It is Tuesday, the morning of November 5th, which is a bit of a big day here in the United States, having to save democracy, and all, so I will have to keep this a bit brief.
Last year I wrote about how I finally committed to the fediverse and set a date of when I created my stefanbohacek.online server as the date to celebrate my fediverse anniversary, or, as we fediverse people like to call it, my fediversary (we’re a clever bunch over there, you are missing out if you haven’t joined yet).
And I wrote some more throughout the year, about how the fediverse will “win” (those are some heavy quotes there, mind you, not a fan of framing this stuff as “winning” or “losing”), I wrote about the recognition I received from the Mastodon team, published a signed invitation for artists, and a bunch of other things, really, I won’t list them all here. The point is, I did commit.
And it was all fun, for the most part. But I have also been disappointed by a few things, here and there. The fediverse, or Mastodon, as many refer to it, can’t seem to shake some of the negative perception, much of it rightfully deserved. Too geeky. How do I “pick a server”. Full of know-it-alls. (Well we are smarter than the average social media user, get used to it! And that’s a joke. We really are this funny.)
And recently, two beloved fediverse institutions announced closing down. The botsin.space server that’s home to thousands of friendly internet bots, including 50 of my own, and the Radio Free Fedi community internet radio, which played a few of my own songs.
But you know what, I’ve met so many great people who also committed, and I really can’t imagine leaving what we’ve created behind.
Is it perfect? My god, no. Not even close. But we’re getting there! Eventually? Or maybe not, but it’s definitely better than the alternative, so it’s still worth trying.
And speaking of that, I’m off to vote! ✌️