It’s great to see mastodon showing up meaningfully for things like the Texas Observer, but it seems—from my subjective POV—super uneven. Making a really strong case for the best parts of, for example, bookworld/literary twitter to put down stronger roots here is going to take active support and community-building, especially when most journalists are still not active here (and are frequently reviled for being journalists at all).

Right now, a lot of fedi advocates are asking authors and artists to leave the social media sites that have allowed them to get by, but without doing much/anything to support those newcomers once they arrive here—even leaving aside the old-guard pushback against “self promotion.”

And idk, “staying on twitter for your work makes you the object of my disgust,” is maybe not the persuasive tool a lot of people here seem to believe it is. 🤷🏻

Please definitely post here with your favorite counterexamples and thriving zones, I want to be wrong in my cranky feelings!
@kissane can't tell is this is sarcasm or not, if not I'd be happy to but if it is I'm sorry the experience hasn't been as rewarding here as Twitter. It frustrates me from time to time too, mostly for the lack of search but I digress

@AbandonedAmerica Zero sarcasm! I love to be wrong, especially when I’m grumpy.

I love a lot of mastodon, myself, but loads of my favorite writers and researchers and artists haven’t made the jump yet, and I feel like it’s not going to happen without more effort from this side of the fence. And I’d be willing to put in some effort to help make it easier.

@kissane thanks for clarifying, I didn't want to be rude by assuming incorrectly. I definitely think there are things that the community refuses to do (search, QRT, threads) that would make this SO much better for creators. But I will say that my personal experience is most people have been understanding of the struggles to make it as a creator who needs community support - that's probably the same as Twitter but with about 95% less hostile randos. But it's not the same for everyone, I know