amy | into the fediverse

why join up?

Being an internet user generally for quite some time, I had heard of Mastodon when it first started up / gained popularity, but had never really considered joining. I was never really an X (formerly Twitter) user, so was never involved in that migration period when The Muskrat took over.

Well then, why did I join?

Really, I was just branching out, trying new things. I was mainly a Discord user, but like Twitter, the platform was on a downward spiral, with poor leadership decisions becoming increasingly more problematic. One such change was the shift from Username#0000 form to @username form, seemingly for no other reason than to look more like Twitter. This prompted me to cancel my Nitro subscription, and look for alternatives.

I'd been hearing more and more about Mastodon, as it continued to gain popularity from Twitter refugees and the like, and figured I might as well give it a go, given I had friends from Discord who used it regularly and praised it!

getting started

I took some time finding an instance, though for me that wasn't terribly hard. Queer programming nerds are not in short supply on fedi, so lots of instances would suit me. I settled on meow.lgbt, because it was cosy, and had cats...

The initial experience was great, and I slowly built up a list of accounts to follow. Getting past that initial hurdle of following no one was harder than most platforms make, but I knew this coming in, so it wasn't a shock. My method at the time was to browse the local and federated timelines, looking for interesting people, and following them.

At this time, I used the web UI on desktop, and IceCubes on my phone (iOS), which was a pleasant experience. I grabbed Mastodon Modern, and the Catppuccin theme, to pretty things up. I also followed @freeplay after finding Mastodon Modern.

I eventually 'migrated' toward the tech.lgbt bubble, following @ShadowJonathan. This would lead me to all the cool people over there, including but not limited to @yassie_j, @sara, and @endali.

These super cool people let me branch out and find more people, with a variety of interesting profiles. I found technical people, neurodivegency people, electronics people, and everything inbetween. Despite being relatively new to fedi, everyone made me feel really welcome, quite the contrast to a lot of platforms.

setting sail for new land

Whilst meow.lgbt was fine, I did want something a little more active. I never really had a reason to move, until I tried logging in one day and found the SSL certificate had expired! This prompted me to start looking for a new instance (combined with the general unavailablility of the admins).

I wanted to try out some new software, as Mastodon felt a little boring for me. I wanted something that had 'all the cool features' (proper quotes, reactions, etc.), and wanted a more active community to go with it. Knowing yassie was on labyrinth.zone, I checked them out. They seemed to fit the bill quite nicely, so I applied for an account, and got started on the migration.

To my surprise, migration was rather simple. From what I'd heard from others, it was to be quite a technical process, but I found it to be the opposite. All I had to do was setup my redirect, import the CSVs of my followed accounts, and the software did the rest behind the scenes.

Once it was all finished, I started exploring this new software, and couldn't help but try out the new emojis I now had.

my piece on diversity

Whilst fedi was built by queers, for queers, it was very interesting to me to learn about the ongoing diversity issues people of colour face on fedi, and my post on fedi wouldn't be complete and honest if I didn't mention it. Learning just how dismissive some parts of fedi are of these struggles was quite the eye opener to how shielded things could be from 'my side' of fedi.

Some posts I grabbed from my old account that highlight the issue:

into the future

I think fediverse is here to stay, for me. It really is everything I'd want from a platform of its type. Having the lack of an algorithm has an initial barrier to entry, but in the long run it's definitely worth it. The freedom to get involved in any discussion I find interesting, follow anyone I want, and star whatever I please with no ill effect on my timeline has really changed the way I see social media.

No longer is it a race to the bottom to see who can farm the most engagement with the least entertaining content, but a system designed to build community and friendships that last. People interact with your posts because they want to, and that's really nice.