Katerina MarchánNov 4, 2022

reasons mastodon's "viral dampening effect" is a good thing:

👉🏻 no "main character of the day"
👉🏻 no free text searching for people to get angry at (and harrass)
👉🏻 doomscrolling is *actually bad for you* and not a thing we should be trying to replicate
👉🏻 birdsite's virality is heavily driven by actual paid advertising and bots. You think that "Explore" tab gets its content organically? really? That's not making connections between people, it's about driving sales.

Mastodon is not, and should not be, a 1:1 replacement for Twitter. But it *can* be a new place for you to make valuable connections with other human beings. #twitter #twittermigration

Show threaddzamie Nov 5, 2022
@zkat Could you explain "viral dampening effect," please? This is the first time I've heard the term.
Show threadKaterina MarchánNov 5, 2022
@dzamie it’s a lot harder for things to explode virally on mastodon. It’s a thing I’ve seen complaints about and how it makes mastodon unviable, but I’m making the point that this is a good feature to have
Show threadJennifer
@zkat @dzamie so how do you stumble onto new people and topics if you aren’t someone who spends a lot of time on social media or lacks the time to learn all the features of mastodon?
Nov 5, 2022 at 7:49amWeb
Show threadmkbNov 5, 2022

@sim431 @zkat @dzamie

A great way to find what interests you is searching on related #hashtags. If you’re using the Mastodon desktop site you can even create pinned columns with the tags that matter most to you.

Good hashtags to search on are “introduction” and “introductions” (I’m not sure which is in vogue right now). People use those tags to announce themselves and give a little bit of background.

Good luck and have fun!