Mastodon and the Fediverse
I have been slowly been discovering a LOT of alternatives to social media on the web.
As a backstory I will tell you for the past 6 years or so I have been pretty much a Reddit junkie. What was once a lot of useful information is now endless doomscrolling of repititous, low-effort, bot riddled, nonsense that is nothing more than an utter waste of time. I do still use Facebook, but that is strictly for my music life as it is (unfortunately) the best social marketing tool for local bands. Other than that, it too is a waste of time.
So in my early journey into the small web I first discovered Gopher and then Gemini. Gemini latched on to me and I find it's simplicity refreshing. I also find that the intentionality of it equally refreshing. I have intereacted with some interesting people so far and none are pretentious, or agenda driven. They are the real deal (IMHO).
I'll be honest and say I had heard of the "Fediverse" before, but never knew (or cared I guess) what it was until it repeatedly kept showing up as hashtags in my searches for smallweb ideals. This is also how I discovered Mastodon.
Now, I really enjoy the fact that the conversations doesn’t feel like they are trying to outrun themselves. Posts don’t vanish in minutes. People tend to write like someone might actually read what they said. You can step away for a few hours, or a day, and come back without feeling like you missed the whole show.
Following a few threads and links brought me to envs.net, and from there into the tildeverse... small, user-run systems where people keep simple pages, write a bit, tinker, and talk. No algorithms deciding what matters. No pressure to perform. Just a handful of folks, each doing their own thing, loosely connected. That's pretty freaking cool.
I think what I realize now is that these places exist because the people there want them to exist. That changes the tone of everything. I've seen posts on Mastodon that talk about setting up services on selfhosted systems to people just airing out they had a rough day and if anyone was interested, here is their gemlog.
And for me, at this point, that pace fits better than what I find on Reddit. I don’t need another firehose. I need somewhere I can read, think, and maybe say something worth saying.