As a new user, I’m enjoying Mastodon’s vibe so far but the one thing that is a letdown is the trending hashtags. I’ve been checking them regularly over the past couple of weeks and it seems like they’re pretty much always like this.
Even on days with big news stories, people on Mastodon are only talking about what day of the week it is like company employees on some internal message board?
Is there anything that can be done to liven them up a bit?
Because mastodon doesn’t have an algo that promotes division and controversial topics. These hashtags are what normal, everyday people talk about. Drama isn’t its strongest side.
Are you saying that Lemmy does have those algorithms? Because this shit is never boring lol so many instances I never wanted to see or know existed…
Slightly related: how many freaking instances of “yiff” shit do we need!? I couldn’t believe I was STILL seeing it after I blocked like 7 separate instances lol
Lemmy ““promotes”” upvoted stuff.
Mastodon “Trending” is just stuff that wasn’t talked about, suddenly being talked about. That’s why constantly popular things don’t appear on Trending, but things like “BigBoobFridayWhatever” (or equivalent) gets trending (people don’t use the hashtag for a week, and everyone use it for that day). I see how they thought it’s perfect for world-wide events, but it just end-up being a bunch of “weekly” stuff.
BigBoobFriday has to happen.
Needs more alliteration. #MassiveMammaryMonday
#TitularTitanticTittyTuesdays
I will make it happen.
Furries invade every tech space because they’re all programmers for some reason. Must have something to do with being bullied as a kid and/or never seeing boobs irl. I know because I like their porn but not their identity, I’d never wear a suit but a cat is fine too
I guess the reality is that I want at least SOME controversy. I don’t know why the only two choices have to be “fascism-enabling hellscape” or “nobody saying anything interesting ever.” There has to be at least some possible middle ground!
I agree. The Trending algorithm needs improvement. Luckily, we can do that ourselves.
explain how
By creating a pull request in Github. (Don’t yet angry, that was supposed to be a lighthearted joke)
i angy 😡
I can imagine some alpha-cunt Tate-esque grifter selling courses on how to “Just Shout at People” like it’s some sort of magic spell that mysteriously makes everything that you want happen.
Selling it like it’s the hidden secret sauce to the universe or whatever, rather than just being a dick to everyone.
Would the community even be any worse, I wonder? :)
I agree. I want to see people’s opinions on the news of the day. By the way, I recommend following @BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to if you want a little controversy. He was one of my favorite posters from Twitter & has gone all-in on Mastodon.
Wait, so the recent topics that occur suddenly on Twitter aren’t the normal things people talk about? So the hype on Twitter events are fake?
They are. But they’re also influenced by who talks about it, how many comments, replies, likes it has. How many people click on it. Etc.
On mastodon is just how many people used the hashtag in a short period of time.
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yeah sounds like boring shit. I get that already from talking to actual people, not virtue signalling boomers on mastodon
the lack of algo reduces the quality of content to this garbage, but this is the same people who think more content is bad as well. I don’t want some breaking or interesting post to be hidden by some random person posting completely meaningless garbage
You sound like you might enjoy TikTok more.
Yeah it’s either useless boring small talk on Mastodon, or zoomer tik tok. Absolutely no middle.
*useless only if you have no interests. There’s plenty of people talking hobbies and interests. If you’re just shooting shit, I agree, it’s boring. And no, there’s no middle. Maybe Instagram is the middleground?
The amount of people on Mastodon who are like “ahh finally, nothing interesting to look at now that I left Twitter, I am at peace and can just scroll through pictures of someone’s dinner and obscure academic naval gazing :)” is so high
It’s boring and shitty. It’s hard to find interesting stuff. Good luck finding trending/newsworthy events.
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I think the #tuesday hashtag isn’t really what normal people talk about, but probably people gaming the system to get on a reliably trending hashtag.