Tabletop creators struggle to plot future amidst Twitter’s ashes

July 31, 2023 11:50 AM

The death of the bird app at the hands of Elon Musk leaves designers big and small in the lurch.
posted by Etrigan (149 comments total)

I was a heavy twitter user, but I mostly found out about TTRPG games to try from itch.io.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:58 AM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

This is hitting a huge, wide swath of creatives and artists in a huge way. There had been an entire cottage industry of for-commission artists both within and outside of the furry community who had built their careers on Twitter. They're being left scrambling. Also a lot of smaller musical acts, basically the only accounts I'm still looking at on Twitter, are finding the main method they had of effectively marketing their albums or live shows is being cut off at the knees.

I've been reading posts from all kinds of people lamenting how the thing that had helped build their livelihoods has been ruined with no hope of recourse or even any real alternative venue. It's really sad and frustrating to witness.
posted by hippybear at 12:03 PM on July 31, 2023 [25 favorites]

dice.camp is the instance where hats probably the best landing spot for creators and community, but like much of Mastodon is probably not a great place to do promotion.
posted by Artw at 12:17 PM on July 31, 2023 [9 favorites]

Comics Twitter, wether it is a good idea or not, seems to be moving en-mass to Bluesky. Spike Trottman made an interesting post there about the backing of a recent project: Per Backerkit stats Twitter used to be the top referrer when crowdfunding , on a recent $675k project it brought in just $671.

Really curious to see what actually is bringing in the money now.
posted by Artw at 12:28 PM on July 31, 2023 [8 favorites]

At the moment, it seems like the nerds in my orbit on Twitter are moving to Tumblr or Bluesky. But Tumblr doesn't allow NSFW art, which is a big deal for a lot of artists who make a living on NSFW commissions, and Bluesky is still invite-only, which is preventing a critical mass of fans from moving there any time soon. (Anyone got a Bluesky invite to share? DM me pls ;_;)

I really like Mastodon in general, but in an era when a lot of people don't even know how to use an address bar because they've grown up in the app-ified internet, it's too intimidating to casual users.

It's been sad to see all the artists on my feed worried about what they'll do next. A lot are staying on Twitter for lack of a better alternative, making gallows-humor jokes about its death every week or so, after each stupid stunt. But it seems more and more likely that Twitter is actually going to fail, the longer Musk is making decisions about it.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:49 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

So far Bluesky is like Twitter minus the videos and fascists. Astronomy twitter is moving there, and science twitter is following closely behind.
posted by MengerSponge at 12:52 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Many of the folks in my circles have moved to Mastodon, but across a bunch of instances, and some on Bluesky. But that's the open source tech folks. I also used Twitter to keep up with music and some authors, etc. Those? I've totally lost touch with.

If you use Twitter primarily for one topic, it can migrate to Mastodon or whatever. If you were spanning topics, it gets ugly fast. And it has also tamped down a lot on accidental discovery and shook off people who were only casually interested in topics, I think.

For instance, I might have kept up a bit with a creator of a game on twitter if they crossed my feed with something interesting. But I wouldn't go looking real hard for them from Mastodon - and I'm not sure they'd ever surface in my feed on Mastodon.
posted by jzb at 12:56 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

So far Bluesky is like Twitter minus the videos and fascists.

Well, how that bit scales is an open question. Growing by invite has led to a sort of Twitter all stars fun community with good values growing, but there’s no connection between the community and business or reason to suspect the business shares those values, and there’s been some blow ups and clashes already. None of the companies public statements give me any confidence in it whatsoever.
posted by Artw at 1:01 PM on July 31, 2023 [13 favorites]

The thing about Mastodon that I'm learning is, it's all about boosting. See something you like? Don't count on others to just find it, boost it. A boost is a leg up over the walls in Mastodon. A favorite is just an attaboy and only the author will be affected by it being made. A boost means your circle sees it. Hopefully others boost it from there, there's no control over that.

I did a post on Mastodon a couple of days ago that sort of went Mastodon viral. It was getting boosts and favorites from across a lot of various instances for maybe 24 hours. It was weird to watch, but wasn't nearly as terrifying as the day I had a tweet get something like 100 retweets on twitter. At some stage, if you get popular there, people come looking for you. I never felt that way with this Mastodon thing.

But really, follow people from a bunch of different instances. Like as wide a net as you can. And if those will follow you back, even better. Every boost will cross instances and become something bigger than just its home instance.

I get the impression that some people are interacting with Mastodon mostly through their home instance posting page. I'm mainly looking at my following list. I doubt there's a right or wrong way to do these things, but trying different approaches can definitely lead to different results.
posted by hippybear at 1:04 PM on July 31, 2023 [20 favorites]

The Death of Infosec Twitter

It's estimated that traffic dropped by 75% (although a lot of that traffic is bots, which were turned off pending deactivation of the API).

I'm guessing that many went to the infosec.exchange mastodon instance and BlueSky.
posted by meowzilla at 1:10 PM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

> Tumblr doesn't allow NSFW art

It depends on the particular still, but Tumblr loosened their NSFW rules earlier this year, maybe it was last year? At any rate, plenty of things that go in the NSFW bin are allowed again, other things still aren't.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:27 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

For instance, I might have kept up a bit with a creator of a game on twitter if they crossed my feed with something interesting. But I wouldn't go looking real hard for them from Mastodon - and I'm not sure they'd ever surface in my feed on Mastodon.

This is how I ended up following most of the creatives that I do on Twitter. I didn't go looking for them. They ended up on my feed, and there is a very frictionless experience of hovering over their profile and clicking "follow." Anything that requires more active effort on behalf of the audience isn't going to have the same reach.

Mastodon feels more fair, in that there's not an algorithm. I made an identical post on Mastodon and on Twitter promoting a community, and I got about 600 boosts across a lot of different instances on Mastodon. Whereas on Twitter, the algorithm (I think) has basically stopped displaying my posts even to people who follow me, because my account is really small, and no one reacted to it at all.

However - and this is a big however - my experience on Mastodon has generally been much more insular. I've done all of the things that people suggest you do to find more people to follow and either I've reached the limits of what I can discover from the instances I know or people in my communities just aren't really moving there. (I suspect a combination of both; I see a lot of fandom people express frustration/intimidation w.r.t. how Mastodon works.)

I don't know. There are pros and (massive) cons of having these big, centralized social media networks, but discoverability was one of the pros, for sure.

It depends on the particular still, but Tumblr loosened their NSFW rules earlier this year, maybe it was last year?

They loosened the rules but not enough to be a safe home for a lot of NSFW artists, who can't post the type of images that are their bread and butter.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:29 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

So far Bluesky is like Twitter minus the videos and fascists. Astronomy twitter is moving there, and science twitter is following closely behind.

I really wish that the academics would go with Mastodon, which is open. Universities could even run their own instances. (Related question - why are people going to Blue Sky over Mastadon?)

I'm preparing social media texts for the community partners in our research project, and I have no idea where they are going. My workplace only uses Twitter and LinkedIn; I have no idea if we will leave Twitter or where we would/could go to rebuild the following.
posted by jb at 1:30 PM on July 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

I really like Mastodon in general, but in an era when a lot of people don't even know how to use an address bar because they've grown up in the app-ified internet, it's too intimidating to casual users.

Even off the internet, user interfaces have become too opaque. Everyone should be seeing their file extensions, because they need to understand what a file type is! It should never be turned off by default.

Similarly, I hate websites which don't have any tree structure whatsoever. I understand some advantages of customised content, but I also want to be able to move through your site systematically. I shouldn't have to keep hitting random links to find things.
posted by jb at 1:34 PM on July 31, 2023 [14 favorites]

The BBC is now experimenting with its own instance.

Mastodon being Mastodon there is of course a lot of howling about defederating it preemptively etc…
posted by Artw at 1:38 PM on July 31, 2023 [8 favorites]

Yeah, talk similar to what would be said about NYT if they federated. I'm not sure if websites like the BBC need to be held to the same kind of standards as more socially focussed instances because I'm not sure their purpose and interaction method would be the same.
posted by hippybear at 1:39 PM on July 31, 2023

Tumblr loosened their NSFW rules earlier this year, maybe it was last year?

Yeah, they loosened the community guidelines a bit back in November to allow nudity and "sexual themes," but still emphasize that "visual depictions of sexually explicit acts are not permitted."

So, sexual themes and nudity but no depictions of sexually explicit acts. Oookay.
posted by mediareport at 1:42 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Related question - why are people going to Blue Sky over Mastadon?

Good summary of reasons give for bouncing off Mastodon in favor of Bluesky given here: Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t
posted by Artw at 1:43 PM on July 31, 2023 [15 favorites]

Related question - why are people going to Blue Sky over Mastadon?

Erin Kissane recently did a survey on Bluesky for exactly that question.
posted by away for regrooving at 1:43 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

The difference between R and X is showing actual penetration?
posted by hippybear at 1:43 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

The truth is, as funny as watching an imbecile set fire to a medium sized country’s GDP is, Twitter’s inevitable, even if protracted, demise will not just impact those whose livelihoods are majorly dependent upon their presence there but on the health of the scene itself.

We’ve said it before but tabletop games, and RPGs especially, have been blighted for generations by what could best be described as institutional amnesia. So much knowledge has been repeatedly lost down the years, whether due to the scene’s inward looking nature meaning it never left its local group in the first place, or was only recorded in long lost 70s zines, long abandoned Tumblr pages, nuked from orbit when G+ was closed down, buried 45 minutes into a YouTube video and so on and so on.

Wyrd Science editor John Power on Twitter's decline and cultural memory in RPG fandom.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:44 PM on July 31, 2023 [7 favorites]

why are people going to Blue Sky over Mastadon?

From my understanding, each Mastodon server is run by its own sysadmins who are almost all volunteers, almost all footing the bill themselves or crowdsourcing money. That doesn't seem very stable to me. Not that Twitter is stable, but I've been on that platform for 14 years and leaving it for something less stable didn't appeal to me. Each Mastodon server can talk to each other, except if the sysadmin doesn't want that and blocks other servers. Each server has its own content and moderation rules based on the whims and whimsies of that sysadmin. Those rules aren't always easily found and when they are, it's usually by violating them by accident and being told/warned.

On the other hand, I received a Bluesky invite, created an account, and immediately started finding my people. It was that simple, and in a world where I'm constantly researching streaming services, large purchases, work projects, aging parent ailments, my ailments, dog ailments, and where to buy chicken at the most reasonable price, I didn't have the desire to research rules/servers/etc for my funny slo-mo chat app.
posted by kimberussell at 1:57 PM on July 31, 2023 [21 favorites]

That doesn't seem very stable to me.

If your mastodon server starts going downhill, it takes all of 5 minutes to jump over to a different one, taking your followers with you.
A bigger issue with Mastodon is that it is difficult to go viral, which makes it an unpopular choice for all the biggest accounts and the people who want to follow them.

Mastodon is its own thing, it's great but it is not remotely a clone of Twitter.
posted by Lanark at 2:08 PM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm still going to stand by the idea that maybe social media where who runs the website has no responsibility for what is posted on the website might be a mistake. With anyone posting anything anywhere, the concept of defederation, which kimberussell is complaining about above, is the only method we have for deleting troublesome people or sysadmins from the system.

I'm having a hard time describing how much better a system is where when people are acting badly you not only block them but the server that enabled their bad behaviors in the first place, but in a world where website and services have no penalty for hosting assholes, that kind of thing is the only recourse people looking for a reasonable discourse can gather.

If you're engaging with Mastodon users or instances that are being routinely blocked, that might be more about you and the company you keep than the larger Mastodon community.
posted by hippybear at 2:09 PM on July 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

The death of Twitter for the small designers and companies is similar to what happened with the big video game trade show, E3. All the big publishers realized that they were so big, they didn't need to showcase anything at the trade show that everyone else was at and compete for attention. They could schedule their own event whenever they wanted, have full control over the experience, and media would show up regardless. Then they all started pulling out of E3. This was amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic.

E3 was an event where the small video game developers could get exposure simply because there were media types just walking around and could stumble upon indie developers. But with a switch to virtual, that becomes significantly less possible.
posted by meowzilla at 2:10 PM on July 31, 2023 [7 favorites]

it takes all of 5 minutes to jump over to a different one, taking your followers with you.

In truth, it's taking about 60% of your followers/following with you. You can download some files that are opaque and try to tease out the people you're missing, or you can probably stumble across them and realize they aren't a part of your feed now when they used to be, but the instance-transfer process is NOT 100% and is NOT smooth and needs to be improved.
posted by hippybear at 2:10 PM on July 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

We got used to social media in ways that we didn't understand were toxic. As a craft store owner, we use Facebook and Instagram as free avenues if communication to our customers, but we're trying to wean ourselves off those places, and they were never reliable because the algorithm only rewards those who pay. Those platforms are becoming dead zones anyway, and the truth is you can't rely on any push media platform you don't pay for.
posted by rikschell at 2:21 PM on July 31, 2023 [12 favorites]

Well, how that bit scales is an open question. Growing by invite has led to a sort of Twitter all stars fun community with good values growing,

It seems like it's going well, but there is always drama on these platforms. I don't even fully understand it, as I get it in small -- typically very cryptic -- chunks as I periodically read the "what's hot" feed. The worst of the Twitter filth have been run off, however; there are a few people running community block / mute lists that helped make their stays exceedingly brief.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:32 PM on July 31, 2023

Whenever I encounter a person who uses Twitter or FB or similar as their main or only method of promotion, I advise them to register a domain name and just redirect it. That way if something like this happens their fans can still find them. Don't think anybody listens to me tho.
posted by technodelic at 2:33 PM on July 31, 2023 [10 favorites]

Can you redirect a sub account on a top domain? I thought you needed to control the top domain to redirect anything connected to it.
posted by hippybear at 2:35 PM on July 31, 2023

why are people going to Blue Sky over Mastadon?

I got an invite from someone I follow, to BlueSky.

I am a very technical person and don't find Mastodon intimidating but rather I don't know anyone who uses it and have no desire to learn myself and evangelize it. I have no opinion on it other than "not for me."

Signing up for BlueSky took a minute and my Twitter crew is (very slowly) showing up on it. Every time I get an invite code, I bring another familiar face with me.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:38 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’d like a Bluesky invite if there’s one for me. I won’t make a social presence there but it seems that as an artist trying to sell art it would be good to see if I can get some reach without playing bullshit follow/fav/engage games like insta
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:40 PM on July 31, 2023

> From my understanding, each Mastodon server is run by its own sysadmins who are almost all volunteers, almost all footing the bill themselves or crowdsourcing money.

I picked the instance that I did because it's run by someone who is running a business of providing hosted mastodon instances for third parties. It doesn't have the specific-community-theme that can be nice, but on the other hand, I liked that there was actually a place the money was coming from, and that place was fairly reasonable.

So there are exceptions, but yeah a lot of the instances out there I'm not sure I'd bet on their long term survival.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:41 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Regarding bluesky I'll be interested to see what happens if they ever fulfill their promise of becoming federated. A lot of the problems that mastodon is having... I'm not sure I believe that federated!bluesky will be able to solve them out of the gate either.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:44 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Mastodon is the Linux of social media
posted by itsatextfile at 2:46 PM on July 31, 2023 [27 favorites]

Mastodon needs full data migration from server to server and single file import/export. Shits too wacky with server fragility and drama to have stuff just go poof at a whim. I’m all in on my personal account on toot.cat but I still worry if the admin kicks it how do I not just lose everything.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:47 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I’m all in on my personal account on toot.cat but I still worry if the admin kicks it how do I not just lose everything.

You can create your own instance, I have no idea how to do that but I've seen it done several times, and then you pray for federation and you never have to worry about those issues unless you are posting asshole-indicating stuff that gets you defederated.
posted by hippybear at 2:50 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

That way if something like this happens their fans can still find them.

The problem is that most of their fans won't. Most people aren't going to visit and bookmark the personal webpages of all of the artists they follow.

Many independent artists do have a personal website (or linktree or whatever), but it's only going to help the most dedicated fans - the ones who will bother to google them - find them again if Twitter goes down. That's going to be a fraction of their current audience. And it won't do anything for the type of audience-building that has made it possible for so many independent artists to make a living on things like commissions or sales.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:51 PM on July 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

Twitter has already gone down. The question is what is the new solution for artists?
posted by hippybear at 2:54 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Also a lot of smaller musical acts, basically the only accounts I'm still looking at on Twitter, are finding the main method they had of effectively marketing their albums or live shows is being cut off at the knees.

10 years ago, my local music scene was using Facebook for this. I'm not a Facebook fan but it worked pretty well: when a show was happening, the artist or venue would create an event and you'd see a notification about it. But FB's algorithm is so broken now that you can't actually trust it to tell you about shows before they happen, so people stopped using it. They didn't migrate en masse to Twitter or anything (and even if they had, Twitter doesn't have any affordances for promoting scheduled events, and it has the same problems with the algorithm not showing stuff reliably). I feel like Bandcamp ought to have functionality like this, but I guess either it doesn't exist or a lot of artists aren't using it? So I just ... don't hear about shows anymore.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 2:59 PM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

This from the linked article...

The older and more sceptical members of the industry remain critical of calling any part of the flailing platform’s ecosystem as friendly to building community.

“Community is a densely-connected network of people who all know and are invested in each other. By that definition, the spindly, asymmetric connections that happen on Twitter do not form a community, they form a public—or counterpublic, if you want to get Habermas about it,” said Jess Levine, designer of Going Rogue 2E and I Have the High Ground. “I don’t need Twitter to be a community - I need it to be a public where I can shout and strangers can hear me and get interested in what I’m shouting about and walk over and listen..."

struck me initially as at odds with this January piece, Twitter’s meltdown isn’t a punchline for disabled communities:

No matter how one feels about Twitter, we cannot deny its impact on disabled communities, and our fear of a future where Twitter has dwindled—or even been lost forever—is very real. Twitter is a vital means of connection for many disabled people, and we still don’t have a suitable replacement. This isn’t just inconvenient—for some of us, it will be downright dangerous without access to the community networks of support and trust we’ve spent years building on Twitter...Many disabled people rely on Twitter for community, mutual aid support, selling their services and products, and sharing their perspectives. It’s still a place where we can be ourselves without limits.

I'm not saying the first link uses Twitter's decline as a punchline; just noting I didn't like that language in the first piece, which seemed casually dismissive of the reality of community-building that's happened at Twitter, and seems at odds with the similarities in the practices both essays talk about.
posted by mediareport at 3:04 PM on July 31, 2023 [10 favorites]

I have zero experience with FB but the question lingers -- if you're actively following someone on FB, you don't reliably see all their posts because the algorithm buries them? I missed posts on Twitter because my feed was too active and it just went by while I was asleep. I don't know how FB works, so is it something like that, or were they actively burying posts so even if you're following someone you wouldn't see their posts?
posted by hippybear at 3:05 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Twitter has already gone down.

Twitter is still running for me? I mean, we can say it's gone down in the sense that it is rapidly becoming garbage, but at the moment, most of the artists I've followed are still primarily on Twitter. Even with reduced engagement, there's still no competition from other social media platforms. We've been predicting Twitter's death for so long now that it's become a joke. I'm not saying it won't go offline, but no one has a sense of how long it will be until that happens.

I honestly think that Bluesky looks like the most likely replacement except for the invite code issue, and except for the fact that Twitter is still online.

But the real tragedy of the situation is, probably, the kind of thing Gerald Bostock relates: There might be no replacement. Artists might never get the same kind of engagement.

Communities and audiences are notoriously hard to migrate even when the platforms function mostly the same way. I'm thinking about how much smaller Dreamwidth is than LiveJournal was, right now. Fandom didn't migrate en masse to Dreamwidth; instead, it splintered and the type of journal-based fandom blogging/community was never really the same.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:09 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Threads was fun at first but I guess folks left after the first burst of excitement?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 3:11 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

My understanding is that the initial surge was mostly Instagram folks taking advantage of an easy "check this out" lateral shuffle, and that most of them found no reason to continue checking it out.
posted by mediareport at 3:13 PM on July 31, 2023

Well, and every description of Threads I've read is "nobody I follow is in my stream, but it's all these rich people and popular folks".
posted by hippybear at 3:15 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

“were they actively burying posts so even if you're following someone you wouldn't see their posts?”

The main Facebook news feed is entirely algorithmic, so you can miss posts from people, yeah.

They have a timeline option but they’ve buried it so that I suspect most people don’t ever use it.
posted by oddman at 3:16 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't know how FB works, so is it something like that, or were they actively burying posts so even if you're following someone you wouldn't see their posts?
posted by hippybear at 5:05 PM on July 31

They actively bury stuff. I follow about 200 people maybe (I'm not sure, FB makes it weirdly difficult to curate your friends list) and I see the same things over and over again, and then, extremely often, I will see posts that are stale-dated from the time period when it was showing me posts repeatedly that I had already seen. Like, today it showed me a bunch of posts from Saturday about Saturday being the last day for early voting in my area, most of them posted quite early in the morning - I was on on Saturday and it didn't show me those posts then.

I have also noticed that any time I talk about politics, even completely neutrally like "you should go vote on *date*", it buries that post, and I have resorted to increasingly ludicrous misspellings and rhymes to get around that.

I have Theories about them actively burying activist/leftist content, but additionally, it's broken in nonsensical ways. I think they just don't prioritize the user experience when they allocate development resources.

I'm still there because of some friends who are nowhere else (and I know myself, my ADHD arse ain't gonna keep up an email chain with those friends) and also because of the sunk cost fallacy. I genuinely have no idea why anybody would sign up for a new account now.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:17 PM on July 31, 2023 [8 favorites]

We've been predicting Twitter's death for so long now that it's become a joke

Well, since November.
posted by Artw at 3:20 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Threads feeds at this point are all-algorithm, without even a buried settings option of switching to a feed of just the folks you follow. Meta keeps promising they'll get to that, but I'm sure they're in no rush.
posted by mediareport at 3:21 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mastodon : Twitter; :: Metafilter : Reddit
posted by Jacen at 3:43 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Defederate Jeremy Clarkson.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 3:45 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

I want to like Mastodon, but I just can't get into it, the vibe's just not there. I do follow some designers there, but it's not nearly as interesting as Twitter was. I'm too out of it these days to get a Bluesky invite and none of the other Twitter replacements are worth the effort.
posted by aspo at 3:48 PM on July 31, 2023

a buried settings option of switching to a feed of just the folks you follow.

I see it on my iOS app: Threads is rolling out its Following feed. This is a worse implementation than Twitter, where the Following list is exposed.

And when I switch to it, it highlights that no one is posting to Threads.
posted by meowzilla at 4:15 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

> Defederate Jeremy Clarkson.

Nah, defenstrate Jeremy Clarkson. Just so long as he lands on Piers Morgan below.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 4:16 PM on July 31, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'm not on Mastodon for a lot of reasons, but the main ones are 1) it seems complicated and whenever anyone tries to explain to me how it's not complicated it just seems more complicated* and 2) the seizing of the Kolektiva server, which is what I probably would have joined, by the FBI. It does not inspire confidence!

*This is not an invitation to explain to me how it's not really complicated
posted by an octopus IRL at 4:20 PM on July 31, 2023 [12 favorites]

Twitter health update:

@NoraReed: i just deleted infinite scream on twitter
posted by Artw at 4:28 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

One thing I like about Mastodon is that you can follow hashtags, and they just show up in your main feed with the people you follow. I follow a couple and maybe it's because they are niche enough but it doesn't overwhelm my feed while still creating opportunities for discovery. I also like the culture of adding alt text to images/videos.

Re the actual subject of the FPP, I can see how Mastodon (and Bluesky for now) seems not very useful to creators. But as someone who misses the quieter days of social media, when it was not a constantly refreshing firehose of content, I find Mastodon's relative quiet very pleasant.

My Bluesky experience so far has been that it's very too-cool-for-school, where like even the nerds are Weird Twitter alums or whatever, and I have never felt comfortable in environments where that is the primary vibe. I also hate that you see every reply someone you follow is making, even if you don't follow the person they are replying to.
posted by misskaz at 4:30 PM on July 31, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yeah, something is very fucked about replies on Bluesky, I don’t know if that’s a choice that’s baked in at the trchnology level or what, but it seems like it’s going to be a scale problem once you are following too many people. You can filter by how many favorites the replies get, but that doesn’t seem a good metric compared with, for instance, showing you only conversations between people you both follow.
posted by Artw at 4:33 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Infinite scream is on Mastodon!
posted by hippybear at 4:35 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

People who go to Bluesky will be moving again eventually. The lesson to learn is that no corporation can run a big public service without eventually enshittifying it. Mastodon has problems, and individual instances can and do shut down randomly, but at least has the advantage of group continuity, like the Web itself does.

Everything on the internet has a limited lifespan. I couldn't even begin to talk about all the great sites that have died over the decades. Large companies can extend that, to the point where it seems like they'll be around forever, but that's illusory.

As for Bluesky, if you have an invitation I'm sure it's okay. But if you don't have one, you're out of luck.

I want to like Mastodon, but I just can't get into it, the vibe's just not there.

It's entirely due to who you follow. Twitter's algorithm and discovery feeds give a specific kind experience to most people (although there are documented left and right biases where people get shown which political opinion they prefer). Mastodon can give you extremely different experiences depending on who you follow, in ways both obvious and subtle. The result is, you have to do a lot more personal curation, but if you do you can find wonders, above and beyond what Twitter used to, because algorithms fail.

With Mastodon, you have to put in the work. If you do, there's gems out there waiting to be discovered. But if you don't, you'll have an empty feed.

It is time now for my plug for mefi.social, run by Pronoiac. Here it is: -----[]=
posted by JHarris at 4:39 PM on July 31, 2023 [19 favorites]

OMG put that thing away this is a family website.
posted by hippybear at 4:45 PM on July 31, 2023 [14 favorites]

Yeah, if you are a Mefite and want to cut to the chase on all the “choosing an instance” / “finding people to follow” business you have a readymade answer right there.
posted by Artw at 4:46 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I guess my big question is how do you get to Bluesky if you don't know anyone who will give you an invite?
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 4:47 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I got mine off someone on a discord, which is the other thing that’s quietly going on as a not-super-useful-for-marketing Twitter replacement.
posted by Artw at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Stand at the crossroads at midnight?
posted by hippybear at 4:51 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

So, how exactly does one get one of these mythical BlueSky invites? Given that they login-wall their content as well it feels like we're just repeating mistakes.
posted by Aleyn at 4:53 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I find it super hard to think of Discord as a Twitter replacement. It doesn't even have a feed. I use it avidly, but in my mind it's just where I keep all my chatrooms.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 5:03 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

As someone who used Twitter to passively follow a lot of TTPRG accounts, and views that (and the cute animal pic accounts) as the biggest loss since I shut down my account, the problem with the "move to Mastodon" suggestion is the people I used to follow mostly aren't there. And in any event the value add for twitter wasn't just that there were people announcing "I have a new game coming out," it was that there was a critical mass for a conversation.

Was the fact that Twitter was successful for these people for a while, and now isn't, a sign that using Twitter was a mistake? Reminds me of the shit posts comedian Eleanor Morton when Musk took over, telling her she was stupid for investing time on the bird site. She responded by thanking everyone for their advice and that she now recognized she should have chosen to become TV and movie famous instead of Twitter famous.

You can have all the theories you want about how public squares and semi-public spaces should be organized, but in the end you drink at the bars your friends are at.
posted by mark k at 5:07 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah, but if that bar becomes a Nazi bar, it's better to switch bars than to say "I was here first, I'll just drink around the Nazis"
posted by rikschell at 5:28 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Sure, but most people aren't likely to head off to a new bar by themselves

A few people do and they make friends at the bar and tend to die young, most people go where they've already got friends though.
posted by deadwax at 5:37 PM on July 31, 2023

I spent six months asking around on my twitter for people to give me their Mastodon accounts if they had them, asking very regularly and even going into DMs for some people if they didn't seem to be regularly active. I probably populated my Mastodon with over 60% of my twitter when I moved over and started being more active there than on twitter.

At this point my Mastodon, with friends old and new, is more interesting than my twitter ever was. I can't quantify it exactly, as I wasn't using the algorithm for my twitter feed.

I'm just trying to say, it's possible to do a move. It requires effort, just like any move does. You don't have to invite people with pickup trucks over with a promise of pizza and beer, but it might take you a few months to gather enough to make it work.

There's some kind of service that is supposed to search down people on twitter and tell you if they're on Mastodon. I haven't used it. Maybe others have.
posted by hippybear at 5:42 PM on July 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

fedifinder can scan your Twitter following list and hunt down Mastodon links in their bios.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:47 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm still hopeful for Cohost, as that's been the most pleasant to be on (and has the highest 'hit rate' of people I want to hear from posting neat stuff).

But I'm also on Mastodon, as I figure it has the best chance of survival right now. Problem is, it's unpleasant to use, & by-and-large it's much emptier of the people I want to hear from. See: the above linked article (and past articles) from Erin Kissane.

And I know mentioning that will prompt well-intended "It's as good as you put effort into it being! All those other social media sites were poisoning your mind with algorithms!" replies, but A. that assumes I wasn't already using chronological feed for them, and B. "Put a whole bunch of effort into a social network that doesn't have the people I already know" isn't exactly an enticing proposition. And I don't have a good pitch for getting people on Mastodon. If I knew them well enough & kept in contact enough to be able to say anything... we'd already be talking. Probably on Slack or Discord.
"Come to Mastodon, so you can talk to other people you don't know & I can listen in without saying anything, but maybe I'll boost your post to my audience of 0!"

Not really a winner, even setting aside all the instance/federation drama that comes baked in and the White Moderates HOA default culture to fight upstream against.
posted by CrystalDave at 5:47 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I am on team It Is Good And Desirable That No Single Central Social Network Should Again Exist, And We Should All Go Separate Ways. My second team (who I support when my team isn't playing) is Get A Website With RSS
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:52 PM on July 31, 2023 [17 favorites]

I looked on Cohost, it seems to be very heavily full of programmers, coders and game designers, and I can barely code an html italic. Cohost... may not be for me.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 5:53 PM on July 31, 2023

I ultimately think that crossposters are an answer. Some people will be on Mastodon and some people will be on Bluesky. Why not just have a way to post to both at the same time?

I know a number of people on Mastodon who are awesome. In fact, let me show you some of them:
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops: @[e-mail] (as the name says)
Waxy: @[e-mail]
Ron Gilbert: @[e-mail]
Low Quality Facts: @[e-mail]
Ars Technica: @[e-mail]
Cory Doctorow: @[e-mail] (are we still jealous of him?)
Solid Micolash: @[e-mail]
United Space Cats: @[e-mail]
Giles Goat: @[e-mail] (retrocomputing)
Flipboard Culture Desk: @[e-mail]
Dril Tracy: @[e-mail] (Dick Tracy cartoon panels with dril tweet text)
CNN Breaking News: @[e-mail] (unofficial)
Boing Boing: @[e-mail] (they still seem to exist)
mcc: @[e-mail] (general tech stuff, mermaid.industries)
Oliphantom Tollbooth: @[e-mail] (runs oliphant.social, general Fediverse stuff)
kottke: @[e-mail]
mekka okereke: @[e-mail]
Ron's Computer Videos: @[e-mail]
Action Retro: @[e-mail]
NPR: @[e-mail]
Elvira: @[e-mail]
DosFox: @[e-mail]
Jim Stormdancer: @[e-mail] (he made Frog Fractions)
James Wallis: @[e-mail] (game and TTRPG stuff, Hogshead here!)
4am: @[e-mail] (Apple II preservation, you might have seen him on Twitter)

Maybe more if I can think of some later.
posted by JHarris at 6:04 PM on July 31, 2023 [11 favorites]

I kind of want to go to blue sky but given it’s invite only and I’ll never get one I have made my piece with eventually dropping my Twitter acct and not replacing it with anything.

I don’t see how bluesky can avoid the same problems that Twitter has anyway. The tension between content moderation and free speech (aka being horrible) will never go away.
posted by awfurby at 6:07 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I find it super hard to think of Discord as a Twitter replacement. It doesn't even have a feed. I use it avidly, but in my mind it's just where I keep all my chatrooms.

Yeah, it’s the mode of Twitter replacement that goes “hang out with the people you met on Twitter on a discord instead” - not an uncommonly used option, though one that stops being a public social media.
posted by Artw at 6:08 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm just trying to say, it's possible to do a move. l

I'm just going to say, as someone who has really tried to make Mastodon work because it's what I vastly prefer, I'm kind of tired of people telling me that the reason my feed is so quiet is that it just "requires effort" or that I need to "put in the work."

It sounds like a lot of your people moved to Mastodon. Most of mine didn't. I'm sure your people are great, but they're not interchangeable with mine.

It's much easier to build an active feed on Mastodon if your main criteria for adding people is that they seem to be interesting and not an asshole. But if you use social media for a specific interest - say a fandom, for example - it's a lot more important that other people with that specific interest be there. I still go looking every few days, but there just aren't that many to find to start with, and federation is actually a big roadblock here.

(Please, I am begging you not to explain to me how federation works and how to find people on other instances. I know. It's just a pain in the ass.)
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:12 PM on July 31, 2023 [13 favorites]

I really see Discord and Telegram as just IRC with bells and whistles. They aren't really a "social network" in the way people think of as such things being.
posted by hippybear at 6:12 PM on July 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm kind of tired of people telling me that the reason my feed is so quiet is that it just "requires effort" or that I need to "put in the work."

What else can I say? It does require effort--it might even require too much effort to be viable for you. I can understand that. I don't mean it as a judgement against you. It's a tool, like anything else, and you might not have the time to learn how to use it like how I can't operate a bandsaw.

Twitter and Facebook became huge because they gave people, for the first time, a way to really use the internet that didn't require a lot of exploration and personal curation. They broke that trend. Now that they're deep into the enshittification phase of the cycle, they're seeking to profit off of all the people who were locked into their gardens.

But the rest of the internet still exists. There's still lots of blogs out there, and RSS is still around as a way to keep up with them. Mastodon is another element of that web, what I think of as the true web. I've come to realize, I prefer that kind of internet experience. I wish there was a way to make that kind of thing easier, but there might not be. Maybe it's intrinsically not possible, without a computer program trying to guess what you might like, but also the possibility of whoever wrote that program trying to manipulate it for their own ends.

Anyway. I also didn't mean to say that it just requires effort. And since there is no single place to go to to find people to follow, it could mean a lot of effort, which is why I listed some accounts that I like above, to try to decrease that effort for people.

Along those lines, someone's compiled a Google Sheets document of Journalists on Mastodon.
posted by JHarris at 6:27 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Funny thing is, JHarris, your list of the awesome people to follow is exactly why I think Mastodon's vibes are off. None of those accounts are bad or anything (ok, Cory Doctorow really rubs me the wrong way, but that's a me problem), but they are, well, the sort of thing I'd like to see occasionally if they post something especially interesting that other people I follow also like.

Mastodon feels much more like a party where you know your group of people and you all hang out and have a good time. (If you can find them that is.) Twitter at its best felt like a party where you were constantly getting in new little conversations and then wandering into something new and interesting.
posted by aspo at 6:42 PM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

I am very happy to be on Mastodon, and there’s no question that an important part of that is that there was a space created by somebody I already knew from Twitter (glammr.us) devoted to the main interest I use social media for (librarianship), so I bypassed a lot of the initial anxiety about where to go. I’m really glad to be part of an instance that is financially supported and moderated by its members, and frustrated by people who think that the solution to the Twitter disaster is a space owned by Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg—while again acknowledging that this transition was much smoother for me than it is for lots of other folks. I have a fraction of the followers that I had on Twitter, but the engagement that I get on Mastodon is so much higher on a percentage basis that I don’t much miss it, and I’m frankly much happier without spending the time I did on proactively blocking to try to stave off harassment.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:09 PM on July 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'll cosign Horace Rumpole, from another information-themed instance (digipres.club; we have foone!). I'm happy and getting what I need, yet I totally hear and understand the folks for whom that's not the case.
posted by humbug at 7:17 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

It does require effort--it might even require too much effort to be viable for you. [...] It's a tool, like anything else, and you might not have the time to learn how to use it

I've typed and retyped this multiple times because I am trying not to be rude, but this is just so condescending!

I explained why Mastodon hasn't been working out for me, and the reason that I gave has nothing to do with lack of effort or knowledge. Yet here you are--graciously informing me that my lack of effort and knowledge are valid; you're not judging me for it.

There's a tendency among fans of Mastodon to believe in their own version of the just world fallacy. Can I call it the just toots fallacy? The belief is: If Mastodon isn't working out for you, it must be because you're not engaging with it in the right way.

Even though I was commenting explicitly to say that I'm tired of the assumption, even though I a gave a different explanation in clear and direct language, even though I begged people not to explain to me how Mastodon works--I just couldn't break through the just toots fallacy. It's like my comment didn't even register.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:47 PM on July 31, 2023 [30 favorites]

What was it Groucho said about clubs and those that would have him?
posted by oldnumberseven at 7:49 PM on July 31, 2023

W/r/t crossposters, the Tedium newsletter had a great edition on the internet archaeology of this concept (and relating it to this breakup of posting sites).
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:51 PM on July 31, 2023

All this disdain for people who can’t grok Mastodon or are too tired to invest A LOT of work in making it as amazing as y’all insist, this is tiresome.

This is like some sort of purity test. If you are not on Mastodon, you’re a stooge, a fool, not one of the Cool Kids.

Hard pass for those very white dude attitudes.
posted by Kitteh at 8:05 PM on July 31, 2023 [12 favorites]

Even though I was commenting explicitly to say that I'm tired of the assumption, even though I a gave a different explanation in clear and direct language, even though I begged people not to explain to me how Mastodon works--I just couldn't break through the just toots fallacy. It's like my comment didn't even register.

I think the problem is that if you're into tech in a bro-y way, social networks always have a ready made pool of users you share interests with from launch, going all the way back to the days of BBS and Usenet.

Finding community and connection on a new social platform is always going to seem possible to a Cory Doctorow fan.
posted by zymil at 8:05 PM on July 31, 2023 [14 favorites]

I created an account on Mastodon and then I did what I felt I needed to do to make a migration for me,, myself, successful.

I get that not everyone feels this can be achieved. A comment upstream seemed to underscore they only use social media as a passive observer, watching what other's post. I feel like maybe that would be better served with an RSS feed, but that's not the internet we live in, sadly.

I would really like to see the death of the modern web. There's a toxicity in much of modern online media that cannot be denied. Even without an algorithm there's something about the public square that brings out the worst in people.

It's entirely fuddy duddy of me to type this out, but maybe this is a failure of socialization education. We could create a society in which these things lay far enough outside the social norm that they aren't regularly practiced and are socially punished when they are performed.

But then I'm left to think about Gormenghast, and how one person with calculated conniving took on an entire society based on how unthinkable thoughts could never be thunk, and he thunk them all and brought a centuries-old monarchy to its knees.

I am not saying we live in a monarchy, but I am suggesting that we've reached a point where the cracks in our foundations are beginning to show. SCOTUS scandals of various sorts indicate this.

Arg, too many thoughts in one brain for one evening.
posted by hippybear at 8:08 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

FWIW, I've had a pleasant experience with Mastodon (well, mefi.social (which is Hometown (which is a fork of Mastodon.))) I had largely checked out of Twitter, so I wasn't looking to recreate it. I just followed people who welcomed me, checked out the Federated timeline, and slowly grew my following list. Sort of like how I started on Twitter.

Now I'm in a weekly movie-watching group and a (mostly) weekly RPG with people I engaged with.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:10 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I fully support polyamory but exactly how many people are you engaged with, ChurchHatesTuckers?
posted by hippybear at 8:13 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I've just been so busy and tired and I have not had time to follow up on any of these alternatives, though I've joined T2 and Threads. I joined Threads to reserve my handles, but I don't want to put more into the Meta walled garden, especially when they don't even give you a way to search posts or find posts you've liked. I joined T2 for the same reason—I guess I had requested an invitation at some point and finally got invited—but it doesn't really feel like home. I got invited to mefi.social (thank you!) but haven't had time to join and set it up, so we shall see! If anyone wants to invite me to Bluesky, I wouldn't say no to checking it out. Oh, and I rejoined Tumblr months ago, but I really can't see using it until it will federate and/or repost to other places.
posted by limeonaire at 8:18 PM on July 31, 2023

We need some kind of utility version of the big website services. People obviously want some places to share posts, short messages, videos, discussions, etc and all the trouble comes from when some place finally becomes "the" place for those things and the garbage company that owns it seeks to ruin it to make more money. Let's just bill or tax or have donation drives or whatever to keep the business out of it and let people communicate and share. People want to reach the other people, let's get the ruinous middlemen out of the way.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:31 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I've typed and retyped this multiple times because I am trying not to be rude, but this is just so condescending!

Yeah, I put a lot of effort trying not to be too. Sorry.

There is this writing pattern where saying something like, as you said, "you have to put the effort in," sounds like the writer is implying it's a moral failing if you don't get into it, like playing a piano well. This is not how I mean it. People only have a limited amount of time and attention. I have a lot of bumping-around-the-internet time, and that might be why I enjoy Mastodon so much, but other people have lives to lead. I can only speak to my experience. I hope you find (if you haven't already!) something good even if if it isn't Mastodon.
posted by JHarris at 8:51 PM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm beginning to wonder if we don't need some kind of mourning period before anything can replace Twitter. It wasn't a physical place, but a lot of us "hung out" there as much as you can on a forum. People made life-changing connections there, there were communities, there was art, there was jokes that only made sense if you were there.

It's like seeing your favorite neighborhood bar close down, or turn into some kind of unrecognizable cocktail spot, and then comes a night you and your friends would have gone there. Yeah, there are other places to drink, but it'll be a while until any of them feel like your spot, and you just know there are going to be a few old regulars you'll just never see again.
posted by smelendez at 9:00 PM on July 31, 2023 [9 favorites]

Pushing back against the "Mastodon is a white tech bro place".

Definitely not arguing with anyone who tried and found it wasn't for them! Especially makes sense if you need to be with a particular group of people and they're not there. So my comment is not directed at anyone who tried and didn't like it. More for anyone who is curious to try.

My mastodon experience has been excellent so far. So many fascinating people. Just chatting and joking, or posting serious things.

I have found artists, writers, musicians, various scientists posting about their various fields, but mostly just random people from all over the world not just the usual USA/UK dominance.

Definitely some snooty smug people, but I edit them out of my feed so don't have to know they exist.

Different people want different things from social media. For me Mastodon is great for what I enjoy, interacting with strangers from all over the world who are interested in the same things I am.
posted by Zumbador at 9:01 PM on July 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

I am intrigued at the idea of some kind of third, cataloguing site, where you can find someone's various handles/locations and maybe even see their content linked. A social media index? So that even if Site A gets Musk'd, you can still follow them on Sites B-F.
posted by emjaybee at 9:07 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

re: white techbros, Mastodon has a ton of queer and trans people. Black voices, however, not many.
posted by JHarris at 9:48 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

> The lesson to learn is that no corporation can run a big public service without eventually enshittifying it. […] Everything on the internet has a limited lifespan”

a bigthought i’ve had for a while without having anything it’s useful for is that the word “platform” that we use for these web services is deceptive, because it implies that they are

1. things
2. that you can build other things on top of

but really they’re not things, and they’re not stable enough to build on. instead, they’re events — things that start and end, sometimes more quickly than you’d think.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:50 PM on July 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

A comment upstream seemed to underscore they only use social media as a passive observer, watching what other's post. I feel like maybe that would be better served with an RSS feed, but that's not the internet we live in, sadly.--hippybear

Is this the post you are referring to?
Mastodon feels much more like a party where you know your group of people and you all hang out and have a good time. (If you can find them that is.) Twitter at its best felt like a party where you were constantly getting in new little conversations and then wandering into something new and interesting.--aspo

Because wandering around a party and meeting and interacting with new people is very different from RSS.
posted by eye of newt at 10:08 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Probably mine. Which, fair. I do deeply love my RSS reader, and most of my social media use could ideally be replaced with a really good RSS reader and people posting stuff & sharing stuff.
posted by CrystalDave at 10:19 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

The main problem with Mastodon, not yet mentioned, is that Cory Doctorow drops 6835 posts every other day.

Wait, that's not the problem, it's the other thing...
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:10 AM on August 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Ever since, idk, gamergate probably I was scared of interaction with strangers on Twitter. I had a public account for professional reasons but I avoided talking about certain topics entirely for fear of randos showing up to argue with me. I never used hashtags for that reason. Whereas on Mastodon I don't have that fear - again, it feels quieter and smaller and that's certainly not the experience everyone is looking for but I like it.
posted by misskaz at 4:16 AM on August 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

Pushing back against the "Mastodon is a white tech bro place".

My comment was more that the people who keep trying to tell the rest of us We Are Doing Mastodon Wrong are mostly white guys who have a lot more experience/interest in setting up their feeds or whatever they're called, and when those of us who have completely bounced off of it--either in terms of how opaque it is to users (and it IS opaque) or how it doesn't integrate well with what we are looking for--say "hey it doesn't work for me so sorry I am a monster wanting to use a more user friendly platform", we are bombarded with Here Is How to Do It Right and that's not what we are asking. If we wanted to ask how to make Mastodon work for us, we'd be on the green.

Mastodon doesn't work for me. I have tried AGAIN recently to enjoy it, customize it, and I don't. And that should be sufficient enough. Mazel tov to all of you who love Mastodon (really!) but when the general attitude on the Blue is that if you don't like or use Mastodon, then you are Part of the Problem with Social Media Platforms, then I get my hackles raised.

Accessibility is a huge issue for me when it comes to Mastodon. I don't think folks realize that for so many people who are pretty tech basic, the reason why Twitter was popular because you could use it easily. And Mastodon has a gatekeeping vibe that doesn't mesh with making it so people who don't have that kind of time or ability. If some of you out there are taking time in your communities--especially on an local activism level--to instruct organizations or groups on how to use it and migrate off Twitter, yay! That's dope. But if you aren't, then you're just judging people who have less privilege and power than you do.
posted by Kitteh at 5:32 AM on August 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

Argh, I'm sorry, y'all. I'm not coming off very well in not trying to be combative. I'm just frustrated that it is assumed everyone has the same bandwidth for these things.
posted by Kitteh at 5:40 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't think folks realize that for so many people who are pretty tech basic, the reason why Twitter was popular because you could use it easily.

Hard agree. Hell, you didn't even need to sign up for an account or get the app. Just hit twitter.com in your regular old browser to see what was buzzing, with maybe some simple hashtag searches if you wanted to know, like, why Euclid Avenue was down to 1 lane and for how long. I bet millions of users (and I would believe maybe even the majority) never "curated" a thing, they just let the algorithms sort things for them.

This may not have had the best results for our body politic and collective mental health, but yeah, folks going "but you just" for other social media feel like they're missing the point.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:10 AM on August 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

There is this writing pattern where saying something like, as you said, "you have to put the effort in," sounds like the writer is implying it's a moral failing if you don't get into it, like playing a piano well. This is not how I mean it.

jharris, you're still making the same condescending assumption I've told you twice now is wrong. Now you're likening Mastodon to a skill I haven't learned.

If you don't want to sound condescending, you need to put that assumption to rest. I don't know how to make this more clear: It's condescending to assume that the problem is my lack of effort or knowledge. I'm not looking for acknowledgement that my lack of effort or knowledge is understandable and human; I'm looking for acknowledgement that that is not the problem.

I'm going to be honest. There's a reason that someone else compared this to tech bro bullshit. I feel like I'm trapped in that "the surgeon is his mother" riddle, where the obvious is just not registering with the audience because their preconceptions are too strong.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:13 AM on August 1, 2023 [12 favorites]

misskaz: Ever since, idk, gamergate probably I was scared of interaction with strangers on Twitter.

Gamergate opened a lot of people's eyes to how far online abuse extends. I've seen it noted before that Mastodon seems to consist of two camps, the "Small Communities" camp and the "Twitter 2.0" camp, and the different priorities of the two is the cause of some friction. Ultimately I think I'm in the Twitter 2.0 group, but I recognize there's issues there. Many in the Small Communities contingent are fearful of harassment.

To Kutsuwamushi, I don't really have anything more to say here; whenever I do it becomes another long deraily exchange. If for some reason you want to talk more about this there is MeMail.
posted by JHarris at 6:49 AM on August 1, 2023

I remember back in the early 2000s when part of my daily routine was checking a whole list of websites to see what was going on. Back then, everyone said the "killer app" would be something that tempted everyone into accepting "push media," which would allow advertisers to piggyback onto this hypothetical feed. Now I just want to get back to looking at other people's blogs and webcomics.
posted by rikschell at 6:56 AM on August 1, 2023 [12 favorites]

That mastodon is not for everyone is a honest to god good thing. The for-everyone dliberate-manipulation-centres like facebook and twitter have poisoned peoples' minds.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 7:19 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

"They need us. We don't need them:" The fall of Twitter is making the trolls and grifters desperate - Elon Musk's business model depends on "triggering" liberals — but he's now running out of progressives to bait
posted by Artw at 7:53 AM on August 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

Not really the person to assess how well it’s doing, but there is a #blackMastodon hashtag/movement with some momentum behind it.
posted by Artw at 8:06 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't really have anything more to say here

I don't really understand why it's so hard for you to say, "I get it. I shouldn't have assumed that Mastodon isn't working for you because you haven't put in the effort or haven't learned how to use it."

I mean, I told you directly that what I'm looking for at this point is an ackowledgement that your assumption was wrong. Your decision to end the conversation by inviting me to message you, instead of just saying the obvious thing, is really baffling and makes me question why you won't. I don't want an apology or anything; I'm not going to message you.

I just hope that in the future, you (and other Mastodon fans) will keep this exchange in mind and maybe listen to users who have bounced off of Mastodon and what they are actually saying. I think the survey that was posted above is really illustrative of the cultural problems that Mastodon has welcoming new users--I know that when I venture out of my tiny corner, which is actually a very welcoming and chill sort of place, there is a big cultural shift towards... I don't know how to put it. Know-it-all-ism. A lot of it is more benevolent and "helpful" than what's described in the survey, but it can actually still be quite off-putting when people make assumptions rather than listening to people and meeting them where they're at.

A lot of the Mastodon evangelism starts from the premise that "you're not doing it right," but actually, a lot of the reasons Mastodon hasn't had wider uptake are (a) its fundamental principles being at odds with what* people are looking for in a social media site, (b) opacity, and (c) the plain old difficulty of getting communities to move. You can mitigate (a) and (b) with some technological improvements, like more seamless interactions between instances and better onboarding, which would maybe help with (c) a little bit. No one can fix (c) by putting in more time and effort.

Again, I really like Mastodon. If I could wave my magic wand and choose which social media platform was the next big one, that would be it. If a friend asks where they should go, it's where I suggest first. However, doing that has given me a really good view of the various reasons people either don't want to try Mastodon or have bounced off. I'm still active there, but I'm not sure for how long that will be for.

* And no, I'm not saying people want to be spoon-fed by the algorithm, which is another condescending take on why people find discoverability on Mastodon to be an issue
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:16 AM on August 1, 2023 [14 favorites]

Elon Musk's business model depends on "triggering" liberals — but he's now running out of progressives to bait

This is why the right could never make viable Twitter alternative.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:18 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Do people who use Discord have specific servers they would recommend (that are either public or, I guess, that they'd be willing to invite mefites to)? I am now using it for a community group I am helping to administer, so it might be nice to actually use it for other stuff but I have found it extremely opaque to figure out how to find anything.
posted by joannemerriam at 9:44 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

To get sort of back on topic - would Mastodon be useful to people looking to sell things to their followers? Seems like there's a strong anti commercial vibe there. Selling as an individual who happens to have made a game is one thing, but as a game company? Maybe not?
posted by Zumbador at 10:05 AM on August 1, 2023

Different servers have different rules, Zumbador, but most that I've seen have clarified they have no problem with folks promoting their projects or items for sale, despite some complaints to the contrary from a few very loud folks upset at the influx of new users, and doing their best to run them off. It was yet another example of why so many folks bounced off the Fediverse last fall.
posted by mediareport at 10:21 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

There was a whole thing on Twitter where words like Patreon or commission and other "I'm selling things" words resulted in deleted tweets or even suspended accounts. A lot of the furry artists I'm seeing on Mastodon are celebrating that they can be more open about how they are using the platform to find customers.

I haven't seen any actual companies trying to sell things on Mastodon, though. Mostly individuals or small developers.
posted by hippybear at 10:39 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

imho the problem with "the Fediverse isn't for everyone" is that it's just condemning "everyone" to use corporate social media (which is for everyone). That's not a great outcome!
posted by BungaDunga at 10:51 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Large companies are welcome to set up their own masto servers for pr & outreach. It doesn't seem to be very popular for that, though, because they can't pay to force their marketing strategy into our feeds.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:03 AM on August 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

rikschell: " As a craft store owner, we use Facebook and Instagram as free avenues if communication to our customers"

This has been a significant problem for those of us who refuse to participate in those platforms. So many businesses think throwing a Facebook page up is all they need to develop a web presence, but if you are opposed to Zuckerberg and all that he touches, you might as well be telling me I'm not welcome in your store.

My wife and I have this debate often. She says "I know you hate social media, but sometimes it's useful because X." My response is generally "I don't hate social media. I'm on Mastodon, I'm on MeFi... I hate the lack of community, the invasion of privacy, the depersonalization and commercialization. I hate the toxic environment, the weaponized propaganda, and the echo chamber that only throws your own opinions back at you and never challenges your worldview. I hate that it's controlled by billionaires who absolutely do not give a shit about society so long as their profit margins keep going up. I hate that you have to accept these things, by default, as the price of entry, and I hate that people have become OK with this and don't question why it is so."

I sincerely hope the for-profit social media outlets like Facebook and Threads and Insta and BlueSky and whatever the hell Musk has turned Twitter into will die a rapid death, to be replaced by something that is user-centric rather than profit-driven corporate shilling. But it won't happen, because Mastodon is "too hard" ... and it's profitable for every other outlet to keep telling us that's true.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:50 PM on August 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

I don't really understand why it's so hard for you to say, "I get it. I shouldn't have assumed that Mastodon isn't working for you because you haven't put in the effort or haven't learned how to use it."

Because whatever I say, you reply with a page of text in a still-active conversation that other people are having. If you want to harangue me, MeMail, please, or we could take it to Talk maybe.
posted by JHarris at 1:53 PM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

> Giles Goat: @[e-mail] (retrocomputing)

Not sure you're allowed to include Giles but not Jeff @[e-mail].
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:56 PM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wanted to include Jeff Minter absolutely! But I built my list out of the names that I immediately saw in my follow list, and a post from him didn't happen to meet my eyes while I was working on it. He makes many posts with pictures of fluffy sheep!
posted by JHarris at 10:05 PM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

JHarris: I am a white male tech person, one whose interests overlap a fair amount with yours. I have a particular love for niche geeky social networks of various sorts. I do devops work professionally, I am not afraid of emacs, and I have been known to mess around with Linux.

I do not like Mastodon. I do not enjoy Mastodon. I don't even like reading posts on Mastodon, when somebody else links me to them. I don't like the length of Mastodon "toots." I don't like that Mastodon feeds often consist of five pinned "toots" on top of one another, which makes them extremely un-feed-like. I don't like the terrible low-contrast text colors in Mastodon instances when I'm logged out, which I'm aware that I could solve if I still had an account, but there are a lot of other reasons why I don't enjoy reading things on Mastodon.

When I had a Mastodon account, I did not like how unreliable it was to see information like "how many likes does or doesn't this 'toot' have," because that information does not display reliably across federated instances. I did not like that "toots" could be boosted but not quote-"toot"-ed, because contrary to some people's opinions, I found that quote-tweets are a far more interesting and dynamic way to keep a conversation going. I did not like Mastodon's implementation of content warnings, which I thought were very noble in theory but unworkable in practice. I did not like Mastodon's UI one bit.

Most importantly, I did not like the particular niche of people that Mastodon drew to it. Not because I do not like each of those people individually, but because I specifically like most of my online spaces to be full of the kinds of people who are not, habitually and compulsively, online. I like people who post stupid little thoughts while they're pooping. I like people in entertainment who think of social media as just another way to be entertaining. I like the sorts of weird ex-Something Awfullers who have been tech-adjacent all their life but have been convinced, all the while, that tech kinda sucks. I like people who have, for lack of a better word, a certain amount of "chill" online, where "chill" is defined as the exact opposite tendency that gets somebody into Linux, emacs, devops, Mastodon, etc.

I do like Mastodon ideologically. I mostly like it technically. For all of the reasons that I hypothetically enjoy a social network, I sure do hypothetically enjoy Mastodon!

But what I really don't like is that the people who fit Mastodon glove seem to struggle an implausible amount with the idea that some cultures fare well on Mastodon, while others do not. People who have found "their people" there are convinced that everybody else might be finding theirs. And the reason why that's not true is that, well, there's a certain kind of person who is willing to treat their social network like it's Linux, spending hours reading long technical write-ups on how to fine-tune their experiences that have been written by people who don't think that "user experience" is "real" technology, and then there are about fifty other kinds of people who think that the point of being social is to have a comfortable time. And the people writing the long-ass manuals don't notice when the fifty other groups quietly leave, because they were never really into likes and retweets anyway, always struck them as kinda unhealthy actually.

The issue you're running into here is that there is no way to have a cerebral conversation about someone saying "yeah I just don't like it." Look, I feel you: we nerds have been trying to engineer our ways out of being unpopular since time immemorial. But engineering, here, is actively antithetical to the thing that the other person you're talking with here wants, which is to listen to them say that they don't like something and to take them at their word, and to progress as if it is that person's right to choose what they don't like. Because nothing makes someone dislike something more than they already dislike it than to have their dislike get treated like it's an inappropriate or incorrect opinion to have, one that ideally should get bugfixed ASAP.

Incidentally, the fact that Mastodon has such an overwhelming culture of "bugfix wrong opinions" users that "Mastodon users mansplaining why you don't actually dislike Mastodon" has become a meme is an insanely glaring red flag that everybody but Mastodon users seem to understand is a red flag.

tl;dr I dislike Mastodon too
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:17 AM on August 2, 2023 [9 favorites]

I find Mastodon way, way less "sticky" than Twitter, and this is good for my mental health, but not really good for the platform.
posted by eirias at 4:38 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m sorry so many people looking for a place to hang online have bounced off the Fediverse so hard, because that leaves them without a place to hang. But my experience of some of the bounce-offers has been unpleasant too — the big ones being a lot of people demanding a *replacement* for Twitter instead of an *alternative* to Twitter, and, maybe part of that, profound assumptions that US culture is to be assumed everywhere. The last one is the really painful one, as it hits some intersectional power problems in which I think both parties have serious claims. (Also v reminiscent of a lot of Metafilter worked-out standards that many MANY people have left us because of — I run across ppl in the Fediverse smirking about how splainy and controlling Metafilter is. Rawls, give us grace.)

(I followed some bug and dirt and plant and art people from around the world as soon as I found them on the Fediverse and have been having a pleasant untweaked time ever since. But I wasn’t trying to recreate Twitter. Am now wondering if a subset of the unwanted technical advice was trying to help people recreate Twitter? It doesn’t seem more generous to me to not give the advice. And reproducing the effort of a decade of ZIRP-paid engineers isn’t going to be fast. But it’s hard to do and hard to teach. Nor can I tell how common any of this is, because federation is very very neighborhoody.)
posted by clew at 9:50 AM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

For some people, the death of Twitter is like the end of a relationship and they just aren't quite ready to start dating again.
posted by Lanark at 1:48 PM on August 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

... there's a certain kind of person who is willing to treat their social network like it's Linux, spending hours reading long technical write-ups on how to fine-tune their experiences that have been written by people who don't think that "user experience" is "real" technology, and then there are about fifty other kinds of people who think that the point of being social is to have a comfortable time.

That is precisely the analogy I was using to explain to somebody recently while I -- also white, middle-aged, tech-savvy, generally curious and into these sorts of things -- can't stand Mastodon.

I tried Ubuntu Mint back in 2008 or so, and after six months of striving said "I don't need another hobby, I need an operating system," and went back to WindowsXP.

These days, I have Ubuntu installed on a number of machines in my house; I am capable of and enjoy running a sudo apt update from time to time, and can install the occasional driver and have figured out Wine, and that's cool. But Ubuntu rose to the level where I could use it without it being another job.

Mastodon's another job. I've joined mefi.social and it seems lovely, but after hopping on I tried looking up somebody who is in another Mastodon instance, and they aren't there. Why aren't they there? On Twitter, they would be there. They just would be. Tried another person, same thing. Somebody shared a "toot" with me as a screenshot, and I tried to find it to like it, and I couldn't. Apparently it's because the federated server isn't connected to the instance of the convergent nexus of actualized gigaclusters, or something. I don't have the time or mental energy to deal with this.

Maybe with time and evolution it will reach the "it's okay with some tweaking" status of Ubuntu now, which I would welcome.

Mastodon kinda sucks for a lot of people. I'm happy people enjoy it, and I'm genuinely glad they have found their people and so on, but folks, Mastodon kinda sucks for a lot of people, and condescending to the people who are experiencing that truth doesn't make it less true, it just reinforces that not only does Mastodon kinda suck, Mastodon users are kinda jerks.
posted by Shepherd at 3:10 PM on August 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'm wondering what kind of blacklist mefi.social has for federating. I'm not a member there, but that should be information available to any user. And should be open to discussion pending management guidelines.

EDIT: putting a pointer here to the policies would be more useful than engaging in a discussion about those policies here.
posted by hippybear at 3:18 PM on August 2, 2023

Oh boy, mefi.social, that's where I'm an admin!

The bulk of our blocklist comes from Oliphant's "Recommended Bare Minimum List". Members can see it on the "About" page, but it's not displayed to the public, as there are people who keep score and try to get blocked by more instances. (Warning, if you are a member and haven't looked, some instance names are *nasty.*)

We discussed Instagram's Threads in June, and I'm composing a post to discuss the BBC. I haven't articulated federation policies yet.

Someone contacted me about the most recent comment, so I haven't read most of this thread, yet.
posted by Pronoiac at 6:11 PM on August 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

I specifically like most of my online spaces to be full of the kinds of people who are not, habitually and compulsively, online. I like people who post stupid little thoughts while they're pooping. I like people in entertainment who think of social media as just another way to be entertaining. I like the sorts of weird ex-Something Awfullers who have been tech-adjacent all their life but have been convinced, all the while, that tech kinda sucks.

Right, same. The thing about social media for me (well, post-Facebook, which is just how I dealt/am dealing with a network of friends and relatives who are all very long-distance) is that it is how I kill tiny chunks of time. I work a boring-ass job and I hate it, and every now and then I just wanna see some other dingus say something funny. I don't want to have to, like, develop a community of dinguses.

Ultimately, I don't even want to spend substantial time online! I'm just stuck at a computer for hours every day and popping over to a twitter or instagram kills a few minutes and I probably see something that makes me chuckle, and then I go back to my idiot job.

But it won't happen, because Mastodon is "too hard" ... and it's profitable for every other outlet to keep telling us that's true.

People are RIGHT HERE telling you it's not that it's too hard, it's that it's not an enjoyable way for them to spend their time. Are we all corporate twitter shills?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:43 PM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't hate the Fediverse, nor do I resent people explaining how I could use it better.

Just felt the need to put that out there.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:18 PM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's very much an evolving thing - the Mastodon of right now is very much not the Mastodon of eight months ago in terms of userbase, app support, attitude towards the necessity of CWs (there's been a considerable back off), etc... its possible people trying it at different times will have had different experiences. I'd certainly encourage anyone who's initial brush with it was bad to give it another try sometime.
posted by Artw at 7:18 PM on August 2, 2023

I found Mastodon much more tolerable once I started browsing it via elk.zone, which is a web-based frontend that somehow feels more speedy than the official one. You can use it with an account on any Mastodon instance.

I still miss a lot of the Twitter features (and people), mind you. I wish elk.zone could detect links to toots and redirect them automatically back to elk.zone rather than bumping you out to the post on the original server. You can almost get quote-toot behavior by fiddling with the elk.zone css to stop it truncating link previews.

The one good thing about Mastodon is that I very rarely get into arguments with people on it, which is what made me quit Twitter several years ago. Twitter is very, very good at showing you people who are Wrong on the Internet.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:36 PM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I picked up masto easier than I thought I would, given my liberal arts background. I have a low threshold for frustration but a self taught high one for coming back and trying again later.

It reminds me of Web 1.0 in a lot of ways. Idiosyncratic, doesn't always work right, kludged together, still figuring out what it is and how it functions. Is it harder to get started than Twitter was? Yeah, I can see where it is. For me that's not a deal breaker. I got time. I'm learning patience.

I like masto; I especially like mefi masto. I have a small follow list I can keep up with, I already know some of the people there, I'm getting to know others. It's slower paced. It won't fit people looking for a Twitter replacement.

I don't fit on bluesky: I'm not a quick shot with a quip, I don't have anything vital to add to The Discourse, and I'm not particularly interested in seeing random posters' butts. And I worry that it only has a limited lifespan before it enshittifies permanently.

Forget coming back to Xitter or trying Threads. I'm calmer and quieter in my own head since I axed my Twitter addiction. I miss a lot of the people I knew there. But overall.. it wasn't good for me.
posted by cmyk at 8:00 PM on August 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

Given the subject do the thread - what could you possibly get from Threads you couldn’t get from an Instagram presence?
posted by Artw at 8:03 PM on August 2, 2023

I haven't seen any actual companies trying to sell things on Mastodon, though. Mostly individuals or small developers.


handmade.social, woodpecker social (for indigenous North Americans), fountain pen shops especially as penfount.social will boost them, dice.camp (to get back on topic) has loads of small ttrpg sellers

Discoverability is legit issue but it's part of the main hangup of only talking about mastodon. Get on an instance powered by Misskey or any of its forks (including firefish, previously calckey). The antenna function basically works on plaintext. That's how I set up my low-effort fandom account for just browsing. Of course if ppl speak in codes I probably won't get the posts. The features are catchy enough there's basically a gated instance for BIPOCs running on firefish (wibblur). A number of small/solo instances like Pleroma too.

But I won't say anymore, because it's boring. Even the BBC understands that it's the fediverse, and their reporters barely understand trans issues.

Also on the non-US side, if I may leave a testimony.

#TootSEA is the most fascinating hashtag on the Fedi and it's not really close. Personally, SEA has been my favorite region to travel to since I first visited BKK and KL in 2018. But reading these random toots has possibly been even more informative than my 4 four trips to the region.

It's true, it is hard, you have to rebuild your spaces. You ought to take the time to mourn. FWIW the OFMD fandom and just fandom in general took over the shippingsaturdays hashtag, lmao.
posted by cendawanita at 9:38 PM on August 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Well this is neat, (Seattle) local game and comics store Phoenix Comics is now on Mastodon.
posted by Artw at 11:27 PM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I belatedly realized that my response didn't get back around to creators and artists on social media, but it did have a connection: namely, that part of the problem is Twitter (and instagram) would put creators and artists into my view via whatever mechanisms, without my seeking them out.

Did I ever like, pursue a long-term following of those folks, or join a fandom? No, but every now and then I would just see a cool thing and think "oh, [person] would like that for Christmas" or whatever. It does not seem like that sort of casual, drive-by attention is likely in these other venues, except possibly bluesky, and I will never care enough about that to try and get an invite code.

Those folks for whom social media wasn't a core part of their lives/days will just stop doing it, is the thing. Maybe casual viewers/occasional buyers/random likes or retweets were never a big enough part of creators' followings to matter, I dunno. But even once all of the core groups are meticulously rebuilt on mastodon, for example, my guess is it will always be smaller than it was.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:37 AM on August 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

> I specifically like most of my online spaces to be full of the kinds of people who are not, habitually and compulsively, online. I like people who post stupid little thoughts while they're pooping.

Is there some context of "people who post stupid little thoughts while they're pooping" and "not habitually and compulsively online" that I'm missing?
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 9:10 AM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Online here probably meaning immersion in The Discourse.
posted by Artw at 9:13 AM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Fleeing Elon Musk’s X, the quest to re-create ‘Black Twitter’
posted by Artw at 10:07 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

put creators and artists into my view via whatever mechanisms, without my seeking them out

Currently, on the fediverse, that mechanism is boosts from people you follow or people in your neighborhood or federated timeline. The more you vibe with your neighborhood/s the more the makers they boost are going to vibe with you. (So it might be a hassle to find your right place, v true. But it's not impossible. I've bought several weird things from fedi boosts already.)
posted by clew at 3:18 PM on August 7, 2023

Anecdotal, but sparked of off a different discussion:
@futurebird @funkula and there’s totally people who use the Fediverse successfully for activism and educating people, crowdfunding, and also for commercial purposes. I’ve found more sales for my art here than anywhere else for example and that is really helping me supplement my income.


A reply: @esther @futurebird @funkula I've bought more art on Fedi than anywhere for years. I've found really high quality artists directly here, without even trying.

FWIW I bought more stuff over twitter... but those were local Malaysiana stuff. I've never rly bought anything internationally. But I did buy more stuff from international sellers over fedi.

I'm not sure how to balance my sympathy for individual use cases but also at this point established dynamics (which hinges a lot at the success rate of your human connections, though ironically I would say don't open an account on those giant general instances first unless the purpose is to get a hang of the mechanisms. Those giant instances I feel functionally acts more like Threads or Bluesky and has an immediate ding against it in terms of the social connection factor and opens you up to more white reply-guy behaviour which is noticeable when you're not a majority) - but the dynamics do work. It's basically pre-web 2.0 word-of-mouth mechanism, or Tumblr, if you're used to it.

It doesn't erase the debuff if you're operating from any minoritarian status though. Discoverability hinges so much on ppl finding you interesting and that is very much dependent on a person's sociological conditions. That and mastodon being the main fedi software in the west that consistently works as designed to keep you hidden. *Insert me plugging for Misskey and its forks again*
posted by cendawanita at 7:51 PM on August 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

And I just want to note, the originating thread is by a Black American: Contemplating making a legit "call out" video for all the leftist (in this case it feels more like "leftist") youTubers who can't be bothered to so much as mention the fediverse.

It makes me kinda angry to hear laments and critiques of "corporate social media" -- but then there is an action one could take-- it's far from perfect- but it's here.

Maybe I shouldn't be angry about it, just start it that way to uh... get attention? Yeah.

IDK if anyone will listen- but, it needs to be said, right?

This one, I believe she identifies more as Puerto Rican: FWIW about the "boo no funny black #fediverse" posts:

are y'all aware some of the #BlackTwitter momentum was manufactured by Jack; to sell "black cool" to advertisers? one of those viral success stories was Lil X Nas.

Tik Tok literally boosted that guy from Nigeria for the same reasons: black coolness = youth money.

there are no 'rapid response' videos or posts like that on the fediverse because there's no people with F/T "nudge marketing"  jobs onhere.

there will be next year, though.

The western BIPOCs I follow are just as frustrated, even more I can imagine, when things like the Montgomery incident or the Jamie Foxx post happened. Because fedi isn't dead, is apparently supportive to ppl's livelihoods, etc etc. The culture is different but it really is a constellation of blogs rather than social media. As such certain accounts' comments will always be active.
posted by cendawanita at 8:12 PM on August 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

From Jacky Alciné: Giving Up on Corporate Outlets:

I am exhausted with the constant virtue signaling of those claiming to want a safe space online, being provided one that hundreds, if not thousands enjoy on a regular basis, only to be told that because "the memes aren't dank enough", "it's too serious" or "well, there are no celebrities" that it's worth to continue selling your time to platforms. Instead, people commit to the same places that profited from the hate that murders our committees, the vitriol that "destabilizes" our "democracy" and the pollution (and pillaging) of spaces that we allegedly carved out for ourselves.

This is a prime example of how digital neoliberalism, even from those who deem themselves as advocating for safety online, cannot be those who move the needle for collectives. We have to demand better for ourselves.

(...)Why would we expect that? We live in a society whose core tenants are to uplift the wealthy and shame (if not disappear) the poor. A society that has more interest in making a profit on Black culture and identities instead of working to preserve it and connect to its roots, to a point where discussing the nature of participatory art becomes a taboo topic. We have more pride for those who will craft platforms that sell our digital selves (the way you tilt your phone, the location from where you doom-scroll at, the people whose contacts you upload to their database to find "connections", how many times you send messages to your friends on those platforms, which articles you read and don't, what shows you watch). All of that works to create digital "credit scores" that warp how we engage the Internet, slowly pushing us into a new state of debt that we're not yet acknowledging as a collective. None of this matters, and I am still at a loss as to why I expected it to, under this landscape.

(...)In terms of community support, mutual aid networks have not only blossomed on alternative platforms, they've exploded. People are more comfortable sharing about themselves without fear of the platform boosting it next to hateful content that work against the legitimization of their existence. We've found that when the people whose problems aren't met are allowed to be in the drawing room to draft solutions, not techno-saviors nor MBAs who are sorely disconnected from issues (drunk literally and intellectually from the teachings of the Chicago School of Economics that spread everywhere), but the creators, artists, writers, game developers, makeup artists and sex workers, they build things that benefit society as a whole. This is because the people know what they need, way more than organizations like Google or Apple attempts to assume from their constant surveillance-as-a-service.

Anyway, on the Mastodon side, full-search is coming for opt-in accounts. This is of course setting off another round of discourse.
posted by cendawanita at 7:52 AM on August 9, 2023 [4 favorites]