I’ve noticed a sharp increase in just GARBAGE re-toots (which wind up on the trending page) in the past year or so as more people migrate to Mastodon. Just the worst of Twitter offal finding new life. The trending page is where I get a bit disheartened. When I want to be reminded of what Mastodon is really like, I just click on the Federated tab and see all the random posts from normal people (and bots, so many bots) around the world. Way less snark and self-importance there.

It’s also one of the reasons I was disheartened that .social removed access to the Federated and Local tabs (I got them back by making a complaint–I’ll eventually migrate to a smaller instance). I get that it’s crazy hard to moderate those. But taking that away made Mastodon feel smaller and more like “every other social media.” I don’t want that. I came to Mastodon because it’s different.