@LianaBrooks Before I found the Fediverse, I had never been a social media user (save Reddit) – no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, no nuthin'. Mastodon, and later Pixelfed and Lemmy, turned out to be everything I wanted social media to be, and nothing that kept me away from the others. Mastodon is my main social media, and it works great for me, and federation makes it easy to follow all kinds of accounts.

@LianaBrooks
Yes and yes for over 3 years. I see it as a street full of independant coffee shops and bars. You can pop in and listen and join in to conversations. No adverts, no algorithms forcing things on you. Left Twitter after 12 years when Elon took over, but also because the negativity and trolling was unbearable. You do have to work a little harder here looking for content but I'd rather that than being force fed a corporate agenda. Social media how it should (used to) be...

@LianaBrooks Yes, this is the only social media account I have, and there are lots of cats.

@LianaBrooks

Yes.

I started by joining a thriving instance and watching the Local and Federated feeds.

Then I started following hashtags.

Then I found people posting things I liked and started following people.

It took time, months, but I have a very active feed and about two dozen Lists for when I just want to see a certain type of Toot.

Things I miss:

• The artists I followed on Instagram. I'm now supporting two of them via Patreon or Liberapay because they also post here.
• The onslaught of dank memes.

RE: https://mas.to/@osma/115926080124459252

Neither fedi in general nor Mastodon in specific maintain an editorial control over the content you see. This is not media. This is a social network.

But yeah, it's working for me. Whatever the definition of "working" is supposed to be.
@LianaBrooks

@LianaBrooks yes, and kind of. It helps with my social needs more than any other platform* has, and my mental health is a lot less negatively impacted by it than it was when my primary social media was Instagram, Tumblr, TikTok, or Twitter. But when it comes to organization, it's difficult to get involved with a lot of local projects/organizations, because there's exactly one that I know of that posts on the fediverse and for staying in touch with people I meet in person, it rarely works

@LianaBrooks Yep and my mental health has improved significantly. A bit too much moaning about Trump but that’s what filters are for.

@LianaBrooks Yes, and yes.

@LianaBrooks

Yes it is I!

And yes, it's sorta working for me.

But I wish I had friends talking to me AND with me.

@LianaBrooks all of these problems could be solved by more leftists making an effort to get away from big tech, so it's not the software itself that makes it not fully work for me. I blame Zuck

*I'm answering as if you said the fediverse, because in this case I don't feel it's worth distinguishing the social networking I get from Mastodon, GTS, Misskey, etc from each other. Technically Mastodon is still my main social media though

@LianaBrooks yup

@LianaBrooks

Yes & yes

@LianaBrooks I am. Works we'll in my view.

@LianaBrooks yes and yes.

@LianaBrooks You probably won't get replies from many people who's not using it as their primary, for logical reasons.

@LianaBrooks yes, and yes

@LianaBrooks I use lemmy/piefed as my primary, but I was never a huge twitter user either, so I'm not really the best at finding and doing things on mastodon. It works, though, I'll sometimes post on piefed using hashtags that show up on mastodon, or tag communities in a post. So, I use it, but it's secondary

@LianaBrooks Yes, it is.

@LianaBrooks yes, yes.

@LianaBrooks mosdefs