"i have to be on [genocidal platform] its where all the eyeballs are!"

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

"i have to be on [genocidal platform] its where all the eyeballs are!"

at my peak i had 13k followers on twitter. i now have 12k followers on bluesky with only 40 million total users, and 11k on mastodon with 10 million users

what does it matter to me how many users are on a platform? what matters is how many i can actually reach

also, i've driven way more traffic to my creations from mastodon/bluesky because my links aren't being suppressed so they've actually been way *more* successful

[j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz]

@eniko As somebody who left [genocidal platform] but for whom being on social media has no direct income/work implications, I admit I never found the willpower to rebuild a following (I peaked at approximately 22k on Twitter).

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@j_bertolotti dang, how'd you get that many?

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

this is also why i'm not too fussed about going on tiktok for marketing. tiktok is devious, they give you an extra few shots of visibility when you're new but from what i can tell unless that turns into virality you're left to languish afterwards, but locked in hoping that visibility one day returns

[j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz]

@eniko Tons of undergrad and PhD students who liked my animated scientific explainers.
I still get people at conferences coming to me to say they liked the stuff I published on Twitter.

(Twitter always had problems, but Science Twitter was a wonderful place that didn't manage to re-materialize anywhere else. A lot of people remained hung to it, and any attempt to re-create it here or on bsky failed ☹️ )

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@j_bertolotti dang that sucks :/

[j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz]

@eniko That is why, while I deeply disagree with their choice, I can't be too hard on all the scientists who keep a presence on X. I understand that letting it go is hard, even if only the ruins of what once was remain.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@eniko the participation here is so much better than it ever was on twitter too

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@aeva yeah, you can ask questions and get a bunch of actual thoughtful answers

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@eniko it's so good

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@eniko also, nothing prevents anyone who feels they need to be on [genocidal platform] to *also* establish a Fediverse presence too. And since building an audience here takes (on average) more time, anyone who didn't start three years ago (at the latest) is now three years late in building the Fediverse presence.

«The best time to get started on Fedi was three years ago, the second best time is now.»

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@oblomov yeah. its baffling when people who need social presence to survive are like "but fedi smells bad :("

im on bluesky and it aint cause i love it, you know?

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@j_bertolotti do you tell them that they can still find you here if they really liked them so much? 8-D

@eniko

[j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz]

@oblomov Yes, but how much visibility do you think X is giving to a post with a link to Mastodon and one to Bluesky? 😉
With each migration wave a few people from there find me here, but the problem is not even the number of followers, the problem is that I don't have the mental energies to create that amount of content for a small audience anymore.
@eniko

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@j_bertolotti no, I mean at conferences, when speaking face to face

@eniko