Plum

@plumpan

he/him

I occasionally write long posts but you should assume I'm talking out of my ass until proved otherwise. I do like writing shit sometimes.

50/50 chance of suit pictures end up here or on the Art Directory account. Good luck.

Be 18+ or be gone you kids act fuckin' weird.

pfp by wackyanimal

I tag all of my posts complaining about stuff #complaining, feel free to muffle that if you'd like a more positive cohost experience.

Art and suit stuff: @PlumPanAD

"DMs":
Feel free to message as long as you have something to talk about!

Plum @plumpan7/31/2023, 8:30 PM

- ̗̀ 🏳️‍⚧️Tuddy🏳️‍⚧️ ̖́-@tudsworth

Erica @erica7/31/2023, 7:22 PM

another exodus from twitter, another group of artists migrating to bluesky, another day of watching all of them be like damn this place is so nice but it's really missing [feature cohost has had since forever] and just screaming into the heavens

i'm almost positive that people come here and see no numbers on posts and think it means every post is a potential failure because it's not "doing numbers" and it makes me sad how much this shit has just broken people. i wish i could sit every person down and explain why that's such a meaningless way of measuring 'success' but also that it's like, actually a lot worse on BS because yeah you see numbers there but getting like 10 RTs on a site that has way more users than here is actually kind of abysmal! your posts relatively actually do a lot worse there because people are not there for that content. they never were, they never will be. the twitter micro-blogging experience is not condusive to art it is condusive to virality and low-quality posting.

sigh

Curi Lagann @HedgeMom7/31/2023, 7:47 PM

This like a million times

I made a comment on how BS n Threadz kept getting these no context hype trains for furries/literally any content, but then promptly lose 75% of their users in a week cause it's just more of the same. Hell I know one of the people making this claim and I know for a fact she's already off those sites

Meanwhile people genuinely detoxing over here while getting the actual meaningful interactions they crave, but because it's not got some arbitrary rpg stats below it, it isn't "viable"

I think these people in general REALLY need to explore what viable actually means

Is viable getting people to click your kofi? Is it getting actual people critically interacting with your work? Is it being able to be honest and yourself?

Or is it getting folks you don't know, don't like and certainly don't care about just bumping up some stats on your posts?

Either way the answer is cohost ¯\ _ (ツ) _/¯

- ̗̀ 🏳️‍⚧️Tuddy🏳️‍⚧️ ̖́-@tudsworth7/31/2023, 8:17 PM

Cohost is definitely my preferred platform by a long shot and while I don't really have anything productive to add to this beyond effectively saying "this" and pointing at the above posts, I will say that the people I've met on here who "get it" really do get it. Virality and metrics are fleeting and the work it produces from creatives is, similarly, fleeting unless somebody happens to chance upon The One Thing that bucks that unfortunate trend.

It's a horrible process to un-learn that, especially if you're only used to the modern social media landscape, and it's totally not something that everybody can do, but I still hold out hope that more people will un-learn caring about The Numbers(tm), because I'd really like to be able to share a site I actually enjoy being on with more people.

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in reply to @erica's post:

Erica @erica7/31/2023, 7:25 PM

like it's fine i'm not interested in building a new foundation on a place that will inevitably also crumble. it's just a "i wish i could see these people's artwork here" because yeah i see their posts when i log in there but overwhelmingly, despite only following friends, i see nothing but garbage and drama when looking at that site's feed

stubborn lights @stubbornlights7/31/2023, 11:38 PM

I miss all the random fan art I'd stumble across on Twitter, but there's no way I'm going to blue sky tbh

Damien @eramdam7/31/2023, 7:53 PM

I'm starting to think Cohost should go back into invite-only because clearly seeing "invite-only" triggers something in people's brains that makes them think a place is better than it actually is. Bsky is lacking features that Cohost, Mastodon, Misskey, whatever already have and so much more, but nope. Bsky gets the attention for whatever reason.

Amy Dentata @amydentata7/31/2023, 8:05 PM

bsky gets the attention, in part, because people With Money are behind it, and most people flock to money, even if they don't believe they're that kind of person.

Degs @degeneratepai7/31/2023, 8:17 PM

when you recommended twitter demetricator to me it changed everything, numbers are brain rot

legitimate dolphin @rngDolphins7/31/2023, 8:19 PM

Cohost should put random numbers beside each post. We will all know they're fake but Twitter refs will think we're doing a popularity contest here

Jama @Jama7/31/2023, 8:20 PM

They did that for April Fool's but it caused issues because it retriggered some people's twitter brain again, even knowing the numbers were BS (some went negative)

Edit: I think they put the code for it up on their GitHub for anyone to look at or use or whatever too.

Misty @dog7/31/2023, 8:40 PM

The funny thing is someone ran the numbers awhile back and Bluesky isn't even that much bigger than cohost is right now? Like with all the hype I expected it to be 10x or 100x bigger, not... kinda comparable

- ̗̀ 🏳️‍⚧️Tuddy🏳️‍⚧️ ̖́-@tudsworth7/31/2023, 8:44 PM

2.5x bigger when somebody ran the numbers a couple of weeks ago IIRC and... it actually feels 2.5x smaller unless something goes -really- viral, which it usually does for the wrong reasons.

yema @yemaema7/31/2023, 8:52 PM

honestly like cohost kinda helped me w that cause I too was infected by numbers but just looking at my notifs and counting myself, a lot of my art has done WAY better here than it ever has done before and it actually feels good to know that ppl are seeing and enjoying my stuff more than "succeeding", whatever that actually means in this day and age

!! MEGAMIND MCFUCK !!@MoidDoesArt7/31/2023, 9:04 PM

on the one hand it really is nice to have people who are actually, legitimately interested in seeing the work I put out. like i don't get the same feeling i did on twitter where it feels like the work i'm putting out is just lost in the noise, and that's only gotten worse as twitter's user experience tanks.

but on the other i am still like a little stressed out about the fact that i am still trying to make art my livelihood. bsky doesn't look particularly great for building an audience and i don't really think i understand cohost well enough despite liking it more. if anything i sometimes feel like posting art is less predictable here.

at least it is for me since i didn't exactly have a huge following on twitter before moving; like just over 1200, and i was kind of relying on commissions up to that point to make cash as an artist.

(side note that really is fucked that 1200 isn't a huge amount. that's like an entire graduating class in some colleges. jesus.)

i don't have a pre-existing audience that i could draw here from and building something up that i can actually survive off of in a capitalist hellscape is a bit of an ordeal.

Christian Simmers @Xuelder7/31/2023, 9:17 PM

It feels very weird that without metrics I can still tell that I get way more engagement here on the eggbug site than I ever did on the bird site

Yikes @Yikes7/31/2023, 9:28 PM

I personally would like to have some metrics visible at least behind a gate. follower count would be nice to be able to gauge what sort of follower-base I'm working with when I advertise things like commissions. but I love the largely metric-less UX on here, it's refreshing and alleviates a lot of pressure to appeal to trends

Erica @erica7/31/2023, 10:59 PM

I think useful metrics to have would be things like active posting hours, things to better optimize something like posting comms link as you said. I don't think a follower count is really helpful for that because, like, if the count is 1000 higher than it was last month.... what does that meaningfully mean in that instance?

More people will see it but is that a meaningful motivator for you posting again next month? Wouldn't you do it regardless because you have slots open? Yes your reach extends with more followers but I don't think -knowing- the number affects posting behavior or provides any meaningful insight other than to vindicate a guesstimate you have of your current reach. Which can be nice! But it opens up the door the opposite--feeling doomed because you've had a bad metrics month or something--which is entirely why the site is designed as it is. That behavior is not normal, and those numbers were hidden to stop that behavior before it even begins.

Yikes @Yikes7/31/2023, 11:41 PM

well I mean more in a sample size sense really. More followers means a larger sample size where some of those people might be capable of paying higher rates. My commissions I necessarily have to massively undercut because charging my rate would be unachievable to basically all but rich people, and if I have like 200 people following me the odds of anyone seeing my posts being one of those wealthy people approaches zero - so knowing if I have a lot of followers vs only some helps me gauge what I can get away with charging.

just the facts of a capitalist dystyopia

Francine @witnesstheabsurd8/1/2023, 2:57 PM

It's less about feeling "doomed" when I have a bad metrics month and more like.... what's driving me crazy is that if I post slots here, twitter and say, insta simultaneously I can visibly see that all but one of those slots fill in seconds on twitter, and the one that doesn't fills on Insta. I love posting and sharing my work here, it feels great and I think it'll only get better as the site grows, but I don't want to have to do my business off-site - I would like to feel like my livelihood is decoupled from twitter et al permanently and invested into a site like Cohost. I don't even know whether metrics would help with this - I guess i'm just frustrated.

Yikes @Yikes8/2/2023, 2:58 AM

it would also seriously be nice for artists to have actual DMs on this site and not just asks. correspondence is the lifeblood of our work

Aradian @aradian8/1/2023, 12:09 AM

what cohost is rly missing is the ppl i follow on twitter

eli @itsonlythee8/1/2023, 12:21 AM

I wish there were some sort of metrics visible here. I know how much socmed numbers are brain poison but the damage has already been done and I have no idea how big my audience on here is

arborelia @arborelia8/1/2023, 1:31 AM

I have a guess to why people overlook cohost:

the Tech Journalists want to talk about "which social media apps are winning". They don't take into account communities or what value they offer. They do their research in exactly one way: looking at the number of downloads in the Apple App Store

and therefore Tech Journalists just don't even think about cohost as a thing that exists, and the general public doesn't hear about cohost

it's numbers all the way down

C-paz @C-paz8/1/2023, 2:21 PM

This sounds frustratingly on point. Because it all really does feel like a popularity contest at the end of the day. Whether Co-host wants to be a part of it or not.

I guess best we can do is shill for this site??? Idk what the answer is.

Kibbles @SgtKibbles8/1/2023, 1:31 AM

I have no idea why everyone is so excited to move to bsky or threads. Like, yeah, let's move from a platform run by one ultrawealthy nutjob to another one run by an ultrawealthy nutjob. People are addicted to engagements numbers I guess.

I think too many people are getting lured into stupid fediverse services too, but at least they're not run by an ultrawealthy nutjob I guess?

in reply to @HedgeMom's post:

lani @spinning-valiant7/31/2023, 11:16 PM

is “detoxing” the best word to use here?

Curi Lagann @HedgeMom7/31/2023, 11:52 PM

Yes

@RippleField28/1/2023, 6:58 AM

It's been so frustrating as someone who never liked twitter that much, who only made it my main home after the major tumblr porn ban exodus, and wishing and waiting this whole time for something more like a better tumblr to come along. the musk effect has memory-holed every single bad there was to hate about twitter before his arrival, to the point that everyone's acting blind to all the nearly identical red flags of bluesky. does nobody remember the years and years of futile pleading to ban the twitter nazis? Isn't Dorsey also pro-crypto, pro-NFT, pro-AI?? there's literally no reason to believe your bluesky posts won't be scraped too.

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