Almost at my 3rd fediversary. I was trying to run a part of an election campaign where they only posted events to Instagram, Tiktok and Twitter. Not even to our planning channels. I got a Twitter account to know where and when things were happening, so that, you know, I can mobilize people to actually show up. 🫠

Twitter was a terrible place, and I refused to get TT or insta. Never saw the appeal of microblogging. @ryancoordinator had been trying to get me to join the fedi for ages. So I thought I'd try out this other thing.

Never really left after that. Doubled down here once I decided to stop posting on LinkedIn. So now you get all of my special interests: product, humanity, queer stuff, politics.

@mayintoronto digging into backups, i find a post from january of 2017:

> So I stumbled in here the other day from a link in a MetaFilter thread. The UI is pretty slick. I suppose I should figure out what's actually going on under the hood.

i was ambivalent about it all for a long time. i think social media as usually constituted is a bad idea on a bunch of fronts. but these days there's a set of people i'd really miss if i left here.

@mayintoronto I joined a little after Eugene made Mastodon. An anarchist friend of mine showed it to me and I immediately recognized it as the future of social media (along with the rest of the Fedi)

I wasn't very active at first, and I got a lot of shit from people for bringing my Twitter attitude with me, but slowly I saw the value in the difference and allowed myself to dive deeper into it's ways.

I slowly left Twitter and made this place my home a few years before Twitter became the dumpster fire that it is.

I love the Fedi. I support the Fedi as much as I am able through my humor, my kindness, and what little financial support I can give. The people here are wonderful, and I feel like I can contribute in meaningful ways.

And for all of that, I am grateful,

@mayintoronto A childhood friend suggested it to me when I was in a manic what-can-I-host phase in February of 2025. (Instance says July but let's just say some mistakes were made)

Stayed because it's real people using the internet as I think it was meant to be used. It's funny, enlightening, and full of whimsy.

I'd logged off social media in 2010 and this gave me a place that feels like home online.

It does lack auto-play music on profiles... but compromises must be made.

@mayintoronto

(1) Musk
(2) The people

A fair number of the people coming with me from Twitter, and a fair number of those having previously been with me on news:cam.misc, so in some cases people I've known since way back last century.

@mayintoronto
A) Musk's attitude.

B) desperation. (It was lonely, at first).

What keeps me here: careful curation of Many Lists of great people and orgs I've discovered and followed. And hashtags like #printmaking 🙌.

@mayintoronto Intrigued by the concept because @pzmyers was going on about it on his blog.

Later, joined as an experiment because I was bored and sad after my dog passed away.

Decided I generally like the community here.

Nothing to do with Elon or other social media platforms. Never had an interest in them.

@mayintoronto I left Facebook when they carded my mom, never really used Twitter and left it when Musk's purchase was announced. By then I wasn't interested in what centralized SM was offering. I heard about how AP fedi fought off the Gab thing. I figured if Twitter was pushing people away I would try it out along with them.

I've stayed because fedi feels like SM before anybody knew there was money in it, and I think federation is a potent tool for creating safe spaces to communicate

@mayintoronto When Musk bought Twitter.

While only part of my professional community made the transition, and nearly everyone who did left for Bluesky shortly after, this place felt better than social media ever had. I've stuck around because I'm more comfortable hanging out with the other weirdos in non-corporate space. I'm also pleased that at least on my feed I come across less self-righteous posturing on the Fedi than elsewhere.

@mayintoronto

Boring answer. I'm part of the November '22 wave.

@mayintoronto decided to nuke my Twitter when Elon Musk decided to cup Trumps balls and reverse the ban. At that point I knew it was a trash brand and platform.

What made me stay was the access to high quality news sources, culture of respect and no algorithm to man-in-the-middle my attention.

Plus people are funny and I get to feel like the things that I post are actually visible to the larger platform, at least in theory.

@mayintoronto

When ? Little after the purchased of Twitter by Elon Musk

Why ? The Twitter fall was a trigger to get interested in alternatives to centralized social networks. Mastodon was one of the Twitter alternatives, and then I entered the fediverse.

What made you stay ? I found interesting people to read through the fediverse and the fediverse networks are backed by a better philosophy.

@mayintoronto

1. Lump me in with the Musk escapees. I know I explored once many many years before that, but have no recollection as to instance, user name, or password. 🤷

2. Someone has to keep @LRRRonEarth and @Alice and @TheBreadmonkey in line. Not that that's _me_, but someone has to, and so I'm keeping an eye out for when that happens.

@mayintoronto I fled Twitter in October 2023 for Mastodon because everyone thought Twitter was going down in a ball of flames.

I stayed because everyone was so friendly that it rivalled the best times I had on Twitter.

@mayintoronto November 2022 to prepare to run away from Twitter

And people, people made me stay 😆

@mayintoronto I joined the Fediverse on March 24, 2022 for the reasons I explained in a blog post I published the same day:

https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/my-first-day-in-the-fediverse

I joined Mastodon a few months earlier than the initial rumors of Elon Musk acquiring Twitter.

I stayed for the same reasons: a combination of good conversations with and posts by genuinely passionate people who care, delivered by a non-algorithmic feed.

@mayintoronto I already had an unused account, but the real trigger was Musk buying Twitter.

And as I wasn't the only one to do so, doing so with friends helped a lot to stay.

@mayintoronto A few weeks after it was created because someone I knew on IRC suggested it. I didn’t stay because I didn’t understand it.

I came back a couple of years ago because of what twitter was becoming. I figured the fediverse out enough to connect to a few people here and I stayed.

I’m staying because I enjoy the kind of interactions I experience most often here. Other than one Discord channel used by musicians who are familiar with VCV Rack it is my only social media

@mayintoronto I can't remember exactly when I came here. Maybe three or four years ago when I was forced off Instagram by dogpiling bullies. About a year after leaving Facebook for being accused multiple times for "virtue signalling" while also reading far too many unmoderated news posts with death threats left to moulder in the comments section.

I still see horrible people posting horrible things here, but not nearly as many. I haven't been dogpiled. I haven't been threatened with death, although I've been told I deserve to starve to death.

I miss the internet from before social media. I wasn't made to fear for my life and livelihood back then.

@mayintoronto I joined a few years ago. I had left Facebook long long ago, and I left Twitter some years before joining fedi. I was still on Instagram though, mostly to post dog pics. But Instagram feeds were turning into a mess I didn't enjoy and stopped going there. That account has, since, been deleted.

Since I self-host a lot of stuff, I decided to try self-hosting mastodon. I did that for about a year, I think. I didn't manage to get any of my friends to join so I moved to beige party and killed my solo instance.

And here I am.

@mayintoronto I remember checking it out in 2017 because it had a higher character limit than Twitter, but I didn't catch on. in November of 2022 I moved here like many others. I've had to jump instances a couple of times but I migrated my account and kept the connections (even though I lost some good toots, RIP strangeobject and dot lol).

I moved here with a few long-term friends, so that helped me keep using it. I got to know many people from the instances I've been on and maintained those friendships. a lot more has organically developed.

the fedi has affirmed a lot of things about me that needed affirmations I can't always get in other spaces. I've learned so much. I feel less alone. there has been drama that's stressed me out and I've needed to manage some tendencies of feeling responsible for what's wrong with the world; this is more of an issue here than on corporate social media where it's more impersonal, but overall the fedi is still better for me.

I have developed pretty strong communities in other spaces too, both on- and offline, which helps me stay balanced. I try to get some of those friends to join here but they don't want to bother with it for various reasons. that's fine, though; it's a separate space for me to process things around different groups of people with different perspectives.

@mayintoronto You ask the loveliest questions! I came from Twitter in 2016 when the convergence of Trump 1.0 and the Brexit vote shook up my thinking about both US tech and political populism. I joined mastodon dot social which was small and quiet and 2018 I hopped in with aus.social.

I stay because people here make me want to work harder to figure out how we live without harming each other. Also, gardeners. I think these two things are connected.

Warmest thanks to @aussocialadmin and the @AusSocialMods for keeping the lights on.

@mayintoronto In 2017 when was still using Twitter, a German antifa trainspotter suggested I gave the Fediverse a try. I looked at it although at the time a larger portion of the timeline was in German and other languages, but I didn't see it as a big problem as I wanted to improve my German anyway.

I stayed due to the genuinely decent and community, one thing that sticks in my mind is how I tooted about the process of getting my driving licence in 2018 - I was well into my 40s, and finally needed it due to moving to more car-dependent region for work (and having an office in semi rural area)

Everyone was supportive and congratulated me when I passed my test in 2019 - even some of my mutuals who are full on eco warriors and have no love for cars!