I think I’m not alone that Mastodon is giving me the ick

I first joined Mastodon in 2018 (even though my old profile says 2016?), so I’d say I’ve seen a lot of its evolution. I’m on my second private instance now and would definitely consider myself invested in its success. Decentralised social media is so much more web than centralised social media networks ad networks like Twitter and Facebook. In short, I see it as the future for sure.

But, right now, Mastodon is giving me the ick, again. Frustratingly, for the same reasons it did last time, a couple of years ago:

• My pals aren’t all there and I miss talking to them
• There’s so little diversity in comparison to Twitter
• The tone policing makes me want to scratch my eyes out
• There always seems to be a weird atmosphere which I can’t put my finger on. I think it’s caused by an extreme effort to keep it pleasant and not like Twitter
• People relentlessly calling Twitter the “birdsite”
• Sooo many content warnings for literally everything (I know you can remove them)
• Folks are extremely defensive about fair criticism of the platform
• I miss the chaos, speed of information and humour on Twitter
• People get real nasty about others going back to “the birdsite”

I want to focus on the last point because this has definitely been a contributor to my recent ick. I’ve noticed a few folks getting frankly, horrible about people moving back to Twitter recently and I think it’s a bit unfair.

I empathise with people who are moving back because I am one of them. In my case, I’d say I’m straddling both platforms though. I definitely started getting some FOMO, but also, Twitter still provides value for me. I fucking hate Elon Musk and what he’s doing to Twitter. I absolutely will not support him, but I don’t think posting on Twitter does that — mostly because they’ve lost like 90% of their ad revenue and over 50% of the company value lol.

I’ll own the fact that many times, I have declared that I will never go back to Twitter, but I’m also a human who makes rash decisions. When Musk laid off most of the hard working folks, I was fuming, so rage quit. Now, after a few months of cool-off, I really started to miss people who never came over to Mastodon, so slowly started going back via lists and Feedbin. I’ll never embrace the “for you” bullshit, that’s for sure.

Maybe this is why folks getting nasty about other folks moving back to Twitter from Mastodon is pissing me off so much, because I feel like they are being a dickhead about me too. I know I personally care a lot less about what people think about me than others might do though, so I also worry that good people are being pushed away because they are made to feel like bad people (which they are not).

I’m personally gonna keep straddling both platforms. If that’s a real problem for you, no worries, but being an arsehole about it certainly won’t make me want to ditch Twitter for Mastodon 100%. It’ll have the opposite effect.

Also, you might be having the best time on Mastodon and hell yeh, that’s great. I’m really happy for you. Don’t use that to minimise other people’s less-positive experience though!

I honestly think Mastodon — or some other decentralised platform — is the long term future, but I also think unless Twitter literally disappears, it’s going to take a long time. That’s fine, in my opinion. It gives Mastodon time to evolve into something more people friendly, which will be great!

I’m still going to be an enthusiastic cheerleader of Mastodon too, even though right now, I’m not digging it as much.