It’s pretty clear that nobody knows exactly what social media is supposed to be like. People use it for a lot of different things. I like think of it as a cocktail party. People drop in, listen to what other people are saying, say some things themselves, and maybe comment on what other people are saying.

I particularly like Mastodon because I feel like I get a higher-quality of engagement here. The things people post are frequently interesting. People read the things I post and offer substantive comments. And I feel like they frequently appreciate the value-add that my comments offer.

Nobody has to come to the cocktail party. And you don’t have to be in the main room with everyone else. If you’d rather hold forth in some private room, you can do that.

What always puzzles me are the people who get exercised that other people are “doing it wrong.” If you’re saying stuff in public, you shouldn’t be surprised if people comment on it. If you didn’t want people to comment on it, you’d hold your conversations someplace in private.

Similarly, if you don’t like the things that someone else says, you can simply mute or block people.

Some people seem to really like the drama of personal confrontation. Some people are all about the snark and the SNAP. Recently, I saw someone reply to a picture someone had posted with a link to an article about the subject of the picture. The original poster snapped at them for “mansplaining”. Whoa. I had thought their post was fine. It was informative and added useful information. But, hey, if drama is someone’s thing, that’s OK too, I guess. It’s easy to mute and block.

My point is that it’s not really clear that you can do social media wrong exactly. Unless you’re a Nazi. But then it’s not really about the social media anymore, is it?