Can we go back to like, sharing stuff we actually write, saying stuff in our own words, and having conversations about things we think?
Maybe we can go back to a time where any time you shared a link it would not immediately take over two thirds of the post because a thumbnail loaded with a fancy automatically generated image of the title of the post or—much much worse—some AI slop that whoever wrote whatever thought looked nice.
Honestly, one of the things I always do on my Mastodon client is disable link previews and hide boosts from my timeline. Sadly, while the first is a global setting, the other is done on an account per account basis. If you know of a way to not have to do it that way let me know—I use Tusky by the way.
I don’t mind when you share a link, or boost something, but the lack of feedback or context (when it is the only thing you share) is always a bit annoying to me, I do appreciate when a reply or subsequent post contains the context though, and it’s fine when I already know the person and can figure out their thought based on that, so anyway.
Also, sparking a conversation about something totally unrelated to the post for literally no reason needs to stop. This happens on my posts! but it’s usually from friends telling inside jokes or just being annoying on purpose so it’s fine—even though I boil inside a little bit.
That wouldn’t be a problem if every social media site decided to implement threaded replies already, they really need to be a standard, they’re so. Much. Better. One of the things Reddit got right, to be honest.
Also, Mastodon is introducing quote posts soon. This is not something bad by itself, the implementation is really good objectively speaking, I’ll probably even use them myself sometimes (hypocritical much?), I will not disable quote posts from my account or anything, I just don’t think I’ll be reading the ones people make, or maybe I will.
It’s way too easy for some people to just become boosters and link posters, never sharing any sort of personal thought at all, and it just annoys me so much sometimes.
And don’t get me wrong I totally get having an account just to follow others and not interacting at all as well, just do your own thing.
I’m a nobody screaming from a monitor after all.
I don’t even remember what sparked this rant, I don’t even think I will agree with half of the things I wrote today, but well I already wrote a proper post today so a random baseless complaint as an aside isn’t so bad sometimes.
Just start a blog already!
