A few people have been asking if I'm going to stick around on Mastodon if I'm not posting on Twitter anymore, and... well, like, I'll definitely keep posting announcements here. But in general, honestly, I have no idea! My impression of Mastodon—having checked it multiple times a day for several years—is that it's just kind of a wasteland. People don't really seem interested in talking about anything other than social media meta? Those are the only posts of mine that get replies, anyway!
@christinelove Totally get that feeling. To be honest I didn’t know you were on here till today, and I would like to see your non-social media meta posts very much.
The biggest thing is being more eager to follow people and using tags.
My feed got a LOT better after I've gotten over the sort of hesitation to follow I used to have on Twitter.
While I don't really post very much, if I want something to get out there then tagging seems to be a deciding factor. This also helps the feed because you can follow tags.
We got used to being algorithmically fed on Twitter and re-learning how to use social media driven by humans is hard.
@christinelove I do need to start posting more over here. I like the mammoth world I just don't check it as much cause half the stuff I use Twitter for isn't here anywhere. Namely Japanese artists, a bunch of toy stuff, vtuber nonsense, and I guess there's some toku people here I just haven't found many.
@strangefour God I'm gonna miss Japanese fanart so much. I feel like nobody talking about Twitter alternatives mentions enough how bad losing the international aspect is gonna be :(
@christinelove Yeah. So many JP bros and other international artists I like are just gonna be lost to me. I mean most of the Japanese artists will be on Pixiv but it's not the same. Seeing some of them get infatuated with a new anime or play with gundam kits or cross talk with lewd models will be lost.
@christinelove OMG! I am glad the garbage bird lasted long enough for us to get all this fantastic Gwitch fanart. I don't know what life would be like without weekly drops of Seceilia fanart.
@christinelove your game posts are great, seeing updates for Get in the car, Loser! Dark souls (are you curating the twitch thumbnails to have amazing facial expressions every time?), FFXIV posting/shitposting and anything else really.
But one culture thing about mastodon that’s been good for me is I don’t endlessly scroll this place nearly as much so my level of interaction is down over all? 🤔
@cthos Well, I'm glad to hear it! (Also lmao I didn't even realize you could change the Twitch thumbnails, I think it's just a game that evokes constant strong reactions!!!)
@christinelove Ack, I'm sorry you feel that way. I sometimes get frustrated with Mastodon because I want to talk about things and they get no replies.
ETA: I do know that people talk about things other than social media. The current situations with Reddit and such are just getting people heated probably
@christinelove Fediverse is definitely thick with social-media-meta and tech nerdery like the endless choir-preaching about how cool Linux is 😸
Oddly it seems like judicious use of hashtags helps a lot? When I tag a post with a particular topic, I tend to get a burst of relevant engagement. I don't directly follow hashtags myself but I guess a lot of people do!
(and yes I'm doing the thing you describe but at least I know I've replied to posts of yours on other topics in the past lol)
@dirchansky yeah, I feel like there's just a level of too chill, you know? to be fair twitter got to be that way too increasingly over the past couple years. I think people are so afraid of being a "reply guy" that the people you actually wanna talk to have gotten cagey :(
@ravindra It's understandable, I worry about it a lot lately myself too! I think it's more culture than any one particular person's fault. (I can't really be more specific than that because honestly I don't remember. I don't recall ever being bothered by anyone talking about videogames here, though.)
@christinelove for sure. real life has something in between "no response" and "I am pressing the button that says your post is good and you are valid", so there's some room for less blunt and on-the-nose interaction. and these days I try to think a little bit more about where my presence is welcome and err on the side of caution
@christinelove@dirchansky unti you started talking about how much of a wasteland fedi is, at almost 5k followers i've always just assumed you were swamped with replies and most of them just happened not to federate for me...
@christinelove If there’s a perception that this is a Twitter repeater, that could hurt engagement. But I don’t know how active this place is for games, I’m just here for shitposts.
@christinelove@DinosaurRobo i so often feel on here that i am trying to have house party conversations at a work function and striking out badly. not sure what to do about it!!!
@DinosaurRobo@joyces Yeah, I feel like it's less to do with any particular service and more that a decade of social media has slow cooked everyone's brains, honestly. Feels like there's a lot of bad cultural norms that have lead to a lot of people being anxious to talk, for instance.
@christinelove@DinosaurRobo that's definitely a real effect and it makes me wonder what can be done to get people out of those hesitant or aversive modes of social interaction. lead with my example, i guess. efforts will continue
@christinelove My tuppenceworth: I love the local feed on gamedev.place. Less meta (though whenever there are big migrations it obviously picks up), and more folk posting screenshots of their weird little games.
@christinelove FWIW, I really appreciate your gamedev and personal life posts here--I don't have a lot to add personally, and I don't want to be That Mentions Guy, but I do enjoy your presence. Thanks for being here. :-)
@christinelove I enjoy your posts about games, even if I don't usually have a lot to say (like, what am I gonna tell you about games that you don't already know) - I'll try to favorite more of your stuff so it doesn't feel like such a void here ;)
@christinelove You might have a better time on one of the game dev servers, like mastodon.gamedev.place or peoplemaking.games
Or you might not. It’s definitely not like twitter (used to be) in terms of pushing your content out to people who might want to see it. It’s more like 2010-2013 twitter in that regard, but having a good local instance does seem to make a bit of a difference.
@jtw Have you had a good experience with the local feed on yours? The idea of a "local feed" just feels like such a viscerally unappealing concept it feels hard to imagine getting anything good out of it! That's just the firehose analogy!
@christinelove@jtw On a smaller, more focused instance the local feed is both possible to keep up with and far more likely to be relevant to your interests.
@christinelove Yes! Local feeds of smaller instances are actually really nice to trawl. The client I use, Mona, also lets me easily browse the local feeds of other instances and interact with them from my account here. You can take a peek at what these feeds are like on the web as well:
@christinelove Maybe you haven't found your tribe? Depending on server and who you follow you can get very different experiences (I have multiple accounts on purpose for this reason).
Speaking of that, #WitchFromMercury , seen the last episode (out today) yet? What a show!
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