Almost everyone who says "Mastodon didn't work for me" on Bluesky seems to have posted only "me me me" stuff for months (if that) on Mastodon, followed about 10-20 people, never replied to anyone and then gave up because "nobody there, it didn't fly".
It seems there is a big misunderstanding how this free and healthy social media works. We are not here for the easy wins, likes, shares and dopamine spikes. We are here because we accept the fact we are not part of the commercial hype machine. We choose natural engagement over spoiling algorithms, we choose conversation and meaning in our social media. At least that is how I see it.
@rolle so many folks seem to have forgotten that the key part in social media is the bit where it's social. They all want to act like internet celebrities and quit as soon as they aren't showered with attention.
@rolle
Corporate 'Social' Media
Is a competition space for gaining followers, ego-boosting, #shitposting & self promotion. It is how they are built & designed. A few massively circulated posts, from handful of accounts & a vast sea of ignored posts.
Community #Social#Media
Is a cooperative space for finding friends, learning stuff, supporting each other &having fun. With attention spread between users far more evenly. It is not a social overlords vs serf audience model. #Fedi#Fediverse
@Zergy@rolle@mortal
Shitposting and meming can be a solid part of having fun. (look at my account)
My distinction is on the #Fedi anyone can do it, just when they want to, but don't have to maintain doing it.
On Corporate Social Media, a handful of very focused accounts get almost every shitpost & meme seen, even when they're bad, unoriginal, duplicates, etc...
...but most regular accounts get almost zero shitpost or meme seen, no matter how good.
@rolle I mean, mastodon may not appeal to some 'cos it doesn't have twitter-like level of dramas.
However, personally, even if my fav artists are not here, and it might be lonesome that your moots still on twitter and don't wanna move in here, but I feel much better in mastodon 'cos here (or at least on my instance) people are just vibing at their own pace without feeling like in rat race, and not getting triggered like feral animals over petite things like fictional characters
@rolle Why do people continue to feel that every social media app has to appeal to everyone? If Masto isn’t for everyone, so what? Same goes for Twitter, Threads, Bluesky, etc
@rolle I’m much happier here than in any other social network. And since I benchmark my life based on happiness and not on ego boosting… thumbs up for Mastodon.
That said, the idea that social networks must “work” reveals - I think - an utilitarian way of considering social stuff. I understand why people think so, of course, but huh, it’s quite sad if you ask me.
@rolle I’ve been wondering about Bluesky vs mastodon. Wondering about the different populations it draws and what each are for. I have an account on both, but find myself drawn to mastodon. Been wondering what draws other ppl to Bluesky over mastodon.
@Catiearms I tend to find Bluesky is popular with people who want to read more than post, snark about current events, and pay some attention to “the discourse” or politics. It also seems popular with people who build larger audiences, like podcasters or popular authors.
I say all of that without snark, because it’s a just a preference. Mastodon seems to support smaller groups with more interaction between them
@bomkatt@Catiearms ”I tend to find Bluesky is popular with people who want to read more than post, snark about current events, and pay some attention to “the discourse” or politics.”
This applies more to Fediverse in my world rather than Bluesky. Bluesky is very small in the topics and scene I follow. Not a lot of Finnish people there either.
@Catiearms@rolle i've been told pp are attracted to BS (you couldn't make this up) because it is a similar monolithic centralised service as T-X. Old habits die hard thing.
@Catiearms@rolle I have been on Bluesky for a while now. For me at the moment, it feels a little like a ghost town, but perhaps I just need more friends on there?
@rolle Yeah, this is why I've come to say that Bluesky is exceptionally... Vapid. Even more so than the likes of Twitter, which itself was already a haven for it.
@rolle If someone comes here and treats it like Facebook or Instagram, I understand why it doesn't 'work for them.' I treat Mastodon like I did when I was on Twitter (back before it went downhill), and for me it has been an oasis and refuge. My only regret is that I did not start an account earlier. This is a great place to be.
@rolle
I think, mastodon does not work for them because nobody found a way to measure how it works.
Counting hits, followers, boosts, favorites - it all fails here.
For me, it is successful. I mostly follow hashtags, use the search a lot to get updates about events or locations. After some time I unsubscribe from these topics and pick new ones.
The few people I do follow just spice up my mostly themed timeline.
It works. But how would I measure it? I don't even want it to be measured.
@rolle I said when I arrived that this place had the vibe of a village coffee shop. I think people that can't stand that says more about them than they'll ever realize.
The word vapid comes to mind.
@rolle I love Mastodon. It's my favorite social platform.
But this kind of toot ignores the reality that there are legitimate (and rather large) UX issues that make Mastodon wildly unusable for a good chunk of people.
If the goal is to have more people here and less on, say, X or Bluesky, than it needs to be more approachable for folks who frankly don't give a shit about "reinventing the internet" and just want a cool place to chat with friends.
Some day we’ll get there. Feature-wise Mastodon is already far ahead from others.
However, I am not really sure what the end goal is here about should we have the most people here or not, I personally think people should give a shit about ethics. The best possible future is that we can both exist, if the commercial social media connects to the Fediverse (Threads, Bridgyfed/Bluesky, Tumblr), we can have a choice.
@rolle that’s a great way to put it. I’m new here and I must say that it’s liberating to be in a social media platform where hate and monetizing are not the driving forces. I don’t have any followers yet so I just post my random daily life. I guess I use it as a bit of a journal. It’s good to be here!
@rolle wow! Facts! I’m new here so I don’t know much but I enjoy reading real news update from other people without the censoring. I’ve never been part of the masses more of an observer. ❤️🫶🏼
@rolle Honestly, my issue with #Mastodon is people like you. You did not say you are here because you want to be here. Your reasons for being here can be summarized as an act of defiance or opposition. It's a negative position against a system of power. That implies that you believe social interactions can be reduced to power dynamics, even with complete random strangers.
That, right there, is my issue with people on any #socialmedia, to be frank. They are not in those spaces for anything positive; instead, it is some bizarre form of the Mini Max algorithm in Game Theory where they serve to block the other side as a strategy towards "winning". Ironically, a paradigm of opposition connotes competition which is ironically the opposite of cooperation that is the spirit behind the #fediverse so much so it underpins the idea of different technologies, sites, and platforms speaking to each other, such as how you can follow #Lemmy and #Peertube from here.
I wonder if the people who define their entire identity in a negative sense - opposition to something is a negative position against that thing, have any fun. Any inkling of happiness at all?
That's why people are leaving. They are leaving because #Mastodon is filled with insufferable, negative people who reduce social interactions down to social power struggles and try to use culture to influence other people because they are miserable.
As an occultist and someone who was raised by black radical family members, I find your "screed" not only banal but unoriginal. It is basically a reiteration of the basic praxis and ethos of a hacker. Gasp Which you are. At most, it is so mediocre it is boring. At worst, the antagonism, pedantic tone, and inability for people invested in #Mastodon to take criticism are insufferable and narcissistic.
Honestly, it is very spiteful. When you view your presence in a place not as something to enjoy but as something to oppose and frustrate someone else regardless of your happiness, that is spite.
Your post elegantly summarizes your basic #Mastodon user, which includes how spiteful, vindictive, and miserable the average #Mastodon user is.
How is it bad to aim to healthier things? Why can't we be candid about it? In my world this is like finding bad things in good things. Or then I have misunderstood something.
@rolle You're not aiming for "healthier" things; your aiming for things you personally want.
For actually healthy social media you need a (hugely) diverse set of people, and yes, that often includes conflict. And often includes stuff that you don't agree with or don't want to hear.
If you want no conflict, and peace and love only, that's not social media. Write a blog and turn off the comments.
@rolle This. Exactly. I've been on Mastodon since 2017 (as well as on Twitter, which I've left now) and I was so happy to see many of my Twitter friends drift in and get settled in much less hypey surroundings.
Boosts are the key to social media & human society. They make both people feel good cause the boosted feels valued & the booster feels like they bestowed a gift. They create a sense of connection/understanding. And going viral makes it feel like a community. Big picture, it's how humans flourish. Building culture by sharing ideas and art.
It's what algos do essentially, so we just have to do more of that here (chosen by human not corporate incentives) to make up for not having them.
I don't think they want the algo but a lively feed (and they don't consider the downsides of a feed filled by an algo they don't control). we can help by boosting more.
some want this place to be more laid back. I don't.
@rolle this actually reminded me to go over there and see what's new... not much / not much engagement. Almost as if spending the majority of my time here, and having a network here, makes it valuable.
@rolle I'm so old, I remember the days when the formerly-Twitter didn't have weird algorithms for "things you're certainly interested in" and we had to find interesting accounts all by ourselves and the following of more than 10-20 people kind of happened organically. That's how I did it on Mastodon too, because that's what I'm used to. (OK, this time around I was able to look at my formerly-Twitter friends' bios and add them on Mastodon. But I did find new interesting accounts all on my own.)
@juliainfinland I have been also on Twitter since 2007 and remember those days. But the social media back in the 2000s was more natural. The business strategies towards monetizing the user data ruined it all.
@rolle That's why I love Tumblr (lovingly called "this hellsite" by us users). People tried selling it several times and nobody would have it even for one dollar. 😂 There are ads there nowadays, but they don't get past my adblocker. And there's either no algorithm for "popular posts" or it's easily disabled in the settings, can't remember which. In any case, it's a pretty good social media experience.
(Also, I can follow people/accounts through my feed reader, which is very convenient.)
@rolle "I'm so old, I remember the days when" and now I'm thinking of that Viivi+Wagner strip where one of them talked about their grandma who had to go to school on skis because back then that's what you did because there were no school buses, and then there was one panel where poor Grandma (as a young woman) trudged along on skis+with winter clothes including a Four Winds hat. Through a blooming summer meadow, sweating like a [CENSORED]. 😂
@rolle and this is why Linux is in the same boat as Mastodon. The users think that your computing wrong. In this case your social mediaing wrong. Well I'm not totally disagreeing with you. Telling people you're doing it wrong isn't going to convert anyone to this platform. Social media has thrived because of interactions. For good or bad. People like those clicks...... It gives them a bit of dopamine.
@polyote@KellicTiger Servers, phones, based on operating systems, you name it… you too are probably using Linux in a sense right now if your instance runs on it. Most websites rely on it. Android is based on it. This is how I see it. Why does it even need to be runlevel 5, as in desktop mode? Isn’t the success defined by adoptation alone? For me it is.
@rolle
Non
C'est aussi parce que c'est difficile de trouver des gens, plus qu'ailleurs et que c'est VÉRITABLEMENT COMPLIQUÉ ET DIFFICILE D'ACCES
Il va falloir que vous le reconnaissiez aussi
Surtout que vous écoutez pas les retour des utilisateur, c'est toujours comme ça dans le logiciel libre depuis 20ans que je le cotoie
Faut arrêter de se croire tjrs plus différent que les autres
Vous vivez dans le même monde que les autres et d'horribles capitalistes adorent utiliser les logiciel libre comme nous.
La distinction "nous dans le logiciel libre versus les autres qui savent pas" c'est une distinction qui n'a pas lieu d'être. G pas envie d'etre dans le même groupe qu'un fan de Debian qui soit aussi un fasciste.
Faites d'abord le ménage dans vos communauté plutôt que essayer de vous défendre mal comme vous le faite.
Quand j'étais activiste dans le libre, on degageait les fafs et on allait vers les utilisateurs les plus exclus
On passait pas notre temps a nous défendre en mode "les gens comprennent pas, je me sens abonandee"
Les gens qui maîtrisent ces outils et y travaillent sont des privilégiés 🤷
@rolle another thing is I haven't seen any of the kind of infamy I associate with social media take hold here.
Like none of the hate following or dog piling or relentless quote tooting of cringe content. And probably as a result, a lot less posting of purposefully provocative content just for attention.
I'm not saying we're 100% positive here, but the general community character is just different from what I was swimming in just a couple of years ago. It's better.
@bezorp@rolle yes exactly this! People who thrive in a kinder environment will do better here than people who want attention even at the cost of being kind.
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