Having spent a lot of time on Mastodon… There are tons of people there talking about federated and self-hosted services, software freedom, censorship, encryption, tech regulation… A very narrow range of topics directly surrounding the fediverse get a lot of attention.
But nobody talks about anything else. Nobody goes to Instagram to talk about Instagram, nobody goes to Tiktok to talk about Tiktok, nobody goes to Facebook (at all). People use social media to either talk to their friends or talk about their hobbies and interests.
And if your hobby is tech, that’s fine, enjoy. I like tech too. But please, if you have anything else to say, say it. The fediverse will never appeal to the masses if we don’t embrace a wide variety of hobbies and interests.
We need people here talking about cooking. We need people here talking about fashion. We need people here talking about immigration policy. We need people here talking about everything people enjoy!
Yes, if you go to /m/fashion right now, it’s… barely there. You’re not going to get a ton of conversation when you post there. But that’s not the point. The point is to build out the community, so that, a year from now, as more and more people attempt to post and engage, there is a conversation. There’s a reason to be on the fediverse besides the meta circlejerk over how great the fediverse could be in theory.
This is the “content” people are craving. Find or start a magazine for your city, or your town, or your country. Write a post. Share posts from your favorite blogs. Comment on something, if you have anything to say at all. Share a youtube video—yes, a youtube video, I know, youtube sucks, but at least it gives us a path to a community here.
My identity is not a secret dumbass, you can look me up. You can tell me how you “know” that I’m in my twenties, but you don’t, because I’m not. You “know” that in my twenties because you think my worldview is somehow less mature than yours, and that somehow explains my age. No, I’m just less of a dick than you are.
Oh, I see, so you’re wiser than me because you’ve spent more time in your mom’s basement than you think I’ve spent alive, huh?
You’re explaining why there’s an opportunity now. There’s still nothing happening on the fediverse. People are flocking to threads and ignoring the fediverse. I’m trying to argue that we should do something about that, make the fediverse a social network and not just a place to discuss the fediverse. You’re arguing that it’s probably already happened and I just haven’t noticed yet. I’ve been here for six years. A million signups sounds like a lot, but I’m telling you, nothing has changed.
It means potential. It means opportunity. It does not mean that we’ve arrived, or hit an inflection point, or taken advantage of the opportunity.
Not nearly as long as it’s taking for the fediverse. I don’t want to spend six more years crossing my fingers while Threads grows and the fediverse continues to stagnate, and then wonder why people didn’t bother.
I really… I don’t understand why you’re confused when I insult you. It’s hard to imagine that this isn’t an intentional, active attempt to be seen as a piece of shit. Do you not see how hard you have to suck to say something so stupid, so elitist, so wrong-headed as this? You do not have a higher consciousness than other people, you have one interest most people don’t have. Cooking and fashion and cat gifs are not lowly interests, they’re interests you don’t have. Your personal preferences don’t make you some kind of ubermensch, dumbass, they’re just preferences.
Yes, I’m aware that the fediverse is mostly techies and nerds. That does not make it better. Reddit has plenty of room for people with different interests. Twitter has plenty of room for people with different interests. Lemmy and Kbin are designed to support different interests. But you continue to express some kind of fear that, if people who like clothes come to the Fediverse, they’re somehow going to make your experience more like tiktok. Fuck off with that noise. Don’t subscribe to fashion magazines, problem solved.
I’m doing both. @malefashionadvice and similar communities are absolutely dead. I have found twelve accounts I want to follow on mastodon, half of them have never posted, and the other half are software projects. And I’m really pushing it, I’m really looking, there’s just nobody talking about anything interesting.
I really feel that’s the experience almost everybody on the planet would have if they tried signing up for and using mastodon. That’s why those six people don’t post—they came, they gave it a chance, they found a barren wasteland of nothing, and they left.
OK, you’re taking this way too seriously and getting fired up over nothing. This is not a courtroom and I don’t have to listen to your insults.
Take care.
I’m getting fired up over you insulting all of humanity. If you can’t stand to be called an idiot, maybe stop calling billions of people idiots in every comment, idiot.
Fuck off.