Two excellent, in-depth guides to Mastodon, which should answer many of your questions, are here:

1. An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon by joyeusenoelle: https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon

2. Nikodemus' Guide to Mastodon: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D9gfeKg_-hlsU66R-dLEvUeyMsqEfyIx2pnfUeX0t_E/edit#heading=h.j95atvlbfrn5

*PLEASE BOOST THIS POST* so more people can see this information in their timelines, thank you so much! ❤️

To boost, just click on the boost button below this post, as indicated by the red arrow in the attached image (the icon may vary a bit, by app):

#JohnMastodon is proof that things *CAN* go viral here on Mastodon, but the key is that *YOU* are the algorithm. The reason that the John Mastodon meme showed up on other people's timelines is because so many users boosted the posts.

The lesson here is: please don't just favourite something if you really enjoyed it; BOOST it so that other people can enjoy it, too! This is the only reason why I bother to create as large a social graph as I can on Mastodon—to act as an amplifier. You can, too!❤️😉