On Mastodon you can follow hashtags and/or people. Following hashtags means you see posts with hashtags you are following in your feed, even from people you are

On Mastodon you can follow hashtags and/or people. Following hashtags means you see posts with hashtags you are following in your feed, even from people you are not following, instead of seeing a few relevant posts and lots of irrelevant posts when you are following people. For me, following hashtags greatly increases my signal to noise ratio. There are a few people I follow but I mostly follow hashtags. If someone misuses a hashtag, I can simply mute their account and never see them again. If I get tired of a hashtag, I can stop following it and if I see a post with a hashtag I want to follow, I can with two clicks.