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Going viral is overrated* - a mini-thread

(*prays this post doesn’t end up on Explore)

Yesterday one of my toots (about the need to bust the myth that there is no engagement on the Fediverse) ironically went viral.

It was the top post on Explore for hours and ended up getting 255 boosts, 494 likes and dozens of comments (as of now).

And you know what? It made me realize that

✨ there’s something beautiful in staying small ✨

because you can build genuine connections with others… (cont’)

2.

When one of your posts goes big, you are inundated with comments by strangers - super smart comments here on the Fediverse - and it’s so hard to reply to everyone…

I’m still playing catch-up.

This is frustrating and it makes you feel guilty - because a stranger took the time to write a long, thoughtful response to something you had posted.

You feel rude… and the constant steam of new comments makes the task of replying Sisyphean.

(Cont’)

3.

I never had that problem before and I have a newfound appreciation for toots that “stay small” - because you can genuinely engage with others that way.

I have been learning so much on the Fediverse thanks to the generosity of others… and I’ve enjoyed getting to know many of you here.

These kinds of genuine interactions are impossible when you have an avalanche of comments coming at you every few minutes.

(Cont’)

4/4

So ✨ small is beautiful ✨ and those who complained to me yesterday that they saw little engagement: that can be a good thing! You can build real friendships that way. Organically.

So, to conclude: visibility is a privilege that I am grateful for, but there’s real value in staying small, too, because you can build beautiful relationships that way — without all the noise

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@_elena thank you for this thread. Having had a few high-popularity toots myself, this matches my experience well.

When my follower count reached a certain level I've noticed that when I respond in a thread, especially a thread that happens to be controversial and polarizing, that might bring a bunch other people to also reply – potentially leading to a pile-on of sorts.

So I switched my default post visibility to "Quiet public". That helped a lot, and felt like the responsible thing to do.

@rysiek @_elena Oh, hadn’t noticed that you can set visibility for replies until now. Guess Quiet Public is what @ivory call Unlisted? What does that mean in practice?

@anders @rysiek @_elena @ivory It used to be called Unlisted on main Mastodon app as well. It basically means that the toot is public, people can see it in the thread, they can see it on your profile, but it will not appear in feeds, hashtags or by search.

@crittero exactly.

In other words, if someone is following you, but is not mentioned in your reply, they won't get that reply in their home timeline.

There is one exception, I believe, which is when they are following both you and the author of the toot you are responding to. Then it will pop in their timeline, apparently.

@anders @_elena @ivory

@rysiek But they will see it in the thread, while Mentioned only is for mentioned only?

Good to know!

@crittero @_elena @ivory

@rysiek
@crittero @anders @_elena @ivory

Note that this is the behavior of Mastodon - other servers behave differently. I (on Akkoma) got @rysiek 's reply in my timeline even though I did not get @crittero 's.

@tryst oh, interesting!

Thank you for this info. I do see less pile-ons after my replies when I use Quiet public, but I might just switch to Followers-only for replies if that is the case.

@_elena @crittero @ivory @anders

@rysiek @_elena @crittero @ivory @anders Followers-only vs quiet public doesn’t factor into it for Akkoma at least.

Which is a bit annoying actually - I end up seeing half of a lot of conversations :p

@tryst fwiw, that's just the default
you can change it in filtering settings > replies in timeline

@novenary oh!

sadly the option i want is “only show replies to which i can see the parent post” which isn’t in the list.

but with it being configurable… maybe it’s time to dust off those erlang skills? (probably not today)

@tryst yeah, that'd be ideal, though still a bit weird without traversing the whole reply chain

@rysiek @_elena : having myself quite a few viral toots (with one having more than 2500 reshares), I must add something about virality:

It disappears as quickly as it appeared. And, in 99,9% of the cases, that doesn’t change anything in your life (except making you thirsty for more virality if you are that kind of person).

Ok, I must make a strong exception for the viral tweet (10k retweets) that allowed me to meet my wife ;-)