I don't miss Twitter but I do miss the #Laravel community I used to interact with there. I don't really see any evidence that those folks are likely to give up on it soon, but I do wish they would. I expect the hard-liners wouldn't end up on Mastodon anyway.
Welp, will just have to do my best to build and contribute what I'm missing to this community.
@andrewfeeney @freekmurze@valorin and @nunomaduro are here, a start. All we can do is post #laravel stuff and make mastodon more attractive for the others to join in. For awhile I’d check in on the Twitter laravel community, but eventually stopped when I saw some of them complaining about how crap parts of Twitter were, but they stay anyway.
@dandb Yeah, there's a lot of other great folks here. I've interacted much more with some PHP OGs too. There's also quite a few wizened folks from the broader software community here that I've enjoyed interacting with. I'm grateful for all of it, and to be honest I probably need to introspect somewhat on the FOMO I feel and to what extent it's really justified by the facts.
It does feel like being on the outer a bit, but then I was never really on the inner either so it's all parasocial.
I don’t understand why developers, of all people, remain loyal to Twitter. He’s screwed over Twitter’s developers and he’s screwed over ecosystem developers.
You shouldn’t need to develop at or for Twitter to be deeply offended by this, surely?
I've drafted a few replies to this in my head, but they all morph into tangential rants about the meaning of life.
On the one hand, I'm with you. I find it hard to understand why anyone with a conscience would want to stay involved with that situation.
On the flipside, I never had any kind of "platform" to protect there, and many of the folks I'm thinking of feel dependent on that platform for their living. It's easy for me to take the high ground when it costs nothing.
@ramsey@tappenden In terms of Laravel, the single person who ultimately determines where the movers and shakers congregate is Taylor Otwell. He happens to have said a few times that he'll see Twitter through to the bitter end. Even if Twitter folds, he strikes me as the kind of guy who would go for something like BlueSky or Threads over Mastodon. But of course, he is influenced by others too, so he'll go where he thinks is cool enough for him and where he thinks his friends are.
@ramsey@tappenden I think many of the movers and shakers in Laravel are actually quite conservative politically. Others see themselves as “apolitical”, and assert that political discourse is “toxic” and “divisive”, while not recognising the inherent political undertones of many things they do post. There’s another group that will engage with politics but have a strong contrarian bent.
Still others who are socially progressive but economically conservative because they own businesses and don’t like paying tax.
I mention politics because I think mastodon is seen by many as a political or tribal choice, as if Twitter is less so.
Mastodon folks are uppity, self-righteous SJWs that hate fun and always eat their vegetables. We choose the app with the worst UX and features because nice UX is capitalism and bad for the environment.
@andrewfeeney@ramsey I mean, I kind of feel that way about Mastodon users. But you can get nice UX here. Look up Ivory.
I don’t think politics matters too much unless you’re on one extreme and basically evil. That’s where Twitter has got to. And I don’t think owning a business makes you that way.
@tappenden@ramsey I agree, owning a business doesn't make you evil. On the flip-side, we as humans have this exceptional ability to justify our own privilege when we have it. "I worked for this", "I deserve this", "The world needs me to be rich and powerful" "I'm not actually privileged, I'm a victim and it's hard to be me", "I didn't earn this, but I owe to those that aren't as fortunate to at least enjoy it".
I am not immune to these thinking patterns, and probably blind to them in myself.
@andrewfeeney@ramsey Yah… I don’t really see a problem with justifying your success. It still doesn’t have to make you evil.
I just became a homeowner. I still believe in planning reform (getting into obscure British politics here but …), even though it could reduce the value of my home.
@tappenden@ramsey The older I get, the more suspicious I get about black and white thinking when I see it. (But also probably I become less able to see it as I get more entrenched in my pre-existing biases.)
I've lost months of my life at a time in vortexes of anger and contempt at people who I felt were ruining everything for everyone else and getting away with it or getting celebrated for it.
When I unraveled that I found it was a projection of my own feelings of shame and unworthiness.
@tappenden@ramsey I'm not saying you are doing this, or that you're wrong, but just that for me personally I want to try to focus on doing what is within my power to influence the world towards what I think is a better vision rather than tearing down those I see as morally lower than I.
@andrewfeeney@ramsey I guess I don’t trouble myself with other people’s ill deeds. I like to think their demons will get them in the end. That’s the way it goes. I just take myself away from people and situations I find distasteful.
I’ve done plenty of bad stuff (Google my name :/) in the past. I now work hard and try to do good.
@tappenden@ramsey Wow, well I mean that's one take 😅. I haven't seen any evidence to support that thesis, and I can think of evidence to refute it. I personally wouldn't be throwing around that label unless to describe people who it literally describes, otherwise it's meaningless.
My personal interactions with Taylor have always been terse but respectful. I did call him out on Twitter once for what felt to me like "punching down" and to his credit he conceded he may have been out of line.
@andrewfeeney@ramsey@tappenden This is the reason I'm still on Twitter, as much as I hate it. I need to be an active and relevant member of the community to sell my stuff, and unfortunately that community is still on Twitter.
Plus, all the announcements go out there, official stuff links there, and I would miss too much if I left.
@valorin@ramsey@tappenden Yeah, I don’t blame you. When you and I were speaking with @jessarcher@james@marcelpociot at Laracon AU that was the general vibe I got from them too (with varying degrees of actual concern about Twitter). It’s hard to move a community, and if people don’t even agree about there being a problem with Twitter, let alone how serious it is, then it’s a non-starter.
But you’re totally here too. You engage with Mastodon, and I appreciate it.
I often find myself thinking about Gottman's research into relationships which shows that contempt is one of the most powerful indicators of relationships which are likely to fail.
When one partner makes changes and the other responds contemptuously with "Oh, NOW you're making an effort" it indicates a very dire prognosis for the relationship.
For this reason I try not to take that approach when interacting with people coming from Twitter.
@rvxlab Most of the folks I am thinking about have set up accounts at some point. Some of them, like @nunomaduro are actively posting which is great, but it feels like the center of gravity hasn't shifted from Twitter. This is all anecdotal and subjective of course. No point me griping about it. I'm better off investing in a new community.
Add comment