The sky is bluer on the other side: fleeing from toxic vibes on #Xodus

For almost two decades, Twitter (now X) has been a crucial component of online communication and social coordination for millions of users worldwide. Although the platform has been subject to modifications since its conception (Baym & Burgess, 2020), the acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022 represented its most dramatic vibe shift (Bisbee & Munger, 2025). Changes implemented by Musk include the rebranding and renaming of the company, and a new explicit focus on protecting 'freedom of speech'. Such changes had already provoked the disengagement of part of the userbase (Ibid.), which was exacerbated in 2024 by the temporary banning of the application by the Brazilian government in August and the re-election of Donald Trump in November. In the wake of such events, there was a mass exodus of users to alternative apps such as Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky – a pattern of migration many referred to as #Xodus. We explore this transition in which ordinary users have decided that it was time to move away from Twitter/X and, simultaneously, attempt to make sense of the logics, affordances, and atmospheres of competing apps – particularly, Bluesky.