Consider one of the early internet communities of the 1990s that came to be dominated by, say, Church of the Subgenius fans. Even if the topic of conversation w

Consider one of the early internet communities of the 1990s that came to be dominated by, say, Church of the Subgenius fans. Even if the topic of conversation was something else, people would frequently drop Subgenius lore and in-jokes and make Subgenius part of their online presentation, limited as it was in those pre-media days. If you weren’t interested in Subgenius and didn’t represent yourself as a member of that subculture, how much of a connection could you really feel with fellow members? On Mastodon today the particular nerd-culture markers are different, but whatever they are, it remains the case that not every nerd is going to be interested in them. With regard to Western politics, I already get all that from a range of news sources, I have no interest in reading about it on social media. It is also easy to feel left out when people insist that the politics of the USA or their other, Western country is of paramount importance, but no one would care to discuss the politics that concern you. For my own reasons, I am interested in politics in Senegal right now, but that almost never appears on Mastodon. (In fact, it’s easy to feel that most of Sub-Saharan Africa doesn’t even exist for Mastodon.)