4 ms·

I don't use Twitter so maybe this is just wrong, but isn't part of the appeal of Twitter that regular users can interact with celebrities?

rsynnott 4y ago
... Eh, I mean that is probably the appeal to _some_ users (though note that you can do that on Mastodon too, of course). But not all, or, I think, most. Twitter is many things to many people (the one I was always surprised by is that some people have Twitter accounts which they use for making consumer complaints and nothing else)... I think maybe what you're getting at is the people who are celebrities solely _because_ they are big on Twitter/TikTok/Instagram/whatever. I would agree that the Mastodon model doesn't work particularly well for those. I don't see it as an issue for _normal_ celebrities, tho. But that just seems like _such_ a niche. The majority of people, I'm reasonably sure, do not use Twitter primarily to follow internet celebrities.
EamonnMR 4y ago
That was the promise, but realistically huge accounts were so swamped that your actual chances of having such an interaction turn out to be slim to none. The game was dominated by people who would reply to a celeb's every post, people shilling for crypto, etc.
ncallaway 4y ago
I think it depends on what you mean by _celebrities_. For me, the appeal of Twitter is being able to interact with various communities (such as the legal twitter community). There are people who are fairly popular in that sphere, that I really like being able to see their thoughts on various issues and even ask the occasional question (Popehat, Akiva Cohen, Mike Dunford, Greg Doucette), etc. Are these people celebrities? Kinda, in their niche, yea. In the broader sense of the word not really. But all of those people have moved to Mastodon. So, I think that kind of reinforces the point. It's more communities within Twitter that move. That move is relatively sticky. And there are people within that community that are highly connected in that community ("celebrities" within the niche), and when they move it tends to solidify the move of the community.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  Yeah, that's another point that I think probably goes in Mastodon's favour. Most of the people who could be loosely classed as celebrities that I follow either are posting to both, or have flat-out moved. But they generally are niche "celebrities", not people with millions of followers.
- noirbot 4y ago
  Yea, I think this is the biggest thing. Most "real" celebrities can still post on Twitter or whatever. If Elon Musk or Lebron James or Barack Obama posts something important, I'll probably see it wherever they decide to post it. They could just yell random things at passersby on the street and I'd probably find out about it if it was interesting enough. The value of Twitter a lot of the time is less the big name Blue Checks, but the long tail of niche blue checks. I bet a massive amount of people on Twitter have no idea who Paul Graham is, or Popehat, or Marco Arment, or even dril, but they all have some number of people who were mostly on Twitter because of them primarily, so if they and their friends all move to something else, their fans will follow. In some ways, it's not too different from TV hosts or journalists of note. People will watch John Oliver on whatever TV network he's on. For certain niches, no one cares where they write/speak as long as it's not so insanely paywalled or otherwise cumbersome that it's a problem to follow them to it.
deleted 4y ago
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viraptor 4y ago
Sure. And that's why the highest follower count on Mastodon right now belongs to George Takei.

rsynnott 4y ago

... Eh, I mean that is probably the appeal to _some_ users (though note that you can do that on Mastodon too, of course). But not all, or, I think, most. Twitter is many things to many people (the one I was always surprised by is that some people have Twitter accounts which they use for making consumer complaints and nothing else)... I think maybe what you're getting at is the people who are celebrities solely _because_ they are big on Twitter/TikTok/Instagram/whatever. I would agree that the Mastodon model doesn't work particularly well for those. I don't see it as an issue for _normal_ celebrities, tho. But that just seems like _such_ a niche. The majority of people, I'm reasonably sure, do not use Twitter primarily to follow internet celebrities.

EamonnMR 4y ago

That was the promise, but realistically huge accounts were so swamped that your actual chances of having such an interaction turn out to be slim to none. The game was dominated by people who would reply to a celeb's every post, people shilling for crypto, etc.

ncallaway 4y ago

I think it depends on what you mean by _celebrities_. For me, the appeal of Twitter is being able to interact with various communities (such as the legal twitter community). There are people who are fairly popular in that sphere, that I really like being able to see their thoughts on various issues and even ask the occasional question (Popehat, Akiva Cohen, Mike Dunford, Greg Doucette), etc. Are these people celebrities? Kinda, in their niche, yea. In the broader sense of the word not really. But all of those people have moved to Mastodon. So, I think that kind of reinforces the point. It's more communities within Twitter that move. That move is relatively sticky. And there are people within that community that are highly connected in that community ("celebrities" within the niche), and when they move it tends to solidify the move of the community.

rsynnott 4y ago
Yeah, that's another point that I think probably goes in Mastodon's favour. Most of the people who could be loosely classed as celebrities that I follow either are posting to both, or have flat-out moved. But they generally are niche "celebrities", not people with millions of followers.
noirbot 4y ago
Yea, I think this is the biggest thing. Most "real" celebrities can still post on Twitter or whatever. If Elon Musk or Lebron James or Barack Obama posts something important, I'll probably see it wherever they decide to post it. They could just yell random things at passersby on the street and I'd probably find out about it if it was interesting enough. The value of Twitter a lot of the time is less the big name Blue Checks, but the long tail of niche blue checks. I bet a massive amount of people on Twitter have no idea who Paul Graham is, or Popehat, or Marco Arment, or even dril, but they all have some number of people who were mostly on Twitter because of them primarily, so if they and their friends all move to something else, their fans will follow. In some ways, it's not too different from TV hosts or journalists of note. People will watch John Oliver on whatever TV network he's on. For certain niches, no one cares where they write/speak as long as it's not so insanely paywalled or otherwise cumbersome that it's a problem to follow them to it.

deleted 4y ago

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viraptor 4y ago

Sure. And that's why the highest follower count on Mastodon right now belongs to George Takei.