I'm probably one of the younger cohost users (27 y/o) and had limited internet experience before 2011. I don't remember all these sites I hear others talking about, like geocities or livejournal. I never used web forums or early social media. hell, I only used facebook for school and only made my first twitter account in 2016 after dropping out of year 1 university. I don't have a frame of reference besides what facebook was 2011 - 2015, twitter 2016 - 2022, and cohost 2022 - present. I never really used much reddit, tumblr, or pintrest, but not for lack of trying. I had a brief stint on crabber for what felt like the 17 minutes it was alive, and I've only checked bluesky like three times in 2 years (fuck bluesky fuck bluesky fuck bluesky)

so I'm at a loss. cohost has been my only net-positive social media experience and I don't know what I want in a social media site (much less convey what I want) beyond gesturing in cohost's direction

I've seen a number of posts suggesting dreamwidth because it has shared heritage with livejournal but like... I don't have that frame of reference. I saw an excellent chost extensively listing pros, cons, and neutrals to dreamwidth (https://cohost.org/bootjack/post/7624593-looking-for-a-new-ho) and the thing that stood out to me was the fact it's an older site with not many discoverability features and presumably a more legacy userbase. I don't have much of a life. I have one truly close friend beyond my girlfriends. I have a few other friends of unknown closeness who I only really interact with on cohost or mutual discord servers. my social life has gone through multiple cycles of upheaval and I'm tired of it. I just want some stability. I'm tired of losing people and starting from scratch. I want a place where I can be me and have at least a network of casual friends so that any one friend group imploding doesn't leave me back at or near square 1. I want a place I can post my smut, which is my sole source of income, and have it be discoverable beyond just 'post it to the applicable subreddit' (I'm a variety smut drawer and writer, one or two niche subreddit-like places will not cut it). I want a place like this that is as varied in its users and use cases, without the strict segmentation of fandom or interest groups

so I have no idea where to go or what to do

how, exactly, does one use the fediverse?

like, genuinely asking; i sort of understand what being federated means, but i could never get my head around actually using any instances. like, if i have an account on one instance, can i use it to see things on other instances, or do i have to make an account there too? can i follow people on other instances? can people on other instances see my posts?

(also, uh, can anyone recommend good general-use fediverse instances?)

VALLONO playlist is live