You’re just not a fan of the micro blogging format. I myself have never had a personal twitter account but tried mastodon a while back. I eventually stopped using it because I had nothing much to post and I didn’t like the short form style for having a conversation, especially if there are multiple people commenting. I much prefer forum style discussion because of nested threads (lemmy, reddit, etc.).

Also, microblogging has a personal element in that it kinda matters who is posting, vs forums like lemmy which are more about the topic posted rather than the person who posted it.

Unlike Twitter, Mastodon seems to rely much more on stable hashtags for discovery. That’s probably because there’s no “the algorithm” like on Twitter. So with Mastodon you very well can subscribe to hashtags and expect them to get reused over time.

Sounds like you understand it pretty well. And dislike it.

That’s it. You didn’t miss a thing.

At its best, twitter was group texting, but in public. its evolved into a semi-broadcast form with the expectation that many will read and few will engage, and in both twitter and mastodon the tooling is built for that.

within that, you follow people because they produce content you want, or because you intend to interact. Hashtags are there for topics you are intersted in so you can consume in a more ad-hoc way

I’ve never been a Twitter/microblog user, but here’s how I gather it worked, presented in the order in which it was developed.

Do you ever think “oh, that’s a funny/interesting thought I had”, but there’s no one around to tell? Or not enough people and you think it had more potential than that? Microblog. Unlike a forum, you just dump in out into the void as-is. It’s a broadcast. Like if every account was a personal /r/showerthoughts.

From there we make it so I can subscribe to my friends. Now when they post their funny thoughts, or even just being like “I feel like tacos tonight, anyone in SF down?” I’ll get their post. Now it’s kinda like open group texting. Except I don’t choose who sees my random thoughts, they self-select. I just broadcast things out there and whoever might be interested might be interested.

That was basically all that microblogs were, at the beginning. A stream of non-topic’d stuff I said, and you can follow me if you want to hear more like it.

But sometimes I’m surrounded by strangers, like at a conference. At these points I want to know what random people I don’t follow are all saying about FooCamp. Search already exists so I can see all tweets with the word “cat” in it, but I can’t find a way to fit FooCamp organically into every post, so hashtags get invented as a social convention to say “that was my message, but here are some other keywords for search purposes”. Later they got linkified and so people started putting them inline, but originally they were just at the end and just for extra categorization.

So now the tool does two things. I can just broadcast out any thought I have without having to care about where to put it, etc. It all goes on my feed and anyone who has chosen to care about me will see it. And I choose who I care to receive broadcasts from because they’re cool, and it doesn’t matter what they’re talking about. But also I can tag a particular message with some categories, and that will allow strangers to see my messages if they happen to be looking for messages in that category, but obviously a single message can be in multiple categories.

Then later famous people and governments showed up, and people followed them because they love go hear what famous people talk about. But if you don’t follow them, then you don’t hear from them.

That’s basically it! So it’s kinda like the opposite of a reddit/lemmy/forum/usenet model. Rather than topics that have content posted by people, it’s people who post content that sometimes has a topic. Like a large group-chat (among friends or colleagues) where you’re not really sure who is in the chat, but you don’t have to care. You can prefer one over the other (I know I do), but fundamentally they’re not trying to solve the same problem as lemmy, they’re just a totally different model for communication. More like a friend group than a discussion group.

Twitter-style seems to make sense if you’re a public figure or an organization. As a private individual it doesn’t make as much sense unless all you want to do is follow the people/orgs you’re interested in. I tend to use the Lemmy/Reddit model way more.

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Hashtags serve several different functions on Twitter. I’m not sure how similar Mastadon is in this respect, but here’s some of the purposes:

Areas of interest
So if you support a particular sports team, or like a particular TV show, or whatever, you can search for (and use) hashtags around that topic to find discussion and to make your thoughts more likely to be seen by those interested. These hashtags are likely to remain relevant over a long period of time, since their subject is a permanent, ongoing thing.

Trending news/issues
When something notable is happening in the world, hashtags are a good way of related information. This could be a sports event, or a breaking news story or whatever. These hashtags are usually going to be relevant only for a limited period of time, but they’re useful for in-the-moment info/discussion.

Jokes/Messages/Emphasis
This is like an ultracompressed and more focused version of the above. So if someone posts something they think, and uses a hashtag (which changes the text colour and thus draws the eye), it can be simply to highlight that message, a bit like using bold or italics. This is only likely to be relevant to the individuals involved in the conversation, although followers may get something from it too. They’re usually intended for one-off use, not for long or even medium term grouping of ideals or information - although their use can also be part of a wider trend.

See, for example, instances of people adding #OKBoomer onto a tweet - it’s adding tone of voice and attitude to the main tweet, but it also ties into a wider trend of similar messages relating to intergenerational conflict or disagreement. It can also be used in an ironic way, referring to the more earnest usage of the tag, in order to make a humorous, or self-deprecating point.

Overall hashtags can be very versatile and useful. And even fun.

#ThankYouForComingToMyTEDTalk

Basically it’s user/brand centric and is why it’s boring as hell. The evil “algorithm” Twitter had tried to add relevant topics to your feed instead of the same copy&paste person posting the same political opinion for the millionth time.

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Twitter in the old days and Mastodon now I treat as custom news feeds, you subscribe to people or entities you’re interested in hearing news from and there you have it. I find it much less useful as a platform for having discussions or browsing for pleasure than Reddit in the old days and Lemmy now, which as you say is topic-focused rather than individual focused.

Microblogging is for following individuals and for general public sentiment vs forums which are for following specific topics and communities

The only use I’ve ever had for Twitter was THE public place to post notices on the internet. Bands, comedians and other touring performers could post concert dates, etc.

The end of that Sparah commercial from Virgin Mobile “I’m so confused” “That right there? That’s a tweet. Tweet that shit!” is mostly what actually happened though, which is why I didn’t have a Twitter account for long.

I didn’t get it until I found the artists on Twitter. Unfortunately, they’re now scattering all over the place with Elon’s bullshit.

I have one artist friend on Mastodon, Arsbin@mastodon.art, but so far she’s the only one.

I never cared much for the political or celebrity bullshit on Twitter.

Can’t speak for Twitter as I wasn’t really on it, but Mastodon I pretty much use for the same topics as I use Lemmy, except if it’s a longer more discussion-wanting post it goes on one and if it’s a short casual posts it goes on the other. Don’t bother much with the home feed I just stick with my topics of interest.

Often, I’ll post to Lemmy from Mastodon when something is relevant to both, which means I’m chatting to both groups at once in the replies.

Right now there’s a communal crafting event going on over there with its own hashtag, and tons of people I’ve never interacted with before are taking part, so that’s fun and a nice wholesome time.

It’s just a slightly different format for talking about the same stuff, from my pov.