No, "Mr Blue Sky" singer Jeff Lynne does not have an account on Bluesky

2023-07-07 23:47

With Elon Musk’s Twitter suffering yet another catastrophic outage (which has seen the Tesla and SpaceX founder implement temporary limits on how many tweets we can view in a day), users are once again looking for a rival platform to evacuate to. Previously it was the likes of Post and Mastodon - the latter of which Musk hated so much he restricted users from linking to their new accounts on Twitter - but now it’s the turn of Bluesky to get all the hype. Backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, the platform claims to offer “an open and decentralised standard for social media” – “decentralised” meaning users don’t have an account under one ‘centralised’ company owned by one particular company, but can instead sign up to individual servers and communities owned and managed by other people. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It's already proven popular, with surreal social media poster Dril and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez already signed up. In fact, after Twitter’s latest blunder, invite codes to Bluesky became so lucrative and sign-ups became so intense that they had to temporarily pause new registrations (they’ve reopened them now, though, if you fancy a try). And while others are considering whether to jump ship to the rival site, or desperately hunting for the code which will let them in, some Twitter users were reminded of a legendary rock band thanks to the platform’s choice of name: Yep, for a handful of individuals, the hit track from Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra (or ELO) came to mind – and it’s perhaps made all the more amusing considering one of “Mr Blue Sky’s” lyrics is the rhetorical question, “where did we go wrong”. If Musk were to ask that question, we’d probably say firing almost half of Twitter’s workforce and therefore making it almost impossible to deal with the demand is part of the problem. And if you were wondering, a few searches on Bluesky appear to suggest that neither Lynne or ELO are on the platform. Indy100 has approached Lynne’s representatives for a statement, but they said the musician was unavailable for comment. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Previously it was the likes of Post and Mastodon - the latter of which Musk hated so much he restricted users from linking to their new accounts on Twitter - but now it’s the turn of Bluesky to get all the hype.

Backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, the platform claims to offer “an open and decentralised standard for social media” – “decentralised” meaning users don’t have an account under one ‘centralised’ company owned by one particular company, but can instead sign up to individual servers and communities owned and managed by other people.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

It's already proven popular, with surreal social media poster Dril and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez already signed up.

In fact, after Twitter’s latest blunder, invite codes to Bluesky became so lucrative and sign-ups became so intense that they had to temporarily pause new registrations (they’ve reopened them now, though, if you fancy a try).

And while others are considering whether to jump ship to the rival site, or desperately hunting for the code which will let them in, some Twitter users were reminded of a legendary rock band thanks to the platform’s choice of name:

Yep, for a handful of individuals, the hit track from Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra (or ELO) came to mind – and it’s perhaps made all the more amusing considering one of “Mr Blue Sky’s” lyrics is the rhetorical question, “where did we go wrong”.

If Musk were to ask that question, we’d probably say firing almost half of Twitter’s workforce and therefore making it almost impossible to deal with the demand is part of the problem.

And if you were wondering, a few searches on Bluesky appear to suggest that neither Lynne or ELO are on the platform.

Indy100 has approached Lynne’s representatives for a statement, but they said the musician was unavailable for comment.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.