nicky flowers

the problem with buying 4 donuts is wanting to eat 4 donuts. but if you buy just 1, then you won't have more for later. we truly live in hells of our own invention

or cohistory, if you will

these are the major influxes of users so far:

• The 0th wave: @staff create the website. @vogon, @jae, and @aidan only.

• The 1st wave: Friends and family access. A small group of people join, but enough to make it usable socially. Kind of a forum vibe. A little poking around with the limits of CSS, including my own eggbug playground which I think Colin once described as "the first true CSS crime".

• The 2nd wave: Cohost goes public. Suddenly there are enough users that it's possible for someone to be active on the site but also more than two friends removed from you. The heyday of CSS crimes and other wild experiments, which eventually burns itself out in favor of a more longpost-oriented style.

• The 3rd wave: Happening now. Twitter users looking for an alternative due to the Musk buyout. Ramifications for the culture as yet unclear.

• The 4th wave: Ska's back. pick it up. pick it up. pick it up.

treat it like meeting new people offline.

• go to interest-based meetups (: tag search) (bonus: you can't get covid from tag search, unlike physical meetups)
• get your friends/acquaintances to introduce you to new people (: reblogs)

comment on interesting posts to strike up a conversation! also, assume good faith until proven otherwise, we're mostly all trying our best over here. welcome!

Be generous with your follows! Twitter has conditioned us to be extremely scrupulous about who we follow in order to keep our ever-flowing timelines somewhat manageable, but happily Cohost is a far slower-moving beast. (I know the timeline's popping right now with all the new arrivals, but things will settle down in a few days.) This is a great opportunity for you to follow people who might have a vaguely interesting hobby, or who wrote a neat essay, or who just seem nice (the welcome to cohost tag is great for this). Plus, if you enjoy the site and want more people to stick around, giving folks a follow is a great way to make them feel like they aren't just posting into the void.