Why I Love Mastodon

• Finally, a social media platform with my kinda swag

• Don’t get me wrong, Medium readers and writers, I absolutely love this platform, for reading and writing medium-to-long stories… And, for the short-form writing that I have been craving, I am now finding my groove on Mastodon.

I had heard the name Mastodon a few times but did not know what it was until January 12th, when Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Medium, published. 

• That story really piqued my interest, so I began reading more about Mastodon, the social media platform which was founded in 2016 by German software developer Eugen Rochko. The decentralized software is part of the “fediverse” (short for “federated universe”), which is a network of independent servers.

So… Mastodon is not owned by just one company.

• Amazingly, the Mastodon experience is ad-free. There are no paid accounts. And, there are no algorithms. Hashtags help you find your interests, your peeps, your tribes. The servers, called “instances,” are like villages, and they are connected with all the other villages. It is quite complex, but also very simple. I feel there is a brilliance about it.

This article was helpful: “A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the open source Twitter alternative.”

• Even before that guy took over the bird site, I was not having a good experience on that platform. I wish that I had known about Mastodon back then, but, I guess life gives us the lessons we need, right?

Perhaps sometimes we have to fail at a number of things before arriving where we are meant to be — the Talking Heads song, “This Must Be the Place” comes to mind… “I’m just an animal, looking for a home…”

• Rather than waiting for Medium to include the “sign up with Medium” option with our membership, I decided to go ahead and try it out by myself. That seemed best for me anyway, because I am a bit of a fringe type who tends to enjoy doing things independently.

1. So, I joined Mastodon on my 53rd birthday, January 29th…. But for some reason, on my profile it says I joined on January 28th. Numbers and dates are very important to me, and I purposefully joined on my birthday, but I’m trying to let that go, because there are so many incredibly tragic things happening in the world that it doesn’t really matter what date I joined a social media platform.

If my only complaint is the incorrect date on my profile, well, that is pretty darn good, don’t you think?

• So far, people have been very friendly and welcoming on Mastodon. I am really enjoying the giving and receiving of creative sharings, without having any certain goals about gaining followers or boosts.

As a newbie on the platform, I haven’t yet seen anyone who I already know, and that is actually refreshing — it feels like I have stepped into a strange new land.

• The feeling on Mastodon is very different than any platform I have experienced, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It feels very creative, intuitive, artistic, and smooth. As I wrote in the post below, it’s got swag! 👏

Mastodon

Social Media

Writing

Creativity

Life Lessons