest. Journalists, often seen as the backbone of X, have begun to migrate in large numbers and have been racking up impressive follower numbers in the past week in particular.

Bluesky has seen boomlets of new users before, only for the momentum to slow, but what seems different this time is the general dissatisfaction with X, the divisive nature of the presidential election and the ability for new accounts to quickly find followers and like-minded people through the ingenious use of “starter packs” — curated lists of people to follow in specific niche areas, all with the click of one button.

Talking Points Memo journalist Hunter Walker created a “Bluesky Has the Juice” starter pack of prominent journalists that has proved especially popular.

Among the prominent journalists and columnists who have migrated over to Bluesky are: Joy Reid, Jamelle Bouie, Mehdi Hasan, Lewis Goodall, Margaret Sullivan, Don Lemon, Chris Hayes, Alex Wagner, Rachel Maddow, Mina Kimes, Kara Swisher, Michelle Goldberg, Karen Attiah, Paul Krugman, Ryan Mac, Kate Conger, Charlie Warzel, Adam Serwer, Casey Newton, Keith Olbermann, Dave Weigel, Osita Nwanevu, Elizabeth Spiers, Dell Cameron, David Roth, Drew Magary, Ed Zitron, Taylor Lorenz, Paris Marx, Aaron Rupar, Judd Legum, Donie O’Sullivan, Jeremy Scahill, Philip Bump, Nicole Auerbach, Timothy Burke, Andrew Kaczynski, Oliver Darcy, Walt Mossberg, Jay Rosen, Charlie Savage, Anna Merlan, Ben Smith, Mark Joseph Stern, Noah Shachtman, Amanda Mull, Brandy Jensen, Ken Klippenstein, Michael Hobbes, Greg Sargent, Parker Molloy, Dave Itzkoff, Molly Jong-Fast, Kat Tenbarge, Brandy Zadrozny, Asawin Suebsaeng, Katie Notopoulos, Ryan Cooper, Tom Nichols, Phil Lewis, Radley Balko, Philip Gourevitch, Lydia Polgreen, Jason Leopold, Spencer Ackerman, Talia Lavin, Amanda Marcotte, Erin Reed, Owen Jones, Clara Jeffery, Joel D. Anderson, Will Sommer and Mike Isaac.

The increasing number of journalists is being bolstered by the growing number of media outlets opening Bluesky accounts. The Athletic, The Information, The Verge, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Washington Post, Bellingcat, ProPublica, NPR, IGN, 404 Media, CNN, El Pais, Le Monde, The Times of London, Guardian Australia, Slate, San Francisco Chronicle, Huff Post, The Daily Beast, Vox, The Onion, The Intercept, Drop Site, Gizmodo, Kotaku, TechCrunch, The Globe and Mail, Hong Kong Free Press and Newsweek are all now regularly posting on Bluesky. Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal opened Bluesky accounts in the past few days.

But what could tip Bluesky over into mainstream use is the migration of fandoms that make up a significant portion of X’s active users. There’s some evidence that fans of artists like Taylor Swift, BTS and Beyoncé, as well as Fantasy Premier League followers and fans of the English Premier League, NBA, MLB and NFL, are starting to shift to Bluesky.

Despite its rapid growth, Bluesky still has some way to go to compete with X and Meta’s Threads, with the former boasting over 300 million monthly active users and the latter over 250 million MAUs.