Mastodon, Let's Just Be Friends

Dear Mastodon, 

Hi there!  I want to come clean. You're great and all, but a harsh reality: you're falling WAY behind the rest of the pack...kind of like what happened to the real Mastodons. 

When Elon Musk announced he was buying Twitter in 2022, I, like a lot of people, was hesitant at the time. Twitter was the main social media page for most of us, but Elon had yet to show us how horrible and self-centered he was.  He claimed at the time he would remain neutral politically and would not change Twitter to help Trump and Republicans.

By 2023, it was clear he was lying. He started to turn Twitter into the cesspool it currently is.  I, like many others, started looking for alternatives to Twitter.  I was hearing from multiple people to "try this site," and "try this site." What I ended up doing was starting four new social media pages based on suggestions from friends.

One of them I don't even remember (Hive???).  It was clear within weeks that the site was worthless, and I closed my account very quickly.

The other three were Mastodon, Threads, and BlueSky.

BlueSky didn't start off fast, but within the last year, I have jumped to over 25,000 followers. I really recommend BlueSky as it is a pleasant, fun, positive social experience, and it leans left politically.  There is no reason on the planet that any Democrat should be treating any other social media site with a higher priority than BlueSky. 

Threads was interesting, as initially it looked like it was going to be my biggest audience. I was at about 2500 followers there until November of 2024.  Then, Mark Zuckerberg went to Trump and kissed his ring. IMMEDIATELY I lost hundreds of followers, and my posts no longer seemed to be getting seen.  I've slowly lost followers, resting currently at around 1700, which seems to be the number Threads has set as their "well, if we purge their followers any more, they might shut down their accounts" level. I pick up 25 to 50 followers a day on BlueSky.  Picking up 20 new followers a week on Threads SHOULD be happening. It's not. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be there.

But Mastodon...you've never really connected. I have only picked up 258 followers there in 2 and a half years.  Those 258 are great, and they interact with me regularly, but I only have so much time in the day, and the lack of connection on Mastodon is leading me to have to change.

Well, that and the rise of Substack.  Substack has really taken off, and I am going to give that social media page a chance for a bit.

I'll no longer be posting the litany of posts I've been doing on Mastodon. I will occasionally post something there, but it will be limited.  Also, I probably won't interact too much with the followers there.

I'm not meaning to hurt anyone's feelings. I really appreciate all my followers, but I can no longer justify the time commitment I'm making to Mastodon.

Follow me at these places:

BlueSky - @mattmcneilshow

Facebook - Progressive Citizen X/The Matt McNeil Show

Threads - @matthewemcneil1

Substack - @mattmcneilshow

Feel free to curse me out.  All my best on Mastodon.  PEACE!