Mastodawn

I had an epiphany about why BlueSky's forever invite system is pissing me off so much.

It's because it's designed-to.

Right now, a bunch of the talented people I follow are semi-gleefully posting their accounts as they get their golden tickets into the cool new place. And talented people, as they get their very few invites, they are inviting their cool talented friends to go hang out, but otherwise the rabble who only followed or commissioned them have to stay on the outside, because there aren't enough invites to go around.

That breeds resentment. It immediately shows folks where they are in the pecking order, and a majority of folks are going to realize they are lower than they felt they were or want to be.

Eppy NWS Aug 18, 2023

And what makes Social Networks the most money? Angry people showing up to start drama. There are already folks starting to clap-back at artists posting their bluesky profiles going "STOP ASKING US TO FOLLOW YOU THERE. WE CAN'T YET. THAT'S BY DESIGN. THERE AREN'T ENOUGH INVITES FOR THE NORMIES" and the FIRST thing a lot of the normies are gonna do when they get on bluesky are gonna go digging in people's prior posts looking for 'God. this place is so fun and free without all the fuckin' normies', doing whatever the bluesky equivalent of a QRT is, and reading them for filth right there in public.

And bam: The artist and their followers are now embroiled in drama, staying extra long and providing bluesky with extra ad views, probably paying bluesky for some extra features like the ability to quiet-block whatever normie or make extra-long rebuttal posts and post higher quality GIFs about how the normie's mother is a whore.

Eppy NWS Aug 18, 2023

And yeah, the artists being like "I AM SO GODDAMN HAPPY I GOT CHOOSENED IN THE GREAT BLUESKY CHOOSENING" is... not helping. And that goes double for the artists that loudly flounce other twitter alternatives for not having "good engagement" when they only made 8 posts and didn't interact with anyone else...

Eppy NWS Oct 12, 2023

*~ Two months happen*

Full disclosure: because I had a friend who kept wanting to share bsky memes with me, I went ahead and used one of their (now plentiful) invites to sign up a smutty/hot-take alt (this is also my smutty alt). The invites also seem to have grown exponentially so I don't feel like people are going to be fighting over them for much longer.

It feels like early twitter did: Lots of people and art and playfulness and no ads, kludgy apps (including/especially the web app) with base-level features that crash/hang frequently, and the most unpleasant folks are those over-defending their decision to pick that particular site (remember how some people were really "I would NEVER facebook/myspace Twitter is where it's AT!" back in 2008? Yeah, they're back and easily muted.)

TL:DR, the community is not-bad over there but they sure settled-into the worst new e-space. I don't think I'll use it to actually buy/commission anything.

ＣＭＤＲ░Ｎｏｖａ🌊(駅陰ヌ)Aug 25, 2023

@EppyNWS If it is of any consolation, I've found very little "engagement" for my work as a music maker and otherwise artist on Bluesky. The value seems to be majority placed on posting like a dril wannabe and nothing else

That aside, if you would like an invite code, I have one

Eppy NWS Aug 25, 2023

@cmdr_nova I appreciate it, but at this point, I'm not going to join until I can walk-in.

I have always hated the "artificially long line around the block that makes a place seem more popular than it is" business model. My reaction is always "Wow, you seem to have a very vexing 'too many customers' problem. I will make sure I don't add to it and make sure everyone else knows they shouldn't add to it either."

Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇Aug 25, 2023

A *published author* and *artist* gave me my code with such lovely praise of my sharp wit and grasp of the human condition that I didn't feel I could say no, and though I like them, I'm kinda pissed. Any social media account that you intend to use and enjoy takes a collosal amount of work, like a garden. If you do not tend it there will be no yield.

Maybe those bitching about their engagement should HIRE someone to do the work. My rates are reasonable.

Eppy NWS Aug 25, 2023

@HCBunny I mean, My take has always been "Your Own Website that feeds out to a myriad swath of ever changing social media accounts (that link back to YOW) will be The Biggest Pain In The Ass but also The Most Profitable in terms of real engagement and the strongest strategy against whatever social media's enshittification and eventual collapse."

This is proven by the fact that the first step in enshittification is to make it real hard to let people follow links out of the social media's walled garden and setting up lots of perks to posting the original content inside whatever social media site instead.

Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇Aug 25, 2023

Lol. You mean Like T_____r is doing now?

Eppy NWS Aug 25, 2023

@HCBunny And like F________k did since the beginning and like I fear B_____y will do from the beginning as well.

The thing that was novel about T_____r is that it didn't do that... but started as soon as M__k took over because there was a massive 'we need to make money, throw up the walls and tollgates!" push.

I say I'll join B______y when I can walk in... but if it's also a "you have to join to be able read this person's posts so we can track what you like reading" I'll probably be more wary of joining at all.

Eppy NWS Aug 25, 2023

@HCBunny which makes all the "COME SEE THE FUN WE'RE HAVING INSIDE THE NEW BEEP BEEP BOOP BOOP SERATONIN CASINO" vibes around the Kool Kids getting into BlueSky even more gross: A lot of the Not Kool Kids can't see the fun they are having by design.

And when the invite numbers increase and more people can show up and see that the only thing appealing about the Digital SkyClub was that they were the only ones allowed-in... I feel the drama bomb will be epic, publicized, and monetized.

Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇Aug 25, 2023

I laugh because I was there before all the cool kids. The blog side of Adult Friend Finder is honestly pretty 🔥 in comparison.

Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇Aug 25, 2023

You want to hear a creepy thing? I've never had that moment when it was obvious my time spent on The Internet was being parsed for clues until recently. I follow some hashtags here, for reasons people do - in the past month all four of my T_____r feeds have been heavily showing me those things - even though I don't follow ANY accounts for such things.

And I don't use the accounts anymore. They're only locked and maintained.

Eppy NWS Aug 25, 2023

@HCBunny Oh, like how you'll search for a product and then you get stalked on the Internet by ads for the product for the next month until you buy it or search for a different product?

Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇Aug 25, 2023

Yeah, like that but a whole other level.

D2 Oct 12, 2023

@EppyNWS @HCBunny wait, your ads *stop*?! I’m forever stalked by ads no sane person would want: “ah, I see you looked up toilet brushes *once*; here are three months of ads”. “You have shown zero equestrian interest, but googled ‘dressage’ — now we’re going to give you ads for vets, trailers, tack, and riding apparel until your eyes bleed.”

Baral'heia Stormdancer ΘΔ🐲Aug 25, 2023

@EppyNWS I mean, I get it if someone doesn't vibe with Mastodon. There are certain features of this site that are unwieldy at best, especially if you use the default web client, and that can make it more difficult to use. A friend of mine, for instance, just could not wrap their mind around how cross-instance interactions work when you're not following the user who made the post. I get it, but the whole "copy this url into the search bar on your instance first then you can favorite/boost it" thing is way more cumbersome than it should be. I'm hoping that the new version of Mastodon that is releasing soon will help in this regard - it's supposed to fix (or at least smooth over) a bunch of these sorts of user experience issues.

That said, I can't lie, it is still frustrating to see people who bounce to bsky without really giving Mastodon a real chance.

Eppy NWS Aug 25, 2023

@baralheia I don't mind people leaving mastodon fallow for a few years, perhaps forever.

I greatly mind folks getting salty and flouncing as dramatically as possible. Especially when most of the people who they were insulting on Mastodon can't follow them to BlueSky. They're gonna be the loudest most unfun whiners when BlueSky opens up and they keep having people who, likely as not, joined just to roast them... go viral with their roasts.

Baral'heia Stormdancer ΘΔ🐲Aug 25, 2023

@EppyNWS Oh yeah for sure. I don't disagree with ya there.

Alexis Aug 25, 2023

@EppyNWS fucking Thank You for saying all this so succinctly, comrade.

HawkWolf (H. A. Kirsch)Aug 25, 2023

@EppyNWS will this have the effect of creating a Gab-esque echo chamber of furry artists who are like "wait are only other artists looking at my posts? that's not fun”

Eppy NWS Aug 25, 2023

@hakirsch Enh... Maybe? Furry artists seem to greatly enjoy looking at each other's posts.

Where I think the problems will arise when people who DONT want to see furry content keep getting shown it and get stroppy about it. (I've heard scuttlebutt that this has already happened because BlueSky is trying to use some sort of AI suggestion algorithm generator that doesn't need as many humans and is therefore doomed to be excruciatingly shitty and laughably bad). The other problem is the whole "Furry artists keep passing around the same $300 to each other for commissions and make lots of art but never actually make money" trap which means they'll have to go back to Twitter/furaffinity/less-fun-places to try and pull coin and will, likely as not, bitch loudly about it. Probably right when all the normies show up and are doing initial checks to see which people to buy art from... Hilariously warded away from the "Grumpy" ones who would've made bank if patient...

Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️Oct 12, 2023

@EppyNWS What is QRT? 🤔

Eppy NWS Oct 12, 2023

@Orca Quote ReTweet.

Basically the ability to re-post a tweet, but with your added context above it... usually to start drama or otherwise call out the tweet's content/author. The most common and most dramatic often being a simple "This you?" as a response to a tweet, quoting a tweet that makes the original tweet hypocritical.

ActivityPub/Mastodon has deliberately not allowed an "easy" button QRT to stave off some of the more dramatic tendencies of Online Humans (You actually have to copy and paste and/or screenshot whatever take on a toot... usually giving a few extra seconds to consider whether you really need to do a callout/call-in/hot-take/etc or just block/avoid whomever.) BlueSky I think had it at launch.

Spinny Oct 12, 2023

@EppyNWS I just can't be bothered with Social Media any more and the division is helping me walk away. Twitter's a bonfire, I've never put the effort in to make Mastodon work great. I do use Facebook to keep tabs on family but think I'm going to purge a load of non-family stuff.

Laberpferd Oct 12, 2023

@EppyNWS Works as intended

Everyone (myself was included) is desperately trying to get an invite code to be able to see whats going on BS

Espically seeing how all the thousands of accounts of interesting here on the Fediverse have been abandoned saying they are on BS now

No, im not happy