Instead of being screamed at for attention by "influencers" (whatever THAT means), here on Mastodon/the fedi, I have great, regular conversations with REAL PEOPLE (that's the key here! REAL people!) about music, TV, science, and tech stuff, and I see art and photos of animals and things in space. It's just nice.
@jake4480 yeah, it's really weird now thinking about how exhausting other social media sites are in comparison.
I have to wonder how much of this is due to the lack of quote toots, though, which prevents people from farming engagement by posting inflammatory takes specifically in hopes of getting quote dunked.
@jake4480 can I ask how you got started? I'm very new here, and not sure how to get started properly, or not sure how things work yet. Is there anything I should be doing?
@antoniav hi! Well first, I followed you! I found a few I knew from Twitter but there weren't many - hashtags are key. Follow hashtags, that's a big one. I see you like science, etc. I follow a couple hashtags, #bees, #roguelike and #roguelikes plus #Salesforce etc for the day job haha- there's so much here! I do try to boost my favorite stuff. That's big too, and even favoriting is awesome, I meet and find so many people that way, too, I did try to follow at least 100-200 and it's grown from there. Only since November of last year! Also, I blab about all kinds of nonsense 😂 with some hashtags, and people find you!
@jake4480 I followed you back. Thanks, I'll follow some hashtags and see if some people to follow or interact with show up from there. Kind of want to delete my twitter, but want to get something else going first if that makes sense. Felt oddly cut off from the world when I deactivated twitter..
@antoniav awesome - yeah, try that, it's so nice here. And yeah it was weird! I wrote about it (the top post at https://spacetimetech.wordpress.com) - I was on Twitter for 10 years. Wild to see how it grew and went. Lots of cool folks there. Very odd to stop. But had to. The day he switched the bird to the dogecoin icon, I was pretty much out. I want nothing to do with any of that crypto crap 🤣 plus, Musk is a straight up fascist. I hate fascism. The community here is super inclusive.
@jake4480 twitter used to be so much fun and a very social thing for me, but lately I never see tweets from any of the people I follow anymore, and I get almost no interactions if I tweet anything, just feels strange and pointless now. Think those blue checkmarks really messed up twitter. Hopefully this will be better.
@antoniav Yep. That was a big part of it. I'd SOMETIMES see my friends' stuff, but miss a ton, and it got to be like, ads every other tweet - I discovered that when I had notifications on for people, it wouldn't even notify me every tweet! I hated that. I mean, what's even the point? Occasional notifications, just at the frequency of whenever Twitter feels like it? haha. But why
@enne right?? I was astounded when I first started, and I didn't really have trouble finding cool things/people. Only been here since November of last year. LOVING it.
@enne yes! And the interactions (the "influencers" want to call it "engagement" but I really hate that word too haha) - whatever you call it here, is more. It feels more organic. Probably from lack of algorithm!
@enne well heck yeah! We clearly share some views haha - and your affinity for elephants, well, that's just excellent as well hahaha. 🐘 power 4 lyfe. 😂
@jake4480 I agree. 👍
Nobody's selling you anything, no one's selling you, it's all a lovely passion project of connecting and being wholesome.
And if someone is selling you something, then it's like the next door neighbor selling interesting things you might need. 😊
@enne exactly! SMALL creators I love. Ones who aren't SNOBS, as you said- you actually get a reply. I have this theory that fame is a curse hahaha - seriously though, I can't stand the snobbery. It's so phony.
@jake4480 Most definitely. It's just about the intentions. A soulless money-making machine that will stop at nothing to squeeze as much money as inhumanly possible, not shying away from things like (technically) harmless but still mind-messery nonetheless, or just a human trying to survive and/or just having fun making things and helping others as well by offering their cool creations. 😊
@enne right. The problem happens when it's a human or two and then they GROW IT into something insane like Amazon or Walmart. Sometimes I think about that. Pretty much all huge corporations started TINY - sure, some come from privilege, rich (often white) jerks being lucky and having opportunities (or venture capital startup funds) - but I always wonder how that whole change/process happens. It's fascinating (and disgusting) to me. 😂
@jake4480 That is interesting to think about indeed. I haven't really thought about that before. I'm sure there are still wholesome larger places, too, but I suppose somewhere along the way the focus changes from end custommers to how do I keep this afloat, or the greed takes over, hard to tell.
@enne right? And I'm not sure there are many, or any places that keep any sense of being wholesome. I think largeness always corrupts? Maybe? Haha. All I know is, I'm seeing a lot of bigger companies I thought were MAYBE more decent doing crappy anti-union stuff lately...
@enne one example is, I sell on eBay. I have for 20 years. I've never made more than like, $100 or $200 a month. It's a TINY help sometimes (when things sell, currently there's like 60 things sitting there NOT selling - sigh), but maybe it's that I never pushed it hard enough? I think that's difficult to do, too - often fails. Maybe it's because I have no craving to be rich hahaha
@jake4480 Oo. I think it's cool that you're selling things.
Yeah, marketting/getting people to hear about your services can be really difficult. Especially so if you're not confident in your own abilities/skills and maybe even afraid/worried about competition.
It's like... how do you want me to convince you of my place being the place you should get things from when I'm not convinced myself. 🤷
@enne haha - true. eBay stuff is mostly resale (I don't buy for resale, but move on things from my collection haha) - but wifey and I have thrown some of her (and my) art on Redbubble, we're thinking of Etsy even though the fees are kinda crap. But yeah, she's always making stuff, I'm mostly the tech guy hahaha
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