Was nerver a big social media person, never really posted or interacted with a personal account on intagram,Facebook etc. When I, a couple of years ago, began filming and documenting my creations. I made a bunch of social media accounts on basically all the platforms(because thats what you are supposed to do). Got some followers, never in the thousands or even hundreds for that matter. But I figured it’s probably because I’m not trying to click-bait or follow the latest trends. I wanted to be genuine, still am. But the interactions often times felt like bots. A couple of Smiley’s, a like. Someone followed then never again an interaction with a post. I did set out to make things because I love making things and learning new skills, but got lost on the way. The lower the effort my post had the more interactions. 50-minute video of a woodworking project from start to finish with voice over and explanations, 10 views. 15 second video of a toy car rolling on a track, 2500 views.

And the incessant, follow for follow trends by grifters.

Dead internet theory rang in my head.

I missed the old internet and began dreaming about setting up my on forum with no bots allowed, like in the old days(Yes I’m old enough to remember). Then I learned that mastodon was part of the fediverse, but I had never heard of the fediverse, and mastodon I thought was like twitter for sysadmins.

I’ve almost completely transitioned to the fediverse now. I have yet to delete my YouTube account, but I now also have a peertube channel.

I’ve seen posts about It being hard to get followers on the fediverse, and mastodon. But I’d gladly post to the the ether, if that one in 50 posts is an actual human responding or liking what I do.

Thanks for reading.

  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    16 hours ago

    It’s why I only got into youtube and reddit.

    There, in the smaller more niche corners, you can still find genuine interactions. Less and less on reddit, but youtube seems to be going back towards small creators actually being discoverable.

    I recently stumbled into a vtuber on youtube with just a couple dozen viewers (1500 subscribers). Clearly doing it for fun, and with a chat slow enough to have a conversation about the game being played, both with her and the other viewers.

    Here on the fediverse, it is even smaller and more niche. Sometimes that means there’s no-one around. But when people are around, it’s people who are a lot more invested in conversing. On popular social media, people are there to turn their brains off, not on.

    Others already pointed out that all the problems exist here, too. But I believe that the nature of instances and communities, mean that the small corners that only get found by those who are interested, will always exist. No matter how big the fediverse one day gets.