After the mass layoff of Twitter employees on Nov. 3, a group of former workers turned to the platform's virtual feature for live conversations to process.
About "3,700 people never got to say goodbye to each other. It just sort of happened," says Alphonzo Terrell, former global head of social and editorial at Twitter, who was fired in early November.
As a former manager at Twitter who had a team of just under 30 people, Terrell says he was more concerned with how thousands of employees who were fired, including his direct reports, would be affected.
This inspired him and other former "tweeps," a nickname for Twitter employees, to cultivate a space where those who were laid off could express themselves. They deemed it "#TweepTherapy."
"Change is hard, period, especially when it happens in a way that's outside of your control. There's a grieving process that you have to go through," he says.
"But I think what really helps, when people are ready, is having a sense of community."
Fired Twitter employees turned to 'Twitter Spaces' to raise their spirits
Immediately following the layoffs, many tweeps met up on Google Hangout and spoke via Signal, Terrell says. Eventually they decided to bring their open dialogue to a larger platform.
This led them to the very app they used to work on daily: Twitter.
"Naturally, most of us who worked at Twitter know the product very well. It was sort of the obvious thing to do," says Terrell. "The challenge of it, of course, is that it's a public space, so anybody can kind of jump in and listen."
#TweepTherapy attendees have ranged from former Twitter employees to journalists and even the mayor of Boston, he adds.
The first session on "Twitter Spaces" after the mass layoff lasted for 5 or 6 hours, Terrell says. And since then, they've met up approximately every two weeks and had four sessions in total.
Frequent Twitter changes inspired former Twitter employee to try his hand at his own app
On Dec. 16, the option to use Twitter Spaces was briefly halted for most users on the platform, which CEO Elon Musk says was as a result of updates to fix a bug. The feature returned to Twitter less than 24 hours after it was removed.
However, the frequent changes inspired Terrell to co-create and launch his own platform, Spill, of which he's now the CEO. He hopes it can serve as an alternative space for real-time discussions about culture.
"One of the big points of clarity for me, that had been kind of bubbling for many months and years, but really came into focus after I was liberated from my position at Twitter, was we need to build something new," he says.
"We need to create these spaces," he adds. "They cannot be subject to the whims of [leaders] that don't understand the true impact that these things have on people."
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the number of team members Alphonzo Terrell managed at Twitter.
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