And that means any given invite to a real-life event will probably result in more people showing up in real life. Because there is just a higher density of people here. More people per hundred accounts?
All this makes me think about how weird it is on most other platforms, where there is a lower person to account ratio.
Oct 17, 2026, 2:03 AM@annaleen any chance at all of an event in DFW?
@gikkt That may be nice.
Oct 17, 2026, 2:04 AMI hope you bring this up to some of the lovely people that made accounts, now gone dormant, on wondering.shop, who presumably moved to Bluesky
I have bookshelves filled with own-voices science fiction and fantasy I discovered through the network of LGBTQ and POC authors in the last few years of pre-buyout Twitter
I really miss that.
@annaleen I have definitely gotten the impression that a vast swath of Instagram is fake engagement.
Oct 17, 2026, 3:45 PM@tedmielczarek @annaleen There is also the matter that some of these commercial platforms do not ensure users get all posts, Facebook a decade or so ago required explicitly requesting to see *all* posts from friends (so, opt-in, per friend IIRC), and 'pages' didn't even have that option.
@annaleen One of the main reasons I love it over here.
Engagement seems to have picked up in that manner in the last 5-6 months - at least for me. It's really great to see this flourish; still reminds me of the old internet is some ways - one has to go out and 'find their community' (in a good way)
Oct 17, 2026, 2:22 AMAlso it’s just easier to connect to your local community on Mastodon. It’s the hashtags maybe? I follow hashtags for my state and local city, which leads to following other local folks and local businesses, which leads to hearing about local events…
@anne @annaleen I heard about it here, from Anne, but I've been to events at Phoenix Books before, so I was aware of what it would be like and was willing to go-Burlington is a relatively easy place to get in and out of, there's parking, and I got there early so I had dinner at the new Jamaican place in town.
Also, Vermont is kinda weird - I literally saw 2/3rds of my Congresspeople yesterday, Bernie was walking down Church St. and I saw Becca Balint walking on the new Parkway w/ her partner 🤣
Oct 17, 2026, 2:34 AMYeah! I was glad to see that you made it but too shy to say hi. 🫠
Oct 17, 2026, 2:38 AMMaybe? I was in the front row, with my partner in crime @dwenius.
Oct 17, 2026, 2:40 AM@Wyatt_H_Knott @annaleen @dwenius really the best kind of nerd.
@anne @Wyatt_H_Knott @dwenius It's the Vermont fedi gang!
Oct 17, 2026, 3:27 AM@annaleen @anne @Wyatt_H_Knott @dwenius I am sorry I missed it (my civics meeting planning the election went well) but I am glad VT Fedi showed up for you.
@annaleen @anne @Wyatt_H_Knott @dwenius
Where do Vermont fedifolk hang out? Also, there's a Jamaican place in Burlington!?!
@Wyatt_H_Knott @annaleen @anne @dwenius
Thanks! I would have guessed that's some Bostonian's secondhand store.
@annaleen Thanks for coming to Vermont, it was a super interesting talk, and I'm halfway through the book already (it's incredibly good.) It was super cool to meet you.
And don't worry, I'm not bothered about the scribbling!
i think it's also more folks interested in what we share here. my feed tends to be heavy in folks who read very regularly, share what they read, share what they like. same for the music folks, tech folks, etc.
so event announcements get to folks really into that kind of event and are shared with other folks with similar interests.
Oct 17, 2026, 2:57 AM@annaleen There are many factors in play, not the least of which is the effectiveness of moderation, which I find to be about two orders of magnitude more accurate and three orders of magnitude quicker. The half-life of an operative is thus vastly lower. Then there's the inability to hack an algorithm to gain visibility. "Influence" here is entirely organic. Because there's no commercial driver for growth here, this is likely to remain the case for quite some time, and I love that.
P.S. So sad to be missing you at Can*Con; come back next year, eh? 😉
These days, I've stopped using non-Fediverse platforms for marketing. I'll see how this works out when I release my third book.
@annaleen It’s kind of how Twitter was back once upon a time… except better because of almost no character limit on many instances.
