4 ms·

Yeah they should have picked a cool word like "tweet."

• chefandy 5y ago
  In an alternate Twitter-free universe if someone wanted a noun/verb for a deliberately lightweight communication broadcast into the ether over the internet, I'd bank a grand on marketers agreeing that a cheerful, sharp little chirp from a nimble, energetic bird communicates that better than the plaintive sounding crescendo of a giant plodding extinct earthbound mammal which also is outdated slang for a fart. Mastodons are cool and everything but they don't work for branding a social network. Some rad groundbreaking online museum or library or something else that wanted to viscerally communicate age and wisdom and weight and timelessness? Sure.
  • wallfacer120 5y ago
    I think the negative reaction to the word toot has little to do with the relative uncoolness of the mastadon, I think the issue is that toot has a scatological association.
    • chefandy 5y ago
      Not what I’m saying. Toot’s self-evident, multifaceted dorkiness is the most concrete reason people find mastodon uncool. I wouldn’t trust a designer’s cobbled together code for a production project; likewise, developers should delegate these things to domain specialists when image is important. These commenters, largely developers, confidently discounting the importance of visceral appeal in social environments is yet more evidence. I get that many developers had/have a toxic experience with the concept of coolness, but that doesn’t negate its functionality in this vein.
• aendruk 5y ago
  iirc “tweet” originated among users and was later adopted officially, so by analogy perhaps Mastodon’s mistake is to have unilaterally chosen a term from the outset.