Mastodawn

i have a weird idea that i'd like some input on from fellow canadians specifically about mastodon/the fediverse. boosts very much appreciated!

i grew up in the 80s and 90s canada. there were rules about the % and types of "canadian content" broadcasted on tv/radio.

partly because of that, and federal-provincial funding credits, i got to grew up with canadian-produced tv series like the Beachcombers, The Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup, The Raccoons, North of 60, The Elephant Show, Degrassi Jr/Sr High. it's a big list, and i'm sure you remember a lot more. some of it was great. some of it sucked. but all of it was very weird and canadian.

there was nothing i was fiercely prouder of than being canadian, because it was all around me.

and the in the 2000s some of that changed. cancon weakened. american productions got a huge foothold here, and suddenly we became inundated with american pop tv and music. i watched teens/adults become infatuated with US pop lifestyle, mostly because - i think! - we just didn't produce anything worth watching or listening to. even cbc.ca is 50% american headlines now, and it's painful

here's where mastodon comes in. i'm seeing that process happen again on masto. canadians posting endlessly about american politics and pop culture. i just checked the live feed of the largest masto instance in canada, and it was 100% american news opinions.

what i don't see - and please correct me if i'm wrong - is a cancon-oriented masto instance or fedi presence. one that *specifically* is organized around boosting/organizing/frontpaging canadian stories with canadian people in them.

i want to talk about our utterly unwatchable modern canadian tv series. or just how lame cbc radio 1's pop culture interviews are. or how heartbroken i was to see the team canada women's team lose a nailbiter.

i love that the fediverse was built around internationalism, but i've watched two generations of kids grow up with weak ties to their local weirdo canuck culture. they deserve a place where canadian stuff is front-and-centre, even if it sucks and we know it. i want to know the local news in coal harbour and fort st john and churchill.

what would that look like on the fediverse? would it be a masto instance? or something else?

feel free to reply here, or just write something up and tag with #canadaverse

#canada #fedizen #canadaverse #yeg #alberta #bc #saskatchewan #manitoba #yukon #nunavut #quebec #novascotia #ontario #newbrunswick #newfoundland #nwt

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Rachel Stantz Feb 24

@vga256 I’m from the US, but since childhood, some of my favorite television shows have been cancon, either through Nickelodeon, PBS, CBC, or just random Internet links. It’d be a damn shame if such a wonderful cultural treasure were lost to future generations. I’m glad you’re trying to do something about it.

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vga256 Feb 24

@arjache it's funny that so many of those old shows made it over the border at the time - i'm still amazed at the number of people who grew up with Tintin or Babar or Degrassi over the border (to be fair - all of those shows were international productions)

it just weirds me out that the canadian dream from 2000-2020 was to become more american, and no one seemed to find that troubling. we lost all of those culture-defining shows by our own lack of care. :(

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Pinchy63 🇨🇦

@vga256 @arjache
There are lots of Canadian content on CBC. I love their shows. I post clips from This Hour Has 22 mins all the time. I would try blocking certain hashtags like USPoli, Trump, ICE etc and try following Canadian content hashtags. On the fediverse we get to create our feeds to what we want to see. It takes some time but it can be done. Good luck!