Headed to Bluesky

HATM finds a new home

Every Sunday for over six years now I’ve had a single constant in my life—at 8pm eastern you, me, and a whole bunch of friends from around the world would meet on twitter and watch a movie together. Sometimes we’d laugh, sometimes we’d cry, but we’d always do it together.

Togetherness—a sense of community—has always been the unifying theme of Historians At The Movies. No matter who you are, no matter where you are from, no matter what you are going through, you have a place here. More than anything else, I want you to know that no matter where I am, you are welcome right here with me.

For six years that place has been twitter. But it can be no longer.

I’ve been hesitant to leave twitter and port the community somewhere else for a lot of reasons. We started there. So many wonderful relationships formed there. We probably met there. I am tied to the space on an emotional level.

And then there was the logistics. Will another platform offer the same functionality? Which one? Mastodon? Threads? Bluesky? And of course, there’s the idea that it took me YEARS to build a following of 26,000 people on twitter. Do I really want to start all over?

It was for these reasons that I had continued on twitter after Elon Musk took over. I find him to be the rare breed of truly repulsive human behavior. The man has, as far as I can tell, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But I continued on, telling myself that maintaining the audience on twitter was a Faustian bargain. I didn’t have to like Elon, in fact, continuing to use twitter to spread a message of community and goodwill was kind of like using it against him.

I sometimes like to think of myself as a shade of the late big wave surfing legend Greg Noll, who was said to seek out confrontation in surf terms and in human terms. I go looking for fights. But the truth is, I hate them. I want people to be happy. To be together. And I don’t feel as though I can rectify my inner turmoil by keeping the community and the watch party primarily on twitter when I know that Elon Musk seeks to spread only chaos and hatred. Even if that means starting over. Even if it means losing the entire community.

Therefore, as of Sunday, August 11, Historians At The Movies watch parties will take place on BlueSky. I am under no pretenses that the folks there are perfect or without their own issues. God knows I have my own. But at the very least, they are not Elon fucking Musk. And I’ll live with that.

You can find me there at: https://bsky.app/profile/herberthistory.bsky.social

In the meantime, exactly what film do we choose for this exciting new era in #HATM history? It’s apparent by tonight’s watch party of 1917 that we do need to get back to our roots a bit and show films that are a bit more “history” oriented. But what films?

I’ve decided on Bob Marley: One Love, the recent biopic of the singer. What could be more perfect to celebrate the community of Historians At The Movies than by watching a movie about a man whose music brought the world together?

So for the first time ever, join us this Sunday, August 11th at 8pm eastern on Bluesky to watch Bob Marley: One Love.

Together.

Jason

Pssst. You’re still here? If you’re new, check out the Historians At The Movies Podcast. It’s not your traditional history podcast. We use movies to talk about the histories behind them. And most importantly, we have fun. And we sound nothing like any other history podcast you’ll encounter. You can find it wherever you listen to your podcasts. Here’s the links for Apple, Spotify, and our new YouTube page. Make sure to like and subscribe. I’m glad you’re here.

More news coming soon.