This is primarily a courtesy notice for the two (2) people who still regularly follow me on Mastodon instead of elsewhere, but I also wanted to explain my thought process here…
I’ve been keeping up a Mastodon account as a mirror for Twitter et al for a good six or seven years now. Initially I championed the platform as much as I could, as an open and resilient alternative to Twitter, one that would survive even if it stops being regularly maintained.
But lately I’ve realized… I just don’t get any joy out of being there anymore. I’ve talked at length about my hangups with Mastodon and the fediverse at large, but ultimately it has nothing to do with that – I just don’t click with the people or the culture there, and perhaps I never did to begin with.
Bluesky has lately been my platform of choice as a Twitter replacement, not just because of the community there but also because it does everything I liked about Mastodon, except better. It’s decentralized without being confusing, you can move servers without losing your history… and unlike Mastodon or even Twitter, the things I post actually get seen!
All the other features that Bluesky didn’t replicate, that make Mastodon what it is – content warnings, local timeline, server blocks – are things that never appealed to me to begin with, and feel like baggage that I am more than happy to shed.
So effective immediately, I will no longer be using Mastodon, because it does not bring me joy. My need for an alternative Twitter presence is fully met by Bluesky.
Unlike when I deprecated my Twitter accounts, I will not be maintaining an archive of my Mastodon accounts. I’m not gonna delete them or anything, but if those servers go down, that’s it! They’re gone. My use case for Mastodon was to maintain a separate archive of my history, and I no longer need it for that purpose.
(Although, after three or four server migrations – losing all my post history along the way – it was pretty bad at being an archive to begin with…!)
At one point in the last few years I was actively maintaining FIVE separate accounts: Twitter, Tumblr, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Cohost. I did this so that I could keep up with all of my friends as they began to scatter from the antics of Twitter’s new owner, and it was too much to keep up with. Now, finally, I am back to a much healthier balance – one shortform social media (Bluesky) and one longform social media (Tumblr). If you would like to keep following me, one of those is your best bet.
Thank you for keeping up with me for all these years, no matter where we ended up or when we met along the way 🙇♀️
skysometric
ALT
