The key to making Mastodon 'work' is simple, commit to posting here, ignore Twitter as well as you're able and as you detox from that environment it becomes less and less appealing
Not that there's nothing good about it, but the good has always been leavened w a lot of bullshit, and the current regime is magnifying those negatives to an overwhelming degree
@ancient_catbus I'm gonna try

@Piegoblin that's all anyone can do ๐Ÿ™

Get some twinja peeps over here, it's an easier transition if you have a little cadre of pals to chat with

@ancient_catbus Cory Doctorow is sometimes insufferable, but he made a point years ago about how you can't argue with someone that they don't enjoy Facebook etc or that that the tech they rely on isn't as good as they think it is. "For the most part, it IS as good as they think it is; the problem is, it fails badly. The operating model does what it says on the tin, but the failure mode tortures dissidents, murders minorities, and collapses civilization."
@ancient_catbus
Amen.
It isnt birdchan. Thankfully.
So if one is used to Twatter Mastodon takes a week or two to figure out. And thats because AI isnt collecting data on your every breath and configuring your page...or deciding if you live or die in its cyberspace based on your views.
As long as you keep one foot in Elmo's polluted swimming pool for nazis and the "whites only" political crowd you mentally cannot understand intellectual freedom.
@ancient_catbus And when you ARE on Twitter RECRUIT to The Fediverse!
@ancient_catbus I've been telling people the first step is to delete the Twitter app from their phone
@ancient_catbus
And, if you really want to speed up weaning yourself off Twitter, use a proxy service like Nitter to not only not give any monetizable information to them, but to see just how shitty itโ€™s gotten. Raw dog that site without the algos hiding away stuff from you and youโ€™ll see that itโ€™s down to spam accounts and gamer words.
@ancient_catbus this was basically my Meta purge playbook. After a couple of years away, the idea of posting that many of photos of *myself* online feels so strange. You just lose your appetite for the platform as a whole.
@ancient_catbus bUt wHaT aBoUt My AuDiEnCe
@ancient_catbus just deleted it yesterday. Fuck it
@ancient_catbus so many times already iโ€™ve started typing a dumb joke post into twitter, and then realized more people would appreciate it on jorts and brought it here instead
@ancient_catbus which, first of all, sorry,
@ancient_catbus @makeitsnow r u kidding? i am so happy every time i see you!
@old_baby @ancient_catbus thatโ€™s honestly so nice! i am forever either joking that my posts are bad or being extremely serious and correct that they are the best ever, but in earnest, thank you friend
@makeitsnow @ancient_catbus snow we are old twitter friends and you are one of my favorite longtime online friends
@ancient_catbus this is very hard as a pure reply guy ๐Ÿ˜ช
@ancient_catbus 2 days on mastodon and I already wanted to hurry up transitioning my follows and getting off twitter.