In January 2023, I became a member of Mastodon, and officially left Twitter behind. It was one of the best things I did for myself.

While I made some great friends on TW (now called X) for the most part it’s a world filled with malcontents. People who have little regard for others, and feed on negativity – a bit of hell on Earth. I left a place where people hide behind keyboards and cowardly attack others with malice, and without regret. When you are faceless, it’s very easy to attack someone or be on your worst behavior when you don’t have to look someone directly in the eye and see all the hurt you have caused.

I was sent an invitation to join Mastodon by someone I had met on Twitter. Yes, one of the nice ones. She thought I’d enjoy Apobangpo, a server (what Mastodon refers to as an instance), because she and I shared a love of BTS. While BTS is the centralized theme, we freely discuss numerous topics because the folks there have an open mind. And I’m also able to talk with people on other servers/instances regarding, astronomy, photography, gardening, animals… well, you name it.

Mastodon has restored my faith and reassured me that sanity does prevail and that I can have normal adult conversations – actual discussions. It has given me back a sense of normalcy and security.

So, what IS Mastodon?

Social networking that’s not for sale.

Your home feed should be filled with what matters to you most, not what a corporation thinks you should see. Radically different social media, back in the hands of the people.

Mastodon is a decentralized social network made up of independent servers organized around specific themes, topics, or interests.

People can join servers, follow each other, engage in conversations, and otherwise do all sorts of things they’d expect to do on a social network like Twitter. And there are no ads. And no algorithms.

Think of a Mastodon server as a mini social network or a forum. Usually, a server is organized around a specific interest, topic, or industry. Once you’ve joined a server, you can follow, reply to, and engage with anyone on Mastodon, no matter what server they’re on.

And I was reminded of this recently when I read an article stating how Mastodon is growing in popularity. It’s easy to understand why.