Best Mastodon servers

TL:DR – The best Mastodon server to use is one that has a focus on your main interests and where there are lots of others users, also one that is well established and has good policies, a strong admin team, and is financially sound.


If you’re new to Mastodon, then have a quick read of my Mastodon FAQ to get an idea of what it’s all about. Once you’ve done that or if you’re ready to dive in, here’s a list of the instances/servers that are most commonly being used by the people I followed on twitter who added a Mastodon ID or link to their bio and I could find via Debirdify.

Mastodon logo

Because they’re all federated you can see what’s happening on other instances, but you might want to opt for an instance in your area to begin with, or perhaps one where you know contacts and colleagues are already active. It is relatively straightforward to migrate from one server to another and take your followers with you, but it’s probably best to choose a well-established server that’s been around for a while.

I first tried Mastodon in August 2016, only a few months after the first system launched, but I didn’t sign up properly until November 2019 and I opted for the most obvious instance at the time, the general Mastodon.Social, so you can find me there @[email protected]

I should point out that there are currently more than 12500 Mastodon instances with almost 6 million users (just over 2 million active within the last month). You can search for those other Mastodon instances here.

Mastodon logo

Questions, questions, questions

TL:DR – I, a writer, was criticised for writing…seems an odd take to have.


I get asked a lot of questions…I always try to provide an accurate answer or find one if I don’t have an answer to give immediately. It’s inevitable, I suppose, if you write a lot on a lot of topics, you become known for it…to a degree. Anyway, when lots of people were tentatively heading for Mastodon at the end of October and into November, I kept getting asked questions about what it is, how is it best used, how do I find people, what are the pros and cons etc.

Although I was well aware of the FAQs that were out there, I put together my own in my own words, partly to rehearse and reinforce my understanding of Mastodon and how it functions and how one might get the most out of it and partly to provide answers to actual questions I’d been asked over the weeks about it. I found it quite odd that one reader asked why I had written it when there are other FAQs out there, as if there is no need for anyone to offer their take on a given topic, ah well…

I’ve written more than 10000 articles in 30+ years as a science writer and these days in my peri-retirement I write what I want to write and hope that somebody is entertained, amused, informed, or inspired by the words I string together. If they’re not…well…they can take it or leave it. It’s nice to know people are reading my stuff, but there are 8 billion of us on the planet, there are bound to be more than a few who aren’t fussed in the slightest by what I have to say.

I must admit that part of the reason I wrote it was so that I could use the phrase “Less musk, more tusk”…writers are a strange breed, aren’t we?

Phishing, smishing

TL:DR – Phishing is a form of social engineering where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware on their computer or other device via a phishing link in an email or on a website. Smishing is the text message equivalent of email phishing.


I justr received an email from a reliable and trusted contact to notify me of an alert they received from a third party pointing out that phishing attacks are on the rise. The trouble is, the email they sent with a copy of the original alert is full of links offering advice on how to stay secure and specifically how to avoid being phished…

In case you don’t already know, phishing is a scam (smishing is SMS phishing) whereby a malicious third-party hooks you in and gets you to click a link in an email that inevitably leads to the installation of malware on your device or tricks you into entering private and/or personal data on a remote website, often disguised as your bank or an e-commerce site.

The bottom line is you should NEVER click a link in an email or indeed any other kind of message you receive regardless of what it suggests that you do.

If you must visit a site mentioned in such a missive, because you think it really is legitimate, then have a look at the source of the message you received to see if the link really goes to the website of the trusted source or if it’s a decoy for a malware site. You could also then copy the actual link into an online malware scanner, such as VirusTotal, to double-check that it’s safe. Do that in an incognito tab in your browser and make sure you’re not logged into any sites in that browser window when you do.

Also, watch out for phishing hooks in your online calendar on dodgy websites and also watch out for websites that seem redirect to somewhere unexpected they may have been page hijacked.

But, there is another kind of scam that doesn’t involve links, indeed there is a type of attack that doesn’t even use bait. These are called no-hook phishing attacks. They’re more about social engineering (a confidence trick) rather than a technical attack.

Some of these emails are not aiming to scam you, but to legitimise an email address so that it can defeat spam filters and be used later for more conventional phishing attacks once the email systems perceive it as safe.

Anyway, back to the phish with no hooks. First, you receive an unexpected message on your device from someone you don’t know about something with which you’re not involved. You respond to let the correspondent know that you’re not actually the intended recipient, they reply with an apology and perhaps some other comment that then requires a further reply from you out of politeness. This is where it gets weird. The person you don’t know who accidentally contacted you is drawing you into a conversation, and you feel obliged to keep replying.

There is evidence that this kind of no-hook phishing attack can last for weeks before the payload is delivered. The scammer, having gained some degree of trust through the ongoing friendly conversation suggests you check out a website…or maybe even just suggests that you might like to know about an investment scheme through which they themselves have made a lot of money. It’s not genuine, it’s not banter, you’re being conned.

The bottom line should be don’t reply to their initial message out of politeness and you will never be sucked into the con trick. If you do happen to respond, remember the golden rule and don’t let your guard down: do not click any links in a message ever.

But, if no link ever arrives, be even more cautious when your new best friend pipes up with unsolicited investment advice or some other such nonsense.

Davey Winder discussed all of this in more detail in IT Pro here.

Popular Mastodon servers

TL:DR – A list of the most popular Mastodon instances being used by the people I follow on Twitter.


@[email protected]

The Debirdify site (also Twitodon, Fedifinder, and Movetodon) [no longer] lets you quickly find people from your Twitter lists, which can include the list of people you follow and your followers, who have added a link or Mastodon ID. As of now, 15% of the people I follow on Twitter have a Masttodon ID in their Twitter bio. UPDATE: Leon Umsk blocked Debirdify.

Mastodon logo

Incidentally “mastodon.social” is just a website address not really any different to sciencebase.com, just that the top-level domain, the bit after the dot, is social instead of com.

Anyway, the Top 20 most popular Mastodon servers/instances/websites among the people I currently follow on Twitter is as follows.

Although worth a look is science.social

So, take your pick if you haven’t joined already, there is lots to learn, but it’s fun. I have some frequently asked questions in my Mastodon FAQ.

ActivityPub and the Web 3.0 Fediverse

TL:DR – Hooking into Mastodon if you’re a WordPress user.


If you’ve been keeping abreast of recent happenings on social media, you will likely be aware that there are a lot of people looking for alternatives to the site ex-pats often call the bird place. I like to call it the bird cage myself, but that’s just a personal preference. There are lots of alternatives to the bird place. Some older and more established than others, such as Reddit and Tumblr, some fresher and not so familiar, including Mastodon and other Fediverse systems.

Mastodon logo
Much of the Fediverse is run using ActivityPub. ActivityPub, previously ActivityPump, is an open source, decentralized social networking protocol originally created by Pump.io. It underpins the client-server system for so much of the newer and emerging online world: Friendica, Mastodon, Nextcloud, Pixelfed, Pleroma, and Mobilizon

Inspiration for this short post was parallel announcements from two of the old-school social media/networking tools, Tumblr and Flickr, that are going to enable AcivityPub on their systems and so bring themselves into the fediverse. If the original social media was Web 2.0, is the federalisation and opening up of the realm Web 3.0?

I’m @[email protected], copy and paste that into your Mastodon search box to find me or open this link.

For WordPress users, there is an ActivityPub plugin that can be used to connect your site to the Fediverse. It is not quite mature but has some useful features at the time of writing this update (February 2023).

More about Mastodon and more

While Mastodon (I’m @sciencebase there and here’s my Mastodon FAQ) has become perhaps one of the most talked about alternatives to Twitter in recent weeks, there is plenty more to investigate in the alternative, federated social media world. This infographic from the JoinFediverse Wiki shows some of the many branches on the Fediverse tree. I’ll leave Sciencebase readers to do their own searching of the terms on the tree, but they’re all linked from here. Some of the terms and systems have been around a long time.

@[email protected]

Fedverse family tree
Click the graphic to see the latest full-size version

Part of the ethos of the fediverse…as the name hints – fe – diverse, is acceptance of diversity. There are moderators but there are no algorithms., many of the systems encourage and welcome minority groups and interests. It’s definitely a much more woke world than some other sections of the internet and to my mind, that’s a good thing. Fascism is not tolerated.

As I’ve been saying for many years now, better antifa than antiwoke, I think that’s an important concept of this new federated realm of the Internet that has been pulling away from the worst aspects of the mainstream.

Mastodon FAQ – Less Musk, More Tusk

TL:DR – Answers to frequently asked questions about Mastodon


Simply join me here via this link.

Mastodon logo
What is Mastodon?

Mastodon is an alternative social media system comprising lots of different interconnected sites, each with its own specific interests, but all running the open-source Mastodon software, which makes them all function in roughly the same way and allows communication and sharing between users.

When was it started?

Mastodon was started in March 2016, but gained a lot of new interest in April 2022 and again in November 2022 in the wake of major changes at one of the more well-known social media systems, Twitter.

Why is it called Mastodon?

Apparently, it’s named after the American rock band of that name. Mastodon is a term for any of the prehistoric mammal species in the genus, Mammut. The word loosely translates as “nipple toothed”.

Technically, how is Mastodon different from Twitter?

First off, Mastodon is not a single service in the way that Twitter and most other social media tools are. You’ll have heard the word instance and server bandied about with reference to Mastodon recently. That’s the jargon. Each instance is really just a separate website with its own domain name. The one I’m on is Mastodon Social, its address is https://mastodon.social.

Why do the different instances look the same?

The thing about all these instances, these websites, with odd-looking addresses is that they all run the same software, the mastodon software, so they have the same look and layout and make the same tools available to users. Superficially, this sounds a bit like Facebook Groups, but you can think of Mastodon as being more akin to hundreds of self-hosted WordPress blogs with multiple bloggers/authors/users/admins.

How do I choose which instance/server to use?

You can pick one that looks like the most interesting or where you can see lots of your friends and contacts are active. I’ve put together a list of the top 20 instances that the people I followed on twitter are now using here.

What’s that word, fediverse, mean?

The Mastodon creators call the network of interconnected sites/instances the Fediverse, it’s a federated network.

What effect does being in a federated network have?

The key thing about the sites being connected/federated is that the Mastodon software provides tools that connect all these sites so that users on different sites can communicate and interact.

Interact, how?

Different instances being interconnected means if you see an update in your timeline, they’re called toots, you can like, or favourite, it by clicking the star below the update. This adds it to your private list of favourites and also lets the person who posted that update know that you saw it and liked it.

Is that it?

No, the interconnections mean that if you want to make a stronger response you can comment publicly on an update. You can also do the equivalent of a retweet on Twitter or a reblog on Tumblr, which is known as a boost on Mastodon. To do this you click the boost icon, which is an icon formed from two arrows . It usually shows between the comment icon (speech bubbles or backwards arrow) and the favourite/like icon (the star). A boost promotes the update so that more people will see it in their timelines.

Does Mastodon have an algorithm to boost updates?

No, there’s no biasing algorithm running behind the scenes, so if you want the world to know about an interesting update, you need to boost it manually.

Okay, how do I find an instance to join?

Finding a Mastodon instance that suits you can take time. I opted for Mastodon Social because back in 2019*, it looked broad and general and I wasn’t actually sure how to find any others. There are so many now for lots of different niches and interests all with their own set of rules and recommendations for use. You can search for something suitable here.

The instance I chose is shut to new users, what do I do?

The admins of all the various sites are endeavouring to get on top of problems caused by the influx of new users but several are currently closed to new logins. Be patient. They will open up again soon.

But, I want to get started now, what can I do?

Well, you could join one of the open instances and start there. Keep checking your preferred instance and once it opens up to new logins, sign up. There are steps you can then take to export your temporary instance to your preferred one.

I joined, what now?

Once you’re signed up and have added a photo and all the other bits and pieces you will want to find people to follow. You can do this in a wholly organic way, simply follow people that post interesting things on your instance or across the fediverse. Alternatively, you might see a mastodon handle from someone you follow elsewhere on social media and can open their link and follow them directly.

What do I see in my timeline?

There are three levels of timeline on Mastodon. On your home screen, your timeline will be filled with updates from the people you follow. If you want a broader view you choose local, this shows you updates from everyone on your instance not just the users you follow. If you choose the Federated option then you get to see updates from all the instances. You can also create lists of users to see updates from particular cliques and niches.

Can I use an RSS reader to watch an account?

Yes, you can subscribe to public posts from a user by tacking “.rss” on to the end of their user address, e.g. https://mastodon.social/@sciencebase.rss

Can I message other users?

Yes, aside from commenting on a post, if you have someone else’s ID or handle, you can direct message them (DM).

Are DMs encrypted and safe from prying eyes?

As with many other social media systems like Twitter DMs, Facebook Messaging and others, direct messages between users are not encrypted. It is worth being cautious when using any such system and not using them to share personal or private information. It is worth adding that if you @ mention a third party in a Mastodon DM, that third party will see your DM as well as the recipient.

Isn’t it difficult to follow someone?

Not really, if they’re on the same instance as you, you just need their handle, the @sciencebase in my case, if you’re on mastodon.social. But, if you’re on a different instance, scicomm.xyz, for instance, you will need to include the username and the instance, @[email protected] in the search to find them.

What does the hourglass next to the person I followed mean?

Some users have their preferences set to allow them to moderate who follows them rather than automatically accepting everyone. If someone has this set in their preferences, you will see an hourglass after following them until they accept or refuse you. If you get frustrated by this, you can always cancel the request.

Can I bulk follow people from my Twitter?

Following people can almost be automated, although not quite. If you have lists on Twitter, you can could previously scan them with various apps – Debirdify, Twittodon, Fedifinder, and Movetodon but they have been mostly locked out of the X/Twitter system as far as I know. These will find the people on Twitter who have added their mastodon ID or link to their bio, used it as their URL, or have a pinned tweet announcing it. All three apps let you export a file (a CSV file) that you can import into Mastodon and use to bulk follow those people. Incidentally, you can scan other twitter user’s account to find their people with Mastodon IDs.

Will they follow back automatically?

No, a followback is not guaranteed as is the case with every other social media system. However, the people you follow will get a notification to say you followed them and they may then choose to do so.

How do I get a blue checkmark?

There are no blue (actually white or black) checkmarks or tickmarks on Mastodon.

So how can we know an account is genuine?

You can’t really. But users can at least verify any links they add to their profile and these will appear in green. It is worth doing this for your own account to give yourself some validation. It involves adding a snippet of HTML code to the website you wish to be associated with. That’s as close as you can get to making your profile look official. I’ve verified sciencebase.com on my Mastodon account. An impersonator wouldn’t be able to do that without hacking this website.

How many people on twitter are now on Mastodon?

Impossible to say, some people are just trying it out, others have jumped ship. I’ve used Debirdify a few time to gather my twitter gang. I estimate that about 14% of the people I follow on Twitter have added their ID, so I’ve found them on Mastodon and been able to follow them there. More people are signing up all the time and not everyone is coming from twitter.

How do I get around twitter’s Mastodon link ban?

As of 2022-11-16, Twitter seems to be marking links to Mastodon sites as being unsafe. So, you need to obfuscate them if you wish to share with your twitter followers. This link shortener lets you do that: https://spacekaren.sucks

Could I set up my own, personal Mastodon instance?

Yes, you could. That is the basic concept for the creation of “Mastodon”. Some people run the software, administer their own domain, and are the only member of the instance. They are part of the federated system nevertheless so can interact with others as they see fit and others can see and interact with them.

Are there any legal issues I should be aware of before setting up an instance?

Yes, plenty, but none that should limit you. If your server will be in the US, the EFF has a legal guide you should read first.

Who is John Mastodon?

There is no such person, a columnist wrote about how twitter had banned “join mastodon” having assumed that was a mistake and that John Mastodon was the founder of Mastodon…the name has now been taken to the next level of meme and satire. Remember Spartacus? “I am John Mastodon!”

Isn’t mysogyny at play again?

Yes, you’re right, it should have been Jean Mastodon.

Can I make Mastodon work like TweetDeck?

Not quite. On a desktop screen, you can make Mastodon look a bit like that. Go into your Preferences and tick/check the box for Enable advanced web interface and then click to save your preferences. You then get side-by-side timeline columns. I’ve not investigated customisation yet.

What about mobile devices?

If you prefer, you can definitely go mobile on Mastodon. Tusky, is the Android app I use, it’s the one that suits me best. Not many people seem to recommend the native apps. Tusky and others have most, but not all, features you see on desktop in a web browser.

How do I find anything on Mastodon?

A common complaint from some new users regards the clunkiness of searching. There is no simple search method that will find people or specific posts across the fediverse. This is deliberate, it’s a protection mechanism that limits how easily trolls and bots might otherwise home in on vulnerable users.

So, how do I search?

Well, you can search by hashtag and users are encouraged to use hashtags to engage. You can search by ID/handle for someone on your instance. You can search by ID link to find people on other instances. Indeed, if you want your posts to be found, it’s worth adding appropriate hashtags. Many new users make their first update an #introduction and include their key hashtags as part of that.

Speaking of trolls..?

Most of the Mastodon sites are tolerant and accepting of diversity and highly intolerant of bigotry and abuse. It would be patronising of me to describe them as safe havens for minorities, but it seems that by enforcing rules that do not allow trolling, bigotry, and abuse, they can offer their users a far less toxic social media experience. This is a good thing, obviously. It is those negative issues and not just the muskiness that have driven many people to leave Twitter.

Can that tolerance vary from server to server?

Yes, each admin establishes a different baseline for their server. It must be said that some servers are more accepting of particular minorities than others and it is wise to check the rules when you make your choice of which to join.

Can I block someone?

Yes, there is a block and a mute option. There is also the option to report to the server admins anyone being abusive, trolling, or spamming you, if you so wish.

Why is everything so clunky and glitchy?

Because of the musky mess being made of the bird place, there has been a huge influx of new people to the mastodon servers, around 2 million in less than a month. Most of the small servers are volunteer run and so there have been glitches where resources were insufficient to cope with so many new users. They’re working through it. Things will get better.

What if some awful billionaire wants to buy Mastodon?

As has hopefully become apparent from the answers to the previous questions, Mastodon is open source and runs on many different servers. There is a not-for-profit company that first created the software and owns the branding, but even if that were assimilated up some awful billionaire’s fiscal portfolio, it would be impossible for them to buy the fediverse or even the mastodon instances within it, although it might force admins and users to stop using the logo!

Could someone buy an instance?

Yes, and it is already happening, one of the biggest instances was recently purchased. However, before that happened almost all of the other instances de-federated it so that it was no longer really part of the broader fediverse but simply a standalone website running the Mastodon software.

What’s Sciencebase’s Mastodon story?

I first logged on to a Mastodon server in August 2016 and promptly forgot about it. I joined Mastodon.Social back in November 2019, but didn’t use it much until April 2022 and then only for a week or two…I came back to it again in October and have become much more active since then. I’ve been hoovering up twitter followees and others as something of an escape from what Mastodon users often refer to as the bird place, you know the place, the one that’s more musk than tusk, Twitter.

You can search for me by my handle, ID, call it what you will as:

@[email protected]

Alternatively, a handle can be given as https://mastodon.social/@sciencebase which obviously looks like a normal web address but with an @ sign, use that instead of the handle if your device doesn’t recognise the former.

What about sciencebase on other social media?

Of course, have been for years, always try to be an early adopter. I’ve set up sciencebase.com redirects to my socials. If you type a URL like this https://sciencebase.com/mastodon, it will take you to the appropriate site. It should work with the following: tumblr, flickr, instagram, twitter, facebook, linkedin, soundcloud, bandcamp, tiktok, reddit, basically anywhere I’ve got a social media presence. E.g. https://sciencebase.com/tumblr

I’m still not convinced, isn’t there a nice, simple alternative to Twitter?

Well, to be honest, a nice cup of tea and a good book would probably do your mental health more good, but there are lots of other social media systems out there some of which have been around for years – Tumblr, Diaspora, Discord, CounterSocial, Minds, Cohost, that might ultimately emerge as better alternatives to Twitter. Indeed, some commentators are pointing out that because Mastodon is federated and doesn’t allow for facile conversation and commentary across the fediverse, a well-established system like good-old Reddit might ultimately fair much better and become the new go-to social media spot.

Should I leave Twitter?

Please don’t abandon Twitter and certainly don’t delete your account (someone will claim your handle and use it after 30 days). Twitter might emerge from all this confusion in a better state, but it will need lovely people like you to hold the haters and the trolls to task, to block and report the nasties, and to keep irritating Leon Umsk until he abandons it as a bad job.

But, I really want to leave is there a good reason not to delete my account?

There is a very good reason not to delete your Twitter account, whatever choice you make. Within 30 days of deletion, your username becomes available for someone else to use in whatever way they like for good or bad. If you must leave, simply deactivate your account and if you get a deletion warning from Twitter follow any instructions to keep the account alive.

If not Twitter and not Mastodon, where else?

There are lots of options for those wishing to escape Twitter who don’t necessarily want to join Mastodon. There are some of the older, well-known social media sites such as Reddit, Indenti.ca, Diaspora, Discord, Tumblr and then there are newer initiatives like Cohost!, Counter.Social, Hive Social, Post.News, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s new initiative, Bluesky, and many others.

Why did Sciencebase publish this FAQ when there are already others out there?

Well, I’m a writer, I wanted to put in words my own thoughts about the service and to share those with people who had asked me about Mastodon, so here we are.

How many followers does Sciencebase have on Mastodon?

Just over 1000 as of 2022-12-21

*Bizarrely, there was a tag visible in my Mastodon account, that suggests I actually first logged in in August 2016, not long after the software protocol was launched. Someone mus have told me about it and I took a look, but did nothing more.

FAQ created: 2022-11-21. Last updated: 2022-12-21

Departing Twitter

The holiday cruise is drawing to a close. Many of the cruisers have a clutch of new best-friends-forever friendships. These were easily won and formed in the halcyon days in the far-flung resorts visited on the liner. They may have been melded over one too many shared jugs of sangria by the pool. Maybe they were sweated out under a burning sun in the queue waiting for the boats to take them ashore to see the old town. It’s possible that they were the tortured rapture of a shared grievance about cold showers or a badly stocked minibar at the rep’s desk. It’s the last night blues which inevitably sees all these BFFs grappling each other’s shoulders, swearing undying allegience to future get togethers back in the homeland, swigging yet more sangria and swapping phone numbers, Facebook details, and perish the thought, home addresses.

But this was no ordinary cruise it went on for years, the liner filled up with more and more passengers, more and more with complaints, a few too many people grappling other people’s shoulders uninvited, a lot of spilled sangria, and always somebody else’s towel on a favourite sunlounger. Then the rumours started that some hotshot captain was going to take the helm and set off on a new course. He was supposedly to take the liner to new beautiful lands with even greener grass to view from the deck. But the grass was astroturf and there’d be a charge for the free sangria. Lots of passengers took their chances, dived overboard, and swam ashore, thrashing through the water to reach unknown lands where ancient pachiderms wandered freely. Those that stayed tried to tolerate the growing number of sangria spillers, towel abusers, and shoulder grabbers. There was a lot of mopping up of spilled drinks to do but not enough moppers. The hotshot captain never showed up…the liner carried on riding the waves through the summber months.

As the summer passed, the new captain was helicoptered in once again, chucking kitbags of money at the cruise company and insisting on taking the helm. He made most of the crew walk the plank and threw the mops overboard. He told the sangria drinkers they’d have to pay for a little blue badge on their towel if they wanted to get a sun lounger by the pool. Indeed, if they didn’t have the badge, they’d have to swim in the bilge below decks.

The sangria drinkers remembered their old new BFFs who’d jumped ship to be with the pachiderms and started manning the lifeboats. Without a compass, they headed in different directions and hoped for the best. Others remained steadfast, even mocking those in the lifeboats, for leaving them behind. Meanwhile, the hotshot captain steered the liner on a perilous course, one that took the vessel into uncharted waters where trolls swam among floating mountains of ice and not a pachiderm was to be seen…to be continued…

Join me on Mastodon

UPDATE: There is another exodus from Twitter happening right now (November 2022) following the controversial buyout of the microblogging site by billionaire Leon Umsk [anag. 4,4]. I left my account relatively dormant in May this year but have updated a little in the last couple of weeks and connected with a few more people.

If you’ve joined you can search for me with the following handle

@[email protected]

You may have heard mention of the various “new” alternatives to Twitter and other such social media sites, Counter.Socia, Tribel, Cohost! None of them is actually new, but changes and issues with the old-school social media has brought them to the attention of the masses in the last week or two…basically in April 2022, Musk offered to buy Twitter.

One of them is part of the so-called Fediverse and is called Mastodon. I’ll leave it to you to search those terms and decide whether you’re in or not. It turns out I’d joined in since November 2019 having signed up to “Mastodon.Social” back then on a whim and probably a recommendation, but probably because it was the big, generic one and there was no decent niche alternative for a science writing, photographing, singer-songwriter.

There are pros and cons although I’ve not really seen any cons other than that having been used to my tens of thousands of Twitter followers, I am not looking at a couple of dozen followers on Mastodon at the time of writing, hopefully, that will grow in the coming weeks.

So, if you’re so inclined sign up for an instance, and follow me [email protected]. Incidentally, you don’t have to be a member of Mastodon.Social to follow me you can be on any instance, they all communicate with each other by virtue of shared software and protocols and what have you.

The bottom line: Where twitter was once friendly watercooler chit-chat and is now a hate-filled cesspit of trolls and ugly-on-the-inside celebrities, Mastodon is a much friendlier place where people share their creative output and have civilised discussions.

The sleet that rained like chatting lizards

I asked a “plot generator” website to come up with a story based on a couple of dozen words I input. This is what it came up with:

The sleet that rained like chatting lizards

Matt Trescothik was thinking about Jenny Slaughden again. Jenny was a kind juggler with dirty lips and ugly arms. Matt walked over to the window and reflected on his picturesque surroundings. He had always hated damp Wivenhoe with its energetic, excited estuaries. It was a place that encouraged his tendency to feel puzzled.

Then he saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the a kind figure of Jenny Slaughden. Matt gulped. He glanced at his own reflection. He was a deranged, splendid, wine drinker with hairy lips and ample arms. His friends saw him as a bulbous, bewildered brute. Once, he had even rescued a silent old man from a burning building.

But not even a deranged person who had once rescued a silent old man from a burning building, was prepared for what Jenny had in store today.

The sleet rained like chatting lizards, making Matt unstable. Matt grabbed a cursed hat that had been strewn nearby; he massaged it with his fingers. As Matt stepped outside and Jenny came closer, he could see the good smile on her face. Jenny gazed with the affection of 5729 intelligent damaged dogs. She said, in hushed tones, “I love you and I want work.”

Matt looked back, even more unstable and still fingering the cursed hat. “Jenny, I like your toes,” he replied. They looked at each other with ambivalent feelings, like two mighty, magnificent mice rampaging at a very greedy accident, which had jazz music playing in the background and two bold uncles sitting to the beat.

Matt studied Jenny’s dirty lips and ugly arms. Eventually, he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” began Matt in apologetic tones, “but I don’t feel the same way, and I never will. I just don’t love you Jenny.” Jenny looked barmy, her emotions raw like a grisly, gloopy guitar.

Matt could actually hear Jenny’s emotions shatter into 5009 pieces. Then the kind juggler hurried away into the distance. Not even a glass of wine would calm Matt’s nerves tonight.

THE END

The site also generates reviews (auto praise) of your “story”

“I feel like I know Matt Trescothik. In a way, it feels as though I’ve always known him.” — The Daily Tale
“About as enjoyable as being hailed on whilst taking in washing that has been targeted by seagulls with the squits.” — Enid Kibbler
“Saying the sleet rained like chatting lizards is just the kind of literary device that makes this brilliant.” — Hit the Spoof
“I could do better.” — Zob Gloop