Social media is having a crisis of identity. In the 15 months since a change of ownership rocked the foundation of Twitter—now confusingly rebranded X—competitors have scrambled to rekindle the allure and influence of the platform that first reshaped, then defined, and eventually dominated the online social universe of the 2010s. Almost all have failed, and the reason is simple: None of them are Twitter.

“I’ve told myself several times that I would get off Twitter, but 15 years later, and I’m still on the app,” says Kary Jackson, who joined the platform in 2009 after a friend created an account for him. “I was sitting in one of my marketing classes in undergrad, and I got this BBM [BlackBerry Messenger message] from my best friend. Not knowing who or what Twitter was, I logged in. My very first tweet was ‘How do you use this?’”