As I keep saying (probably too often), Operation: Puppet is so small that “success” in terms of follows/views/listens etc. is measured in ones, not hundreds. All the way back on Jan 5 (what is time?) I said that if our bouncing baby podcast Pixels and Puppets can hit 100 downloads by the time we record the next episode, I would get myself a new mic.
I picked that number because I thought it was highly unlikely it would get that many. It would have been unthinkable for our old podcast to do so well so early. It was, as they say, shooting for the stars.
We record this Friday. Last night it was sitting at 94 downloads, which was still way more than I expected. I posted about this on the O:P Mastodon account and when I woke up this morning?
105 downloads. I’m getting the mic.
Amazing.
I’ve been preaching to anyone who will stand still not just about how good Mastodon is once you get past the initial hurdles, but how important the idea of non-corporate social media is, and this is a perfect illustration. The lack of algorithm means it’s entirely driven by people. You may not get quantity, but you sure do get quality. It’s what social media used to be and can be again – a global network of ordinary folks, sharing ideas and thoughts. Like any crowd of ordinary people, it’s not a Utopia, but the toxic spiral of profit-driven “engagement” just doesn’t exist. It’s as close to an emotionally healthy network as something like this can be.
That is thanks in no small part to the hard work of server admins and mods. My instance (mastodon.art) has a reputation for being very no-compromise with hate speech and toxicity, and I applaud them for it. I can jump into the Federated timeline, and although I may have to look around a while to find something that interests me, I feel comfortable that I’ll never see anything close to the extremist garbage that regularly gets pushed to the top of the Bird Site.
Thank you everyone, and particularly to the good folks of Mastodon. Nothing is ever perfect, but this is a great example that it can be better.
Now for some mic shopping. After coffee.