Troopcast 🦢
@troopcast
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10K characters on social media is like adding a swimming pool to a motorcycle.
Technically impressive.
Functionally useless.
Social media works because it’s short.
Attention spans are short.
The best content? Even shorter.
Nobody wakes up thinking: “I hope someone dumps a 7,000-word manifesto into my feed today.”
But here we are.
Since the feature exists, let’s use it — to explain why it shouldn’t exist.
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Social media = speed.
Velocity of consumption.
Velocity of interaction.
Velocity of dopamine.
Long posts break the loop.
The feed slows. Replies dry up. Discovery dies. Virality collapses.
Every successful platform understands this.
- TikTok: seconds.
- Twitter: 280 characters.
- Threads: micro takes.
- Instagram: instant visuals.
The platforms that lost? They forgot constraint.
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10K characters enable a dangerous lie:
"More words = more value."
No.
Compression is hard.
Rambling is easy.
The moment you give people 10K characters, they start filling it. Not because they have 10K worth of insight — but because the space exists.
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10K characters don’t just break feeds. They break conversations.
Who replies to a 5,000-word essay?
Who quote-casts a 35-paragraph post?
Who skims 78 lines before replying?
Nobody.
Social media thrives on atomic exchange:
Idea → reaction → counter-reaction → meme → iteration.
Rapid cycles. Distributed thinking. Crowd-sourced refinement.
Monologues kill that.
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10K characters fuel engagement farming.
Expect:
- AI-generated "insight dumps"
- SEO-optimized "value threads"
- Fake expertise
- LinkedIn-style virtue signaling
- Low-signal noise floods
We’ve seen this pattern on every platform that allowed bloat.
First it’s insightful essays.
Then it’s "10 AI hacks you must know".
Then it’s garbage.
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Long posts also break discovery algorithms.
Algorithms love:
- Abundant data
- Fast engagement
- Quick signals
Long-form posts give:
- Fewer samples
- Slower reactions
- Skewed data
Eventually, the algo can’t tell what’s good — because everything becomes long, unread, and engagement-throttled.
Result: dead feeds.
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Ironically, 10K characters make the writer feel productive.
"Look how much I wrote!"
"Look how thoughtful I am!"
"Look how nuanced!"
Reality:
- Audience disengages
- Message dilutes
- Value-per-word collapses
Writing more isn’t writing better.
Writing clear is writing better.
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The constraint *is* the feature.
You don’t make chess better by adding 400 pieces.
You don’t make haikus better by removing syllable limits.
You don’t make Twitter better with novels.
Constraint forces clarity.
Constraint forces creativity.
Remove it, and quality collapses.
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"But what if I want to write deep essays?"
Perfect.
Start a blog.
Write on Substack.
Link it in your cast.
Let the feed breathe.
Let long-form live where it belongs.
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Attention is a finite resource.
The battle for attention is zero-sum.
Every time one person floods the feed with 10K characters, 100 short, sharp, interesting conversations get buried.
More words don't mean more value.
They mean less oxygen for everyone else.
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If everyone uses 10K characters:
- Feeds become bloated
- Conversations stall
- Algorithms decay
- Readers scroll faster, not slower
The paradox of attention:
The longer you write, the less they read.
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Farcaster isn’t broken.
Short-form works.
Atomic conversations work.
Velocity works.
Don’t break what works.
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And if you made it here, congratulations: you are now part of the 0.1% who just proved the problem.
10K characters wasted to explain why 10K characters are wasted.
Let’s keep social media social. 1 reply
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