Now that a bunch of people are looking for new social media spaces to migrate, away from Twitter and other corporate-owned platforms that are shown to be toxic, I’ve seen some posts on Mastodon or Post where the author recommended profiles to follow. I get it, they are new platforms for newcomers, and we all appreciate some guidance, but I think it is a bad idea.
There are two things to do on those platforms:
It doesn’t matter who anyone thinks you should follow. How can a generic list of “prominent people” be relevant to everybody? We are diverse and want to learn or be entertained by different things. Everybody following the same mainstream accounts seems like a lost opportunity to me: there are already too many spaces where we get pushed to consume what others want.
If you want a personal experience where you get the content you like and need, I suggest you think about what that content is. Make a list of topics and look for content on them, identify some authors that seem to master them, and follow those profiles. Even better: if following topics is an option, do that. From there, you’ll keep identifying other people and topics that will seem worth following, and the whole experience will be much more enriching to you.
