At the time of writing this, I've been using Mastodon for only a day, but boy do I already have things to say about it. I don't want to make a giant into to this, so let's get right into it!

First, a little bit of background.

To those of you which don't know Mastodon, or haven't quite understood it yet, worry not! for I will try to explain it to you (without 20 buzzwords)

Mastodon, at it's core, is a Microblogging Social Media platform similar to Twitter in a couple of core ways. It is not identical, nor does it have feature parity, but in terms of the featureset that is the best comparison I can give. However, there are some HUGE differences between Twitter and Mastodon that make it unique, not only in comparison to Twitter but also Social Media as a whole. For instance, Mastodon is Decentralized and Federated, meaning that there's not just one company hosting one server, but rather that anyone can host their own server whilst still being able to talk to eachother; Kind of like how E-Mail doesn't require everyone to use the same E-Mail provider, anyone from any instance/server can talk to eachother, follow eachother, and do all the usual stuff.

This also means that actually beginning to use Mastodon can be a little bit more complex than you're used to, due to the new parameters you have to account for when choosing where you want to sign up. I would generally recommend Mastodon.social, Mastodon.online or mstdn.social if you're unsure of what general purpose instance to pick, though there is more than enough instances for you to choose; Not only are there enough General Purpose instances to pick from, but also many specialized in certain hobbies, activites in general, or even languages.

Now that we got the boring stuff out of the way...

My experience with Mastodon.

Whilst I did take a good amount of time to choose which instance I wanted to sign up on, I eventually settled on mstdn.social and my adventure began from there.

I began by setting up my profile. You know, the usual stuff: Profile Picture, Banner image, a bio, and then came profile links.

Profile links are quite interesting, as they're the only way that you can actually verify that you're the person hosting the account, all without human approval! The process is quite simple:

1. Add a link to your mastodon to a website you operate / moderate / whatever
2. Add that site to your Profile Links
3. Mastodon will automatically detect the link you've added to the page, and mark e.g your Blog or whatever other page you linked to as verified

This is quite an interesting verification process, which doesn't involve any human verifying who you are manually, nor does it require any personal information from you.

From there, I went further down the Rabbit Hole, with the Explore Tab. If the name didn't make it clear, this is a place which is useful to find new content which is popular on your instance right now (or at least, that's how I understood it). It was quite useful for me to start out, and find some interesting people on the same Mastodon instance for me to follow, so that I can curate my Feed with the content that I want. Talking about content...

There is no algorithm deciding what you see. You are free to decide that yourself on Mastodon. Instead of an algorithm deciding what you see based on retention and popularity, you can curate your feed with the content you actually want to see by following accounts or hashtags. This way you can find content you're interested in without it being thrown into your face together with content you might not even like. Unlike on Twitter, where controversial topics were seemingly thrown into the mix on purpose.

But wait, there's more! Because most instances are hosted by individuals, people have the ability to make their own Rules for their instances, thus resulting in some instances with very strict rules, and some with more laid-back ones. There are even some which have no rules at all, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend going there.

And I am STILL not done yet! Of course, you might be wondering how I've actually been doing on Mastodon, and the answer to that: I've been doing freakin great. Unlike how it usually is on Twitter, I did not meet anyone being excessively toxic, or mean AT ALL, despite what you might expect from places like Twitter. Infact, I had some really nice conversations on there already.

"Okay, but what do you actually think of all this?"

Well, if it wasn't obvious, Mastodon really hit a soft spot somewhere in me that I didn't know I had. I got genuinely excited when I first joined it and realized that this is exactly what I always imagined "Social Media" should mean:

• No more for-profit corporations behind them
• No more Paywalls, No more Algorithms
• No more begging for mercy to big brands.

It's really something that I've come to enjoy quite a lot after only a day of use, and that I will probably continue to use for quite a while.

I can only encourage all of you to try it as well! At least if you're on Twitter for the actual social part, and not just for trolling or NSFW content. As a Social Media platform, Mastodon is really shaping up to be something, maybe even something big.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a Twitter-killer — And that's a good thing.

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Thanks for reading! I wish you a good rest of the day, evening, night, or whatever other time you're reading this!