I remember when all of my friends in high school were on AOL in the '90s, and I wanted to be on it too, so that I could chat to them and discover what the internet was. I was very lucky and eventually convinced my parents that we really need this new technology called “a computer” so that I could type out school papers, and use the internet for research. I really just wanted to chat with my friends and discover AOL, chat rooms, and satisfy all of the curiosity I had about the World Wide Web. We eventually got the “top-of-the-line” computer: a gray HP Pavilion with a DVD player, speakers, and 17” monitor. It was insanely expensive and I’m grateful that my parents saved up to get us a family computer. Now I felt connected to the web.
I was always obsessed with finding new cool people to talk to online. It was fascinating that I was able to chat to anyone across the United States and the world, in different time zones, and about any subject. AOL chatrooms were fascinating because some where generic, some were role play, some were nerdy, and some were places I avoided. Instead of learning about BBS’s and IRC, I had AOL and chat.
Fast forward a whole lot to the end of the 2010s, and I wanted to get into gaming, since I neglected that most of my life as a big tech nerd. I was into fighting games on my NES/SNES as a child and my PS3 as a young adult, but not much more than that. I wanted to learn how to play first-person shooters and action-adventure games. I found a gaming podcast community and some amazing people who helped me learn a little bit about the games I wanted to play. I remember during this time discovering, through Discord, an open-source social network called Mastodon. I was trying to understand what decentralization meant. What’s “federation?”
The first instance I joined was mastodon.social, which was a bit overwhelming, and then I went to mastodon.technology, where I found some tech focused, nerdy people that I got along with, but the owner had to understandably stop supporting the server since he didn’t have the time to maintain it. I then moved onto other tech-focused servers, a gaming server, and finally, where I am now: social.lol, a really awesome community of tech people, writers, gamers, travelers, and a really cool bunch of folks from all over the world.
Finding a good community on Mastodon can be a fun journey, but it requires some exploration. Mastodon is an open-source, self-hosted, social networking service. It’s decentralized, meaning there are many instances (servers), each with its own culture and community guidelines. I like to think of it like email; someone can sign up for email on various servers such as Gmail, Outlook, or Fastmail, and own an address (name-at-emailservice.com). You can send an email to anyone, and receive email from anyone. Same with Mastodon.
The social part of Mastodon comes mostly from the work you put into it, just like when you sign up for a forum or set up an email address. It’s not algorithm-based like Twitter or Instagram. It’s very much how things used to be, where we had to curate people, forums, RSS feeds, and websites that we want to follow and interact with. Chatted on a forum and didn’t like someone? Block them. Like a particular subject in a forum thread? Follow it and interact. No algorithms got in the way to “assume” what you wanted to read. Mastodon is more of a manual, organic process. It has a “home” timeline of user accounts based off what posts you interact with. The best place to focus on is the “local” timeline, where you’ll find other people on the same instance as you’re on. This is how I found most of the people I follow today. I focused on the local timeline, then followed other people that popped into my home timeline via the interactions I made with them. This includes “favorites,” “boosts,” and replying to people each day.
The best way I can describe finding a good community on Mastodon is putting in a little bit of work being patient, learning the tools such as filters and blocks, and realizing that it’s very different to big corporate social media of today. There is no algorithm to “assume” who you might want to follow. You need to interact with people and manually follow who you want to, and mute or block if you run into someone you never want to see. Hashtags are also very big on Mastodon, and they’re one of the best ways to find topics on what you want to follow. Hashtags are the way you can filter out or block content that you don’t want to see, or follow a particular topic that you always want to see.
There is a bit of an etiquette that’s developed on Mastodon more than other social media platforms, which I appreciate. Adding a content warning for gross images or topics that might trigger people is really important to show care. Adding alt text is inclusive for folks who need to use screen readers to “see” the images online. I even find it helpful for myself to see the alt text for context many times (without using a screen reader), so it does benefit everyone. I appreciate the content warnings and filters the most, so that I can escape or tune into a topic for a little bit, depending on my needs at the moment.
I’ve had way better interactions with folks on Mastodon than any other social media all of these years, since I reach out to people who have the same interests, --whether it’s in tech, photography, gaming, blogging, or the small web space. This is the part where my friends who are used to more traditional social media haven’t grasped the concept. Blasting a general message on Mastodon likely doesn’t gain traction with favorites (likes) or popularity, because there is no algorithm or gaming to the system to “push” it out to as many people as possible. Mastodon and Activity Pub-based social networks are about curating actual relationships, not posting for follows, likes, or views.
I really like Mastodon because you can bring your followers with you if you decide to move instances. Not everyone agrees, but I don’t mind that you can’t bring your posts, since to me, Mastodon posts should be ephemeral, and not permanent. They are posts about your current life, mood, or topic of discussion, not an archive for years to save. That’s where having a blog is handy, and to me, pretty vital if you want a presence on the internet. Many people like to join instances where you can post over 500 characters, but in my opinion, if you want to write that many words in a post, a blog post is more useful instead. If someone wants to have a discussion, linking a website to a shorter post is great, and people can reply as it comes. Post or tweet threads to me are a bit chaotic and it’s harder to follow a discussion that way.
Mastodon has been a really great place for me to find a variety of interesting people that I want to keep in touch with. It takes a little bit of work, but it’s worth it to find awesome relationships and communities. I write this as a technology-forward person, so I’d love to hear how people feel about Mastodon who aren’t as technically inclined. Is it as tough as people say it is or are people just used to corporate social media “deciding” timelines and followers for them? It’s a different way to think that is more independent and in your control. It’s closer to the “good old web” to me, where you can focus on curating what you want to read, see, and share.
You can pick a Mastodon server via joinmastodon.org or instances.social, or even better, by asking someone who is already on an instance. In my opinion, joining an smaller instance (less than 1,000 users) that is focused on a common theme or service is slightly better than joining a huge general instance like mastodon.social, because you can find folks who have similar interests from the get go. On a really big instance (over 10k users), I find that there is too much going on in terms of different subjects, personalities, and you have more to curate with filters and finding common interests. Good luck out there!
I’d love to hear from you about your experience if you decide to join Mastodon! Let me know on Mastodon at @binarydigit.
Liz Roboto (she/her) is a technical director at a small media company who was born and raised in New York, and currently living in Michigan. She loves the indie web, tinkering with code, loves to travel, stream games, art, music and practice photography. You can find Liz's portfolio at lizroboto.com, but you can find her fun personal site at binarydigit.city.