As a user of both Mastodon and Lemmy, I think there are inherit differences between the format that make lemmy easily a capable replacement for Reddit, but mastodon not at all a replacement for Twitter.

To get into specifics, Lemmy is more meme and news based, and as long as there are a few thousand users using it and some percentage of those posting content…it largely scratches the same itch.

Twitter was very much an active global conversation forum. It was nicknamed the hell site for a reason because if someone took issue with or was very amused by something you posted and you became “the main character” of Twitter for even an instant (something I experienced only very slightly) it was electrifying and even sort of scary at times.

In addition, the people that were active on there were very active, and it felt at times like you could talk to anyone who had been twitterized…which was a lot of people including prominent politicians, celebrities, and even experts of certain fields.

It was just an entirely different thing altogether. Mastodon is like many of the Twitter alternatives that have popped up from time to time. It’s largely kinda the same with regards to functionality (though not having quote tweets is completely ridiculous IMO) but the engagement of it is very low, and the place largely feels very inactive. It feels like you’re talking to dead feeds posted in syndication and there’s nobody on the other end.

It’s not the same as Twitter, and I doubt that Bluesky will even be the same as Twitter. Honestly, maybe all of that’s a good thing. But the virality and the engagement and the discovery and everything on Mastodon is way turned down versus Twitter. Twitter was like the crack cocaine of social media…fast, cheap, addictive, and terrible for you. Mastodon is like a cup of tea by comparison.