Is anyone using Mastodon as their primary social media and is it working for you?

@LianaBrooks

Yes and yes.

After about 20 years on Facebook, I deleted my account there a few months ago, when they announced that they wanted to add AI that would scape user profiles. I had deleted my Twitter account after Musk bought it and turned it into an online Nazi bar. (I gave up Myspace a long while ago too.)

Microsoft seems to want to add "social" functions to LinkedIn, but I don't want to even "like" any political posts there.

I like the community I find here on Mastodon.

@LianaBrooks
Yes and yes.

@LianaBrooks I've ended up ditching everything else. I have a Matrix account I still use from time to time, but it's mostly to talk to one person I have no other means to talk to I guess. (Everyone else just ignored me there. People really really do not like Matrix for some reason... I honestly don't quite get the hate, though I do agree it is hardly perfect.)

I do hate the character limits sometimes though. Even on an instance with a larger limit it's often holding me back. (Hey, communication is hard.) Well, it's still better than a certain commercial platform.

Thanks to the way hashtags are used here it has actually been kind of helpful to find some stuff I might not normally run across, so there's that, but I feel like I do see a lot less people.

@LianaBrooks Yes. Pretty reasonably well: it's chiller than FB was and there's _way_ more retrocomputing nerds, queers, furries, and other neurodivergent people here.

I miss keeping up with some of the people I was FB friends with, but I no longer have to see various relations' politics, especially valuable since last year.

@LianaBrooks @trending_bot

yes and yes. Left Twitter 3 years ago and have enjoyed being in the Fediverse ever since. Being able to manage who and what topics I follow has been great.

@LianaBrooks yes to both

@LianaBrooks Yes & yes, except I read the youTube comments more if I need the get some trashy. Masto users are mostly pretty chill & smart folks.

@LianaBrooks yes and yes.

@LianaBrooks Yes and absolutely!

@LianaBrooks yes

@LianaBrooks no, not really. Too difficult to attract followers, too much tech. Disappointing Using Bluesky more

@LianaBrooks yes

@LianaBrooks Before I found the Fediverse, I had never been a social media user (save Reddit) – no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, no nuthin'. Mastodon, and later Pixelfed and Lemmy, turned out to be everything I wanted social media to be, and nothing that kept me away from the others. Mastodon is my main social media, and it works great for me, and federation makes it easy to follow all kinds of accounts.

@LianaBrooks
Yes and yes for over 3 years. I see it as a street full of independant coffee shops and bars. You can pop in and listen and join in to conversations. No adverts, no algorithms forcing things on you. Left Twitter after 12 years when Elon took over, but also because the negativity and trolling was unbearable. You do have to work a little harder here looking for content but I'd rather that than being force fed a corporate agenda. Social media how it should (used to) be...

@LianaBrooks Yes, this is the only social media account I have, and there are lots of cats.

@LianaBrooks

Yes.

I started by joining a thriving instance and watching the Local and Federated feeds.

Then I started following hashtags.

Then I found people posting things I liked and started following people.

It took time, months, but I have a very active feed and about two dozen Lists for when I just want to see a certain type of Toot.

Things I miss:

• The artists I followed on Instagram. I'm now supporting two of them via Patreon or Liberapay because they also post here.
• The onslaught of dank memes.

RE: https://mas.to/@osma/115926080124459252

Neither fedi in general nor Mastodon in specific maintain an editorial control over the content you see. This is not media. This is a social network.

But yeah, it's working for me. Whatever the definition of "working" is supposed to be.
@LianaBrooks

@LianaBrooks yes, and kind of. It helps with my social needs more than any other platform* has, and my mental health is a lot less negatively impacted by it than it was when my primary social media was Instagram, Tumblr, TikTok, or Twitter. But when it comes to organization, it's difficult to get involved with a lot of local projects/organizations, because there's exactly one that I know of that posts on the fediverse and for staying in touch with people I meet in person, it rarely works

@LianaBrooks Yep and my mental health has improved significantly. A bit too much moaning about Trump but that’s what filters are for.

@LianaBrooks Yes, and yes.