Mastodon, for my girls 💚

Hello, friend!

I know I keep telling you — ad nauseum — that you should really check out Mastodon because it’s like the next big thing and all the people on there are fun and hilarious and queer and beautiful and LOVELY.

Buuuuut I kinda get the impression that it’s a bit overwhelming, and yeah, you’re not wrong, the learning curve is a bit nuts.

So I’ve prepared this helpful guide to getting started!! 💚

If you’re reading this and you’ve not been invited to nuklear.family (and you don’t know me personally) please don’t ask for an invite, it’s not like that. That said, there are a bajillion other instances around you can join (including mastodon.social, the main one) and much of this guide will still apply!

Some terminology

First off, Mastodon has instances, which are like small towns of people. Mine is nuklear.family, and my username is @andi@nuklear.family . It’s sort of like an email address that way. The main one is mastodon.social, but nobody cool is on there anymore (Okay, fine, Eugen’s cool, he made the thing.).

The effect of being on one instance or another is pretty minimal, it mainly impacts what content you’ll see in the various public timelines, but you have the option to follow and interact with anyone on any instance. The one exception is people who’ve been moderated, you won’t be able to follow or interact with them, which on a whole is a good thing. I keep a pretty light touch to my moderation, mainly just banning nazis and TERFs, but your instance admins and mods in general are a big part of what makes an instance worthwhile.

Creating an account

Because it’s my server and it’s just us on it, feel free to use whatever username you want! I tend to go for things short and descriptive, like “andi” or “winter”, because that’s how people will mainly refer to you when responding. Make sure that you upload a photo! Square ones work best, if you navigate to your “Instagram” folder on your phone when uploading it, those are already cropped square and work well. You can also upload a cover image for your profile, which makes it look prettier. 😊

Using the interface

If you prefer the native app experience, Tusky is what I use on my phone for managing my other accounts. In general, though, the Mastodon webapp is more than sufficient, regardless whether on a phone or laptop. I’ll discuss the webapp a bit, but Tusky works pretty similarly. Also, the webapp works way better on Android phones because you can save it to your homescreen, making it work like an app (do this if it gives you the option!).

Once you’re logged in, you’ll see the main interface on the left:

The grey ▤ button opens up the “Getting Started” screen; the button next to it takes you to preference and the last button logs you out.

Below that is a search box, for finding new users mainly. The box below that is where you post stuff, and there are a few features worth noting:

If you hit the “CW” button (activated in the above screenshot), that allows you to add a content warning. In general, the culture of Mastodon is that you use these a lot, because we’re all trying to keep the place nice, and people have widely differing things they’re comfortable seeing, and even that often varies on a daily basis. Here are some things you should warn about with a CW:

• Selfies of any sort
• Eye contact
• Nudity (often referred to as “lewds”)
• Explicit language
• Politics
• Gender issues
• Social media drama
• This is in no way an exhaustive list. Just be mindful.

People will tell you if you get this wrong; don’t take offense, they’re just trying to be helpful. Just say thank you and then make sure to CW it next time!

Next to that, the 🌐/🔓/🔒/✉️ button lets you set post privacy:

“Public” means everyone can see it. This means even people who don’t follow you — it shows up in the “Federated Timeline” on other instances (more on that later). “Unlisted” means that only people on the instance can see it, in the “Local Timeline”. “Followers-only” means that only people who follow you can see it. By default anyone can follow you; if you go to “Settings” (the cog button at the top of the screen), you can require that all follow requests must be approved by you.

This degree of control is really helpful when figuring out how you want to use the site! I have one account I tend to post nudity on, and I default to followers-only on it, but my main account is open for anyone to follow and I generally post “Public”.

You can also send direct messages using that button— only the people tagged in the message will see it (though be forewarned that instance administrators could possibly go through their databases and see the content if they wanted to; it’s not encrypted, so use a degree of care in what you private message people with). To see your direct messages, look in the “Notifications” column, or open up the “Direct Messages” column via the “Getting Started” screen (more on that shortly).

Lastly, the 📷 button is used to upload photos and videos.

Moving on, click the “Getting Started” button with three lines in the top left corner to open the “Getting Started” screen.

If you look at the “Getting Started” screen, there are a few different ways you can start seeing content:

Click “Local Timeline” to see content from people on your instance. In this case, it’s basically just me and my friends who go partying every Saturday. It’s kinda quiet because I’m purposefully keeping it a small instance.

Click “Federated Timeline” to see content from anyone followed by anyone on the instance. Because we’re a pretty new instance, it’s really just people I follow at the moment (but eventually will also be people you follow!).

The “Home Timeline” is only people you follow. I mainly just watch this one all the time.

“Notifications” is where people talk to you. Direct messages show up here, as do likes and boosts.

What’s a toot look like?

Beyond the content itself, the buttons at the bottom are important. You can reply to a toot, “Boost” a toot (which makes everyone who follows you see it) or “Like” a toot.

Likes and Boosts are used differently here than Twitter. You Boost cool stuff like you do on Twitter (but for things like selfies, generally check with the person posting it before you do!), but people do it a lot more frequently and it’s generally not as a way of saying something negative about a post. People “Like” literally everything on here, it’s almost excessive. You basically do it to tell the author that you saw what they wrote, it’s less a bookmarking mechanism.

If you click a user’s profile photo, you can follow them, and their toots will show up in your “Home Timeline”. I recommend just watching the federated timeline for a bit and following people who seem cool. Also, #FF posts are fantastic for finding new people to follow. Also, following people who follow you back is also a great way to find more people to follow! Don’t be afraid to follow people; if they’re shit, Mastodon’s moderation tools are really good. Click the three dot button on any toot to Mute, Block or Report a user.

Sorry Gargron, it’s just an example I promise!!! 💚💚💚

Muting a user means you don’t see their posts. Blocking them means they can’t see your posts. Reporting a user means I get a notification and can block them from the entire instance (or even that user’s entire instance if it’s particularly problematic).

There’s so much more I could go into (like, JUST WAIT until you discover custom emoji, I have a trillion on the server), but just follow a lot of people and interact with them and have fun and be nice. It’s not about getting followers or clout or anything; it’s about interacting with fantastic people and expressing yourself.

Lastly, a LOT of the humour is really esoteric and confusing, and you honestly just won’t get it a lot of the time. This is entirely natural, just smile and go with it.

I hope you enjoy it all as much as I do. 💚

~Andi.