How to convey the sheer drama of federated social networks when talking to friends?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨blue_berry@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

Sometimes I struggle to convey what continues to fascinate me about dezentraly organized social media - its like explaining to someone who never played Go why its awesome who never played it.

And what I would usually recommend is (in the case of Go): watch hikaru no go (popular Go anime). I could teach them the rules, but to capture the spirit of it, I would also need to spend hours playing it with them. So instead, I give them an awesome series, which conveys the drama, fights, frustrations through story.

Would that also work for the fediverse? Sometimes I tend to get lost in technical details and how it tries to solve problems about moderation without conveing any of the daily drama and excitement I have - so what would be a good series/film/anime/book/comic that could convey this? Or do we need to create it?

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Blizzard@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If somone tried to convice me with anime to join the fediverse, I’d never join…

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sunaurus@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I think the only answer here is that we need Japan to create “Hikaru no Lemmy”, where an ancient spirit of dead Lemmy poster possesses a young boy and amazes the world with some amazing Lemmy posts 😛

Or more seriously, I’m a huge fan of this infographic and share it with people whenever I get asked about Lemmy: i.imgur.com/b2QuYAR.png

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- Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Good one indeed!
  
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plactagonic@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I usually explain it simply:

“Do you use email?” “Yeh” “It works similar doesn’t matter which provider you choose Proton, G-mail, Yahoo and your mail can go to all of the others.”

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- Cryxtalix@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I tell people it’s like signing up for a newsletter with your email, except the newsletter is also your social media feed.
  
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- blue_berry@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Right and that explains it well. But it doesn’t exactly get people excited or make them understand what it FEELS like to be part of a federated social network.
  
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  - Ilikepornaddict@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It’s weird that you think people should be excited. This is just a forum for discussion, there’s really nothing exciting about it.
    
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CatZoomies@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I don’t think it’s worth spending the cycles trying to talk about or convince others to join the Fediverse - no one likes an evangelist.

Instead, state the problem and what the Fediverse aims to solve. If one is interested in the problem and is hooked by the solution, that person will seek it out.

Since you’re struggling to provide your own analogy, break things down to basics. Do you know what the problem of social media is? Do you know what the problem of centralization is? Do you know the problem of centralization under corporate or government control? Do you know how decentralization provides a solution to that problem?

If you can break those down and understand it yourself, you can use that as part of the solution. Try facing a mirror and answering the above questions aloud to yourself so you can hear yourself talk. If you can’t explain it, then you’re not ready. Analogies aid to the explanation, not substitute it.

State the problem to the person succinctly. Then the solution. It’s important to state those without bias or feelings. You can give anime examples later.

Example posed in a friendly, conversational, and nontechnical manner: You’ve heard of some of the controversy around Twitter right? The problem with Twitter is that a controversial figure has purchased control over the product, made sweeping changes that are the opposite of Twitter’s mission and values, and has introduced disruptive functionalities that have significantly hurt the user’s experience. In other words, he’s made it much harder for someone to enjoy Twitter, and has made it easier for someone to get scammed or spread misinformation. Twitter users are kind of stuck unless they move to a different platform. But that’s tough because so many people use it.

The Fediverse is a new social media concept that’s come out, and it’s different from things like Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. Fediverse is not controlled by any corporation, but by individuals all across the planet that run their own server. An example of a Twitter competitor in the Fediverse is called Mastodon. Mastodon let’s you Tweet, connect, like, share, etc. George Takei from Star Trek is on Mastodon! Since no one controls the Fediverse, the risk of some controversial figure moving in and buying it is extremely small because of how it’s designed. No corporate control, no rich people owning it, no ads, and it is solely focused on the users rather than profits. It’s basically run by volunteers. It’s new and growing, and probably something you should consider checking out if you’re interested. Lots of people started moving over to Mastodon after the recent Twitter controversies.

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- Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Good point
  
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APassenger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s a network of social media, all using the same protocols, and each tends to have some focus: Canada, Australia, art, communism, and large numbers of members, for example.

I didn’t find federated social media to he hard to understand after the first hour or so. Is that weird?

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Chickenstalker@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The best way to get people to be interested in something is to tell them they can’t. Be a hipster. Tell them Fediverse is cool but they don’t know anything about it.

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