MySpace. Peach. Periscope. There are a lot of social medias of which I am officially still a part of but no longer access. I don’t even have the apps – are there apps for these still out there? I use FaceBook for people around me use it. Done Snapchat, TikTok, and more. Still use Twitter and Instagram, and now I use the Metaverse with my Oculus Quest.
Yesterday, I joined another platform – Mastadon. While joining was simple, there is still much to learn.
Interestingly, I was prompted to join Mastadon from someone’s Tweet. Twitter lead me to Mastadon. Maybe it was a disenfranchised ex-employee of Twitter. Maybe it was a techno geek. Don’t know.
Now, joining had an unusual twist – you had to join a platform, a social group that was hosted by someone who wants like minded people connecting. It might be geographical – quite a few European groups. It might be by interest – politics, tech, and so on. But, there was no religious group – no group of association by faith – either Christian, Jew, Catholic, Muslim, anything. Weird.
There were some Christians. I found a few as I skimmed the individual descriptions. So I followed them, saw their followers, connected there … then vowed I wold return later for more surfing. I learned quickly, one of the best ways to identify like minded people and toots (their verbiage for Tweets or posts), and concepts is hashtags. So I searched # possibilities, and it was where I found some like minded Mastadonians (?).
Hashtags. Identifiers. Tag markers.
First – This is a powerful tool, but one that the one posting has to be aware. Without hashtags, messages might be missed. Without identifiers, posts could be overlooked, ignored, and never seen.
Second – We all have identifiers, whether we use hashtags or not.
Third – This is misleading tool, one that could be deceptive. A hashtag might be connected that has nothing to do with the actual post. It could be a misleading bait that might open one to harmful and even dangerous.
Soooo, I look at this in relation to my life. What hashtags am I putting out there on my life? What are the identifiers that I want people to connect with me? Are the identifiers true? If I say I am a caring person, but people that know me disagree, what good are the hashtags?
How do people know you? What are the identifiers with which they associate with you?
In the next week, I will become more acquainted with Mastadon. And in the next weeks, I will pay more attention to my life’s hashtags.
Muddy Shoes by Todd 
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