I joined Twittr in 2007 — some time before they put the ‘e’ in the name. Some colleagues at Blogcritics thought it would be a useful tool for sharing what we’re working on. That use fell away pretty quickly. As more library folks joined the service, it became a really useful tool for keeping up with the profession, following conference content, and shitposting.
Now it looks like the new owner either is intentionally destroying it or is just too incompetent to lead. Some folks are hanging on to the bitter end, some are jumping ship to Mastodon or Tumblr or only using Facebook/Instagram. As much as that place had become a bit of a hellscape, it was a tool that connected me to a lot of my colleagues and friends from all over. I’ll miss that aspect.
I joined Mastodon in 2018 at the general suggestion of Ruth Kitchin Tillman. She’s written a great introduction for new users. The glammr.us instance was pretty quiet until rumors of the Twitter sale surfaced, and then over the past few weeks it’s gotten quite busy. Up to that point, it was a small community I’d look in on occasionally, but did not engage with that much.
The Mastodon culture I’ve encountered so far has been much more community oriented and 1:1 engagement. Folks there make use of content warnings and use alt tags on images. It’s not without its issues (black folks say it’s inherently a white space; there is a bit of learning curve), but so far I’m fine with building a different community and engagement in that space.
