The page you were looking for doesn't exist here anymore
Publication date: 5 August 2025 | Read time: 9 min
I can't help but chuckle at the irony of recent events.
In my last article, I urged the reader to - among other things - visit the Fediverse, and in particular to follow me on Mastodon. If you're one of those that decided to follow my suggestions, you probably noticed that my Mastodon account link leads to a "deleted" page. So what's going on here?
The page is indeed deleted - because I deleted it myself. My account, that is. It happened roughly a week after I posted my previous piece. If you expect this to segue into a discussion of some kind of dramatic happening, I'm afraid you'll end up disappointed; this had less to do with the what, and more to do with the general format of modern social media as a whole. It's just not for me - and I haven't seen any discourse on my particular set of reasons, so I figured I'd share my thoughts.
Although I will be throwing some reasons which I think are Mastodon-specific, so perhaps you will be getting your drama fill after all.
I'll start with the most boring reason: I don't like crowds. And social media is, indeed, a crowd. A faceless mass of people that might occasionally reveal its individual members, just like in a crowd you might notice the individuality of a person that's right next to you or that you accidentally bumped into. On social media you don't interact with a person (even though you actually do) - you interact with a people. Singular noun.
This necessitates certain shorthands. Simplifications. Broadening of the strokes, painting over the details that reveal an individual. How much can you really know about a person just from their picture, their bio, and a sample of their posts? Of course, it's possible to get to know this person better, perhaps by exploring their links or diving deeper into their post history; but there are just so many people. It feels woefully counterproductive to fixate on a single grain of sand in a desert.
Naturally, you are affected by this mechanism as well. Others will judge you on the most surface-level traits, and try to put you into a box so they have a basic idea what to expect. "Obviously!" I hear you say. "This is just how things are in a large group, people notice the general things about you first and only later pay attention to the details!". Yes, I agree. This is one of the many reasons I don't like crowds. I consider irreducibility a virtue; if a person can be easily fit into a box, I'll probably find them uninteresting. Conversely, to people who value predictability, irreducible people might seem confusing, scary and generally incomprehensible.
An argument could be made about how this exact mechanism helps people of specific identities find companionship in an otherwise alien world - and is therefore desirable. One could also bring up how it causes a certain self-selecting mechanism: your participation in an online community is dependent either on your reducibility, or your ability (or willingness) to make yourself reducible - otherwise you'll have a bad time and leave, further enshrining reducibility's value in the community.
But to have this conversation, you'd also have to bring up how this can, over time, lead to the formation of "echo chambers" or "circlejerks" - and how bad faith actors might accuse communities of being echo chambers for disagreeing with their unacceptable opinions. I don't feel like I'm qualified to talk about this; I do, however, feel like this has strayed a little too far off topic, so let's leave it at that and move on.
I don't like the microblogging format, either. "Well, Twitter's the same" I hear you say. Yes, which is also why I never was on twitter, although I did occasionally see people talk about their gripes with it. Mine is simple: short messages don't allow for enough context to have a meaningful discussion, and it's the individual quips (or "toots", "tweets", "notes") that get attention, rather than the whole point. It is, quite literally, out of context.
This is arguably why such platforms are so ridden with conflict; and since dunking on people seems to be one of the more popular pastimes on social media, there's social capital to be made by instigating (or participating in) clear-cut hostility. I've even seen someone complain that whoever they were dunking on "didn't parse hostility" (direct quote) and kept trying to argue in good faith. This was seen as an emotional intelligence failure. And perhaps it was - I wasn't there to witness the exchange in question - but taken out of context, it does raise some eyebrows.
Ahh, establishing moral superiority over strangers by overanalysing individual quips feels great. I could get used to it.
"Aha! So you said something awful and got scolded by people on Masto!" I'm sure this thought crossed your mind. No. I'm not trying to fabricate justifications for why I left; the main drive behind this piece is to discuss the biggest reason of all - a reason that applies to almost all social media.
It felt like feudalism.
Suppose you're an upstart; someone with no following whatsoever, no social capital from different platforms, no marketing. Should you post something, the amount of people that will see what you posted is zero. You're quite literally talking into the void.
Caveat: in Mastodon's case, your post will be seen by people who happen to be watching your instance's local feed - but if it's the default instance, which it probably will be since you're an upstart and aren't Fediverse-savvy, your post will get buried within literal seconds. Also, it's possible to get someone to see your posts by adding hashtags, and this can get you boosted; but you'd need to know which hashtags to use, which you don't since you're an upstart, and maybe whatever you have to say can't be meaningfully tagged.
At the same time, you're surrounded by people that are heard; you hear them, so they're heard. Usually by virtue of being popular enough to be automatically boosted by the system. Mastodon is (or at least claims to be - and I believe it) very light on the algorithmic magic, but even there you'll be suggested the most popular people to follow to get started. So that's what you'll do, most likely.
By doing so, you form an one-way relationship. You hear what they say, but they don't hear you; unless it's a direct response to something they said. Sure, they could follow you back, but let's be honest: this isn't something that's going to happen when you follow some big names. Which is what you've just done.
Does this sound like a parasocial relationship to you? It's no coincidence that "content creators" (I hate this phrase) are being told to cultivate such relationships with their audiences: following and being in a parasocial relationship are so similar they could perhaps be called the same thing, differing only in levels of intensity.
But let's set that comparison aside and continue with our upstart story. So you - our hypothetical upstart - started following some people to browse, so to speak; seeing if you like what they post, and unfollowing if they're not your jam. If you're happy to just consume what the "big names" say, this is where our story ends. But suppose you'd also like to be heard sometimes. Perhaps to start a conversation, share a shower thought you just had, or to show off whatever you made; however, as stated, nobody will hear you since you have no following. What are your options then?
There's only one real choice: playing the court jester to the lords, hoping to gain their favour and access to their followers.
This can be done in a multitude of ways. You can post about topics and hashtags that are frequented by the lords, hoping you'll eventually get picked up and boosted. You can respond to their posts, or even argue with them if you like living on the edge. You can engage in conversations in the jungle of threads that grew out of the divine seed of their words. Point is - you need to dance; and the choice of music is theirs alone.
Not only you need to follow that music, you also need to make sure you don't stray too far from their personal comfort zone - earning their ire might get you blocked, barring you from the access to their followers, and in the worst case you might become a target of a hate mob - either due to the lord's wish, or just the zeal of their followers. This, of course, might gain you some exposure - some say there is no such thing as bad publicity - but from what I've noticed, the experience of being dogpiled online is devastating even to the more powerful members of the social media nobility. So perhaps try to avoid that.
On secound thought, calling it feudalism doesn't quite cut it. It's more akin to social capitalism. And - just like in regular capitalism - if you don't have any social capital, the only thing you can do is exchange your labour for a chance to get some. And the labour you need to perform has to be in accordance to the market's wishes, not yours. Once you have amassed a certain amount, you can probably step away from the dance floor and start doing your own thing, hoping something you post will eventually go viral; but this initial critical mass is a non-negotiable requirement. Don't ask me what this critical mass is, this number undoubtedly varies wildly between platforms, moments in time, your choice of topics; someone more versed in the inner workings of particular platforms is more likely to know.
I should also mention that one's ability to acquire social capital is highly dependent on who you are - or at least who you claim you are. But this is another very complex topic with lots of caveats and moving parts, one that I don't feel comfortable tackling here. But from what I noticed, whenever it's pointed out that one's identity might have had a part in their success, people tend to get very, very defensive.
So there you have it. That's by far my biggest reason for leaving Mastodon: I didn't want to play the court jester anymore. I think it's not an exaggeration to say that your success in this endavour relies on your ability (and willingness) to say things that people want to hear; unfortunately, I see this as borderline offensive. Why would you waste your and your listener's precious social energy to say something that's already established? It even pollutes the airwaves, ensuring that the discourse is full of truisms and repetitions.
Okay, that's an oversimplification. There's great emotional value in affirmations and in knowing that there are people who think like you do, especially considering how fragmented our modern societies are. Hell, I myself scour the web for any established anti-AI movements, but all I find is individual voices, albeit in rather large numbers; ironically, Mastodon is one of the few places where the brunt of the community is pretty strongly anti-AI - and from a position of expertise, not irrational hatemongering (can this distinction be truly made, though?).
And yet, even there I just felt like I'm having my biases confirmed. I don't like that. I want nuance. Scrutiny. In the case of AI, this is almost impossible: the polarisation is so severe, people seem to be in different realities. I once found someone pro-AI on Mastodon and wanted to see how they justify all the ethical violations on the topic. They brushed past everything I said, even as I attempted to adjust my argument to the direction they wanted to head in, and were hell-bent on philosophising whether the inevitable industrial revolution that we're apparently in the middle of will - or even should - lead to the establishment of Universal Basic Income. It seemed like "this shouldn't be a thing, and it's nowhere near as inevitable as you think" wasn't in their visible light spectrum, so after a few exchanges I excused myself. This isn't nuance, this isn't even conflict: it's talking past each other. Perhaps that was the entire point, and both of us were unknowingly playing court jester.
To be fair, I will likely be returning to Masto at some point - but less to participate, and more to establish a channel to let people know I exist. Admittedly, some of my work already is in modest circulation on the independent web, such as a mention on the lovely semi-regular newsletter Scrolls by Mike Sass (I recommend checking it out!); but perhaps a little more wouldn't hurt.
You're probably curious what I would consider a good social media system. Honestly, I don't know - perhaps the very idea of social media is what I dislike, but that can't be right. I've been naturally drawn to online human gatherings for as long as I knew about them. I used to like online chatrooms and forums; Discord would be a good modern analogue, but that isn't it either - all the annoying Nitro system notwithstanding. Besides, just because I used to like something years back doesn't mean it was actually any good, or even if I'd like it today. Nostalgia's surely a nice feeling - but it dissipates into a cloud of disappointment in mere minutes should you get to actually experience what you were nostalgic for.
That said, I think this emerging model of domain-based identity suits me quite fine. Your domain is your identity, and what you post is yours alone, with full control over your stuff. Webmentions are a natural extension of this, although I'm not so sure about these just yet. The problem is, of course, I can't freely talk to anyone; but perhaps it's not a problem at all. Perhaps this is why I like it. No pressure to dance for the lords, or for the audience for that matter. No need to worry about saying something that would disrupt this or that narrative. Here, I'm the master of my own story. I am the lord; the king, even. A king with no land or people, but at least the castle is coming along nicely.
In my last article, I urged the reader to - among other things - visit the Fediverse, and in particular to follow me on Mastodon. If you're one of those that decided to follow my suggestions, you probably noticed that my Mastodon account link leads to a "deleted" page. So what's going on here?
The page is indeed deleted - because I deleted it myself. My account, that is. It happened roughly a week after I posted my previous piece. If you expect this to segue into a discussion of some kind of dramatic happening, I'm afraid you'll end up disappointed; this had less to do with the what, and more to do with the general format of modern social media as a whole. It's just not for me - and I haven't seen any discourse on my particular set of reasons, so I figured I'd share my thoughts.
Although I will be throwing some reasons which I think are Mastodon-specific, so perhaps you will be getting your drama fill after all.
I'll start with the most boring reason: I don't like crowds. And social media is, indeed, a crowd. A faceless mass of people that might occasionally reveal its individual members, just like in a crowd you might notice the individuality of a person that's right next to you or that you accidentally bumped into. On social media you don't interact with a person (even though you actually do) - you interact with a people. Singular noun.
This necessitates certain shorthands. Simplifications. Broadening of the strokes, painting over the details that reveal an individual. How much can you really know about a person just from their picture, their bio, and a sample of their posts? Of course, it's possible to get to know this person better, perhaps by exploring their links or diving deeper into their post history; but there are just so many people. It feels woefully counterproductive to fixate on a single grain of sand in a desert.
Naturally, you are affected by this mechanism as well. Others will judge you on the most surface-level traits, and try to put you into a box so they have a basic idea what to expect. "Obviously!" I hear you say. "This is just how things are in a large group, people notice the general things about you first and only later pay attention to the details!". Yes, I agree. This is one of the many reasons I don't like crowds. I consider irreducibility a virtue; if a person can be easily fit into a box, I'll probably find them uninteresting. Conversely, to people who value predictability, irreducible people might seem confusing, scary and generally incomprehensible.
An argument could be made about how this exact mechanism helps people of specific identities find companionship in an otherwise alien world - and is therefore desirable. One could also bring up how it causes a certain self-selecting mechanism: your participation in an online community is dependent either on your reducibility, or your ability (or willingness) to make yourself reducible - otherwise you'll have a bad time and leave, further enshrining reducibility's value in the community.
But to have this conversation, you'd also have to bring up how this can, over time, lead to the formation of "echo chambers" or "circlejerks" - and how bad faith actors might accuse communities of being echo chambers for disagreeing with their unacceptable opinions. I don't feel like I'm qualified to talk about this; I do, however, feel like this has strayed a little too far off topic, so let's leave it at that and move on.
I don't like the microblogging format, either. "Well, Twitter's the same" I hear you say. Yes, which is also why I never was on twitter, although I did occasionally see people talk about their gripes with it. Mine is simple: short messages don't allow for enough context to have a meaningful discussion, and it's the individual quips (or "toots", "tweets", "notes") that get attention, rather than the whole point. It is, quite literally, out of context.
This is arguably why such platforms are so ridden with conflict; and since dunking on people seems to be one of the more popular pastimes on social media, there's social capital to be made by instigating (or participating in) clear-cut hostility. I've even seen someone complain that whoever they were dunking on "didn't parse hostility" (direct quote) and kept trying to argue in good faith. This was seen as an emotional intelligence failure. And perhaps it was - I wasn't there to witness the exchange in question - but taken out of context, it does raise some eyebrows.
Ahh, establishing moral superiority over strangers by overanalysing individual quips feels great. I could get used to it.
"Aha! So you said something awful and got scolded by people on Masto!" I'm sure this thought crossed your mind. No. I'm not trying to fabricate justifications for why I left; the main drive behind this piece is to discuss the biggest reason of all - a reason that applies to almost all social media.
It felt like feudalism.
Suppose you're an upstart; someone with no following whatsoever, no social capital from different platforms, no marketing. Should you post something, the amount of people that will see what you posted is zero. You're quite literally talking into the void.
Caveat: in Mastodon's case, your post will be seen by people who happen to be watching your instance's local feed - but if it's the default instance, which it probably will be since you're an upstart and aren't Fediverse-savvy, your post will get buried within literal seconds. Also, it's possible to get someone to see your posts by adding hashtags, and this can get you boosted; but you'd need to know which hashtags to use, which you don't since you're an upstart, and maybe whatever you have to say can't be meaningfully tagged.
At the same time, you're surrounded by people that are heard; you hear them, so they're heard. Usually by virtue of being popular enough to be automatically boosted by the system. Mastodon is (or at least claims to be - and I believe it) very light on the algorithmic magic, but even there you'll be suggested the most popular people to follow to get started. So that's what you'll do, most likely.
By doing so, you form an one-way relationship. You hear what they say, but they don't hear you; unless it's a direct response to something they said. Sure, they could follow you back, but let's be honest: this isn't something that's going to happen when you follow some big names. Which is what you've just done.
Does this sound like a parasocial relationship to you? It's no coincidence that "content creators" (I hate this phrase) are being told to cultivate such relationships with their audiences: following and being in a parasocial relationship are so similar they could perhaps be called the same thing, differing only in levels of intensity.
But let's set that comparison aside and continue with our upstart story. So you - our hypothetical upstart - started following some people to browse, so to speak; seeing if you like what they post, and unfollowing if they're not your jam. If you're happy to just consume what the "big names" say, this is where our story ends. But suppose you'd also like to be heard sometimes. Perhaps to start a conversation, share a shower thought you just had, or to show off whatever you made; however, as stated, nobody will hear you since you have no following. What are your options then?
There's only one real choice: playing the court jester to the lords, hoping to gain their favour and access to their followers.
This can be done in a multitude of ways. You can post about topics and hashtags that are frequented by the lords, hoping you'll eventually get picked up and boosted. You can respond to their posts, or even argue with them if you like living on the edge. You can engage in conversations in the jungle of threads that grew out of the divine seed of their words. Point is - you need to dance; and the choice of music is theirs alone.
Not only you need to follow that music, you also need to make sure you don't stray too far from their personal comfort zone - earning their ire might get you blocked, barring you from the access to their followers, and in the worst case you might become a target of a hate mob - either due to the lord's wish, or just the zeal of their followers. This, of course, might gain you some exposure - some say there is no such thing as bad publicity - but from what I've noticed, the experience of being dogpiled online is devastating even to the more powerful members of the social media nobility. So perhaps try to avoid that.
On secound thought, calling it feudalism doesn't quite cut it. It's more akin to social capitalism. And - just like in regular capitalism - if you don't have any social capital, the only thing you can do is exchange your labour for a chance to get some. And the labour you need to perform has to be in accordance to the market's wishes, not yours. Once you have amassed a certain amount, you can probably step away from the dance floor and start doing your own thing, hoping something you post will eventually go viral; but this initial critical mass is a non-negotiable requirement. Don't ask me what this critical mass is, this number undoubtedly varies wildly between platforms, moments in time, your choice of topics; someone more versed in the inner workings of particular platforms is more likely to know.
I should also mention that one's ability to acquire social capital is highly dependent on who you are - or at least who you claim you are. But this is another very complex topic with lots of caveats and moving parts, one that I don't feel comfortable tackling here. But from what I noticed, whenever it's pointed out that one's identity might have had a part in their success, people tend to get very, very defensive.
So there you have it. That's by far my biggest reason for leaving Mastodon: I didn't want to play the court jester anymore. I think it's not an exaggeration to say that your success in this endavour relies on your ability (and willingness) to say things that people want to hear; unfortunately, I see this as borderline offensive. Why would you waste your and your listener's precious social energy to say something that's already established? It even pollutes the airwaves, ensuring that the discourse is full of truisms and repetitions.
Okay, that's an oversimplification. There's great emotional value in affirmations and in knowing that there are people who think like you do, especially considering how fragmented our modern societies are. Hell, I myself scour the web for any established anti-AI movements, but all I find is individual voices, albeit in rather large numbers; ironically, Mastodon is one of the few places where the brunt of the community is pretty strongly anti-AI - and from a position of expertise, not irrational hatemongering (can this distinction be truly made, though?).
And yet, even there I just felt like I'm having my biases confirmed. I don't like that. I want nuance. Scrutiny. In the case of AI, this is almost impossible: the polarisation is so severe, people seem to be in different realities. I once found someone pro-AI on Mastodon and wanted to see how they justify all the ethical violations on the topic. They brushed past everything I said, even as I attempted to adjust my argument to the direction they wanted to head in, and were hell-bent on philosophising whether the inevitable industrial revolution that we're apparently in the middle of will - or even should - lead to the establishment of Universal Basic Income. It seemed like "this shouldn't be a thing, and it's nowhere near as inevitable as you think" wasn't in their visible light spectrum, so after a few exchanges I excused myself. This isn't nuance, this isn't even conflict: it's talking past each other. Perhaps that was the entire point, and both of us were unknowingly playing court jester.
To be fair, I will likely be returning to Masto at some point - but less to participate, and more to establish a channel to let people know I exist. Admittedly, some of my work already is in modest circulation on the independent web, such as a mention on the lovely semi-regular newsletter Scrolls by Mike Sass (I recommend checking it out!); but perhaps a little more wouldn't hurt.
You're probably curious what I would consider a good social media system. Honestly, I don't know - perhaps the very idea of social media is what I dislike, but that can't be right. I've been naturally drawn to online human gatherings for as long as I knew about them. I used to like online chatrooms and forums; Discord would be a good modern analogue, but that isn't it either - all the annoying Nitro system notwithstanding. Besides, just because I used to like something years back doesn't mean it was actually any good, or even if I'd like it today. Nostalgia's surely a nice feeling - but it dissipates into a cloud of disappointment in mere minutes should you get to actually experience what you were nostalgic for.
That said, I think this emerging model of domain-based identity suits me quite fine. Your domain is your identity, and what you post is yours alone, with full control over your stuff. Webmentions are a natural extension of this, although I'm not so sure about these just yet. The problem is, of course, I can't freely talk to anyone; but perhaps it's not a problem at all. Perhaps this is why I like it. No pressure to dance for the lords, or for the audience for that matter. No need to worry about saying something that would disrupt this or that narrative. Here, I'm the master of my own story. I am the lord; the king, even. A king with no land or people, but at least the castle is coming along nicely.