Trying Out Ivory (and General Thoughts on Mastodon)

When I left Twitter last week, it wasn’t on a whim. I had been considering it for a long time…like middle of the pandemic long.

As people jumped ship from Twitter, Mastodon seemed to be the clear front-runner for replacing Twitter.

I’m hesitant at best, but Tapbots (from the makers of the incomparable Tweetbot), have put out a Mastodon client called Ivory, and I’ve decided to give it t try for a bit.

The app is really, really nice! It has most of the things I love about Tweetbot already, without the ridiculous API limitations that Twitter started to impose over the last 6-7 years.

Something especially nice is how it “consolidates” the Fediverse, abstracting away the server names from the usernames¹.

One of the most frustrating interactions is that when you want to follow someone on a different server², you need to copy their username and paste it into your server’s search.

If I keep using Mastodon, it will through this app. It’s big if though.

I Don’t Really Want to Replace Twitter

Part of the reason I left Twitter is how aggravating trends, tweets, and interactions were. That’s not a platform problem, that’s a people problem.

Jason Snell has pointed this out on Upgrade, and on Connected last week, Federico Viticci said there’s a faction of Mastodon users who are trying to make “people from the bird site” unwelcome³.

The point being, Mastodon doesn’t fix people. There will always be cowardly jerks who hide behind a keyboard, using social media to be mean because there are very few real consequences for them.

I spent years carefully curating what I saw I Twitter. It came crumbling down with the end of third-party apps and forcing the “Home” feed over the “Following” feed.

I don’t have the energy or the inclination to do that again on Mastodon.

I’m very happy interacting on LinkedIn, which feels like less of a firehouse, at least today, more of a place for honest to goodness helpful interactions.

1. I once said Mastodon is like if you and your friends agree to go see a movie, and show up at different times and in different theaters. I stand by that. ?
2. Something I didn’t even know you could do until my friend Brian told me ?
3. He didn’t put it exactly like that, but that’s the impression I get. ?