R.I.P. Krazy Kurt Sutter’s Twitter Feed

Kurt Sutter, the “Sons of Anarchy” showrunner known for his quick temper, foul language, and predilection for bombast, deleted his Twitter account over the weekend and pledged to quit the social networking platform altogether. Sutter explained the decision in a post on his blog:

I’m a guy desperately in need of buffers.  I have big feelings, big reactions, big emotions.  All the things that serve me as an artist, but challenge me as a socially-responsible human being.  I’ve learned in most areas of my life, to bounce heated choices off other people.  Co-workers, my agent, my wife, a sponsor, etc.  A majority of the time, that keeps me on the right side of things.  With Twitter, there was no buffer, just me, my big feelings and my big opinions.  I don’t regret any tweet, nor do I apologize.  Everything I said was done in the spirit of social conversation, free speech and was my opinion.  Right or wrong, I said it, I own it.

I also don’t blame anyone for my exit.  No one chased me away except me.  Yes, the lazy blogosphere has given up on journalism and now trolls Twitter for their on-the-record in-depth articles.  [...] The whole Twitter phenomenon is really indicative of what’s happening in this country.  And I say this in condemnation of myself as much as anyone else — we are growing into a nation that has no time, desire or capacity for truth.  All we can handle is 140 characters of knowledge.  Headlines, spin, soundbites.  We want other people to tell us what we should think.  It’s just cleaner and easier that way.  Awareness, compromise and understanding are no longer tools in our social toolkit.

Sutter seems to want it both ways: he wants to be part of the “conversation,” yet he acknowledges that the platform was wrong for him. He pays some lip service to being responsible for his own words, but really he’s blaming the existence of Twitter, the nature of blogs, the dissolution of American culture that led to gossip sites writing about him and creating a larger awareness of his show. He’s either the most media-savvy person on the planet, or the least.

(Note: Sutter also reposted this news article, calling it a “bigger picture presented by a bigger mind.”)