Do you have a moment to talk about...

Let me tell you about my lord and savior decentralized social media

Mastodeez nuts

Me opening the door thinking you're referring to the band

Why yes, I do have a moment to SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER
- Best album. I'll never get over the opening line: I THINK THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL MEEEEE

Okay, so I never used Twitter but figured I'd give Mastodon a try.
But what do you even do there? Is it just a place where you wait for specific people to shout into the void? And then what?
Also how do I even find interesting subjects or people to follow?

Twitter/microblogging is a weird thing in general but you seem to have the idea. It can be useful for following events or people who write interesting things.

Mastodon hashtags are the way to discover conversations and people to follow, they go across instances in search.
- Those words don't make sense to someone new to this
Sometimes it's useful following specific projects or organizations you're interested in to be notified when anything interesting is going on. In a way similar to an RSS feed I suppose
- Whats an RSS feed?
- They are also RSS feeds by default, just append .rss to the back of the profile address and add to your feed reader. For example, to tune into Elvira Mistress of the Dark in your rss reader the link would be:
  
  https://universeodon.com/@TheRealElvira.rss
I just love the fact that Mark Ruffalo is using Mastodon
@Cuteblooded @Troll I just follow a bunch of people and hashtags. Anybody suggests following something or someone I do. It's easy to unfollow if you end up not liking the content from someone or some hashtag.
@Cuteblooded @Troll Start here: https://fedi.tips/
@Cuteblooded @Troll shout into the void... Or voice an opinion... If enough of us voice an opinion it might change things... the alternative is keeping silent and that is not mentally healthy
I always had the same issue the few times I tried to use mastodon and twitter.
@Cuteblooded @Troll You can find topics using hashtags (#).

https://fedi.tips/
@Cuteblooded @Troll I found that posting about stuff that interests me, following bright people who respond, and using hashtags is not a bad way to start. And check the local feed and the fedi feed from time to time to find new people to interact with.
#welcome
@Cuteblooded @Troll just keep posting and follow some interesting people you'll get it
Yes?

You can also shout into the void yourself. Eventually somebody might notice and reply.

You can watch the local or federated timelines and if someone says something interesting you can follow them and reply. Or you if you get linked from elsewhere to a good post you can follow the author. Or you can see a list of popular hashtags (or look up a hashtag) and see posts in them, or post to them.

What else is there supposed to be to do there?
@Cuteblooded @Troll

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110827772311097668
@Cuteblooded ahhah, if you stare into the void, the void stares back at you. (just reposted your lemmy post to the void/mastodon 😅)
@Cuteblooded For starters, hashtags seem to be a bigger deal here than on Twitter. You can follow hashtags for their themed content, or just search them to find people to follow. And if you hashtag your posts by category, people will actually notice.
@Cuteblooded absolutely wild that I'm reading your lemmy post on mastodon as we speak
@Cuteblooded Assuming the instance you joined is some kind of community that you’re a part of, check out the Local feed. Other people on your server may show you some good stuff and/or be worth following.

My favorite metal band??

I THINK THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL ME

I saw them when they opened for Primus. Killer show.

I'm in this picture and I don't like it

I thought we're gonna talk about a music band, aren't we?

I saw them for the first time during the Unheavenly Skye tour.

My first time seeing Coheed too!

It was one hell of a show.

No we worship lemmy in this house mastodon is a harassy

a harassing heresy ? defo sounds like the witnesses

I'm having fun there, though there are a good amount of spammers there already.

I know all about Mastodon. Been doing it just about everyday for years, sometimes twice a day!

Problem for me is that Twitter for me is about the official announcement-y things which aren't leaving lol. It's not great, but for football news all the journalists are still there, and so are the clubs.

Look up nitter
The way to get that to change is to not go to Twitter, and if any of those people have another outlet, read and interact with that one.
- Problem is, they don't, lol.

I think I'd rather keep Mastodon small and quirky. The moment it starts to feel like twitter, I'm off.

Nah it'll never be like Twitter. Those users will all line up for Bluesky
- Or threads.
- I feel Bluesky already lost its hype. Should've been launched near the announcement. I believe Threads it's where people would go if leaving X.
- Out of the loop: why there is so much hype for Bluesky?
At the risk of sounding like a door-to-door fediverse evangelist: the good thing about mastodon is you can always move to a small and quirky instance, or even start your own small and quirky instance and defederate from any parts that you don't like.
Honestly, I feel like Mastodon is kinda never going to be like Twitter, even if its user count were to grow by two orders of magnitude. There are several reasons why, as the other replies point out, but the most important (IMO) is that Mastodon is just not a profit-driven platform. And if Mastodon is not a profit-driven platform, it is not designed to maximize user engagement. And if it is not designed to maximize user engagement, it is not designed to encourage toxic behavior.

I'm like that with Nostr.

No sir, I haven't heard of it, but would you like a waffle?
- Does the waffle have syrup?
- Belgian Waffle.

Looking forward to Book of Mastodon, the musical