Several weeks back I posted a poll asking where we should meet up online now that Twitter’s jumped the shark and all the good people are disappearing. Of course, stupid Mark Zuckerberg had to go and ruin the fun by announcing Threads on basically the same day and immediately registering fifteen bajillion users in thirty seconds. (Of course, most of them immediately said, “Oo wait what ick get it off get it off get it off!” and learned that if you try to delete the app, it also deletes your Instagram…)
But that’s neither here nor there. People filled out the survey (though not nearly as many as I’d hoped), and they deserve to see the results. So here we go!
First, I asked what accounts people already had:
Not much of a surprise here. Once you remove Twitter from the equation, Facebook and Instagram are the logical leaders. They’re also the oldest kids on the block. Nice to see Mastodon making a showing, though. And I’m happy to see that Tiktok is not taking over this conversation.
So, then, where would people prefer that we go?
And it’s Mastodon for the win, just edging out Bluesky!
Sure, we only got 15 votes, so that’s a difference of one vote. But nobody said this was binding 🙂
As I said at the beginning, Threads really screwed this up by just kind of saying, “Hi, we’re the elephant in the room.” Everybody’s on it, practically by default, but (a) the app’s terrible, (b) there’s no desktop support, and (c) nobody’s really on it yet. So it’s not like there’s a clear winner yet.
Where Will We End Up?
Here’s what’s going to happen over the next few days. I’m going to leave up my automatic posting of blog entries to Twitter, mostly because, why not, it doesn’t cost me anything, and it’s easy traffic. But I don’t think you’re going to be seeing any live conversation from me there anymore—no dropping quick links I found. No asking random questions I just thought of. I need to focus on building a new following on a new site.
I think we all have to give Threads a chance, whether we like it or not. They’ll change a few things in the app, and suddenly, it’ll be where everybody wants to be. So, if it’s not obvious, you can find me there at ShakespeareGeek. Does anybody know how to link that? I’m on a desktop.
But Mastodon’s the most active community, and it was the place where most people said they have an account and want to go. So it’s only logical that I go there as well. You can find me here: https://toot.community/@ShakespeareGeek I know, it’s weird how all Mastodon servers have their own host. It takes some getting used to. But it’s cool – they all talk to each other.
Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
Romeo and Juliet Act IV Scene III
I’ve been trying a number of different platforms, and I think Mastodon best suits my own desires. But I’d love to have a critical mass of people to follow—particularly people who are interested in Shakespeare. Strings has way, way too much random stuff I don’t want to see (including obscene and racist usernames that appear whether you want them to or not). Instagram doesn’t have much back-and-forth. The Shakespeare Subreddit is perhaps a bit overwhelming. And Mastodon doesn’t have enough people (yet) to bounce ideas off and become the vibrant community I’m really hoping for.
So . . . Is anyone up to join the Shakespeare conversation over on Mastodon with me?