fade away and radiate

nimu • (south) american

[abbiistabbii]

Good morning, have you let the Fediverse into your life

OK so i wanna tell you about Mastodon and the Fediverse. I have a video coming out about it soon and I'm too hungover to do any other kinda work right now so let me proselyte to you about The Fediverse!

What the fuck is a Fediverse?

So you know Email? The one thing we all wanna be safe from? Well the thing about Email is that it's not one service; it's a protocol. It's a whole load of independent services that can all talk to each other. Someone on gmail can email someone on proton and vice verse. It's why email is old enough to have seen the discovery of the Titanic Wreck!

Anyway, The Fediverse is a bit like that, but for Social Media. They're a collection of things that work on the ActivityPub protocol, which allows for various social media services to talk to each other to create one big metanetwork through a collection of independently run instances.

One of those Fedi-things is Mastodon, a Microblogging network on the Fediverse.

Mastodon

So Mastodon is not one service, it is a collection of services that talk to each other (like Email). To join mastodon, you go find an instance, sign up to it, and add people. They can be from your own instance or another instance.

Instances?

Each instance is different. They have their own target market (general use, subcultural (furries, gamers), regional (countries, cities), sectoral), but they all can talk to each other. If you have the know how you can even set up your own Instance (with Blackjack and Hookers). They have their own rules and regs, so you can find your own little corner, but you're not isolated. You can still follow people from other instances (like how you can email someone from a different service). Your handle on Mastodon will look like @[email protected] (eg, my handle is @[email protected]), so if you wanna add someone, that is what you type in the searchbar.

Advantages

Mastodon cannot get Elon Musked: Yes, you heard. You can't have something like what happened to Twitter where one man buys the whole network and turns it into a right wing circlejerk. Someone like Musk can set up a Mastodon Instance, or even potentially buy one, but if they fuck up said instance, other instances can defederate that instance (block it on an instance level) keeping their own instance safe and sane.

It's containerized, but not isolated: So with it being different instances, you can basically choose your tribe, but you can also talk to other people from other instances. Just add them using their username and server name. This also helps stop or slow down trolls and bigots because they have to put in legwork to find marks which most don't do. On Twitter, you were forced together with those bigots and they were encouraged to fight you.

No algorithm: The site doesn't tell you what you see, you do! What you see is who you follow! There are starter packs out there now to find people to follow, or...

You can view the firehose: Yes! You can view the firehose for either your instance or Mastodon as a whole. This is a great way to find people to follow if you are just starting out and get the vibe of the network.

Lots of independent apps: You can find plenty of phone and web apps to access the fediverse, so you're not tied a single, shitty, official app!

Disadvantages

Server performance depends on the instance: You will experience slow servers. Be at peace with that.

Not everyone is on here yet: If you wanna follow celebrities, bare that in mind, but if you do not wanna follow celebrities or wanna follow new, more interesting people, this could be the place for you. I'm literally following with the Astronomer Royal of Scotland!

Are there other Fediverse things?

Lemmy is a Reddit-style network on the Fediverse! Upvote, share, and meme like the good old days before reddit went to shit.

Pixelfed is an Instagram style photosharing network on the Fediverse!

Peertube is a Video Sharing Network on the Fediverse!

Do you have any Recommendations for Mastodon?

Yes, Don't join Mastodon.social. It's run by the creators of Mastodon but it has some iffy TOS (if you use it you have to settle for arbitration and can't sue them) and centralising everything is not how the Fediverse should run. Instead try the following:

ohai.social (they also run other services like matrix or 13ft).

mas.to

mastodon.scot (targetted at Scots or Scottish related things)

mstdn.party

mastodon.au (targeted at Australians)

toot.wales (targetted at Welsh people).

woof.tech (for furries, tech people, or furries in the tech industry).

gaygeek.social (LGBT targetted)

You can find a list at https://joinmastodon.org/servers

Have fun

[anarchistmemedistro]

Police Arrest Amazon Labor Leader Chris Smalls Outside Met Gala

The organizer was protesting the event sponsored by Amazon's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos.

[rebuiltcombatsister]

me when i fucking lie

[rebuiltcombatsister]

"there is no evidence trans users were disproportionately... impacted" but by our count, since we are the only ones who care enough to count, of the ~200 blogs termed wednesday literally only one wasnt transfem

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

@staff @humans you lying mendacious cunts

[mutationgirl]

estrogenesis-eeveeangelion was banned by staff about an hour ago with no warning or message, no explanation.

[indicatheory]

tumblr totally not hiding anything definitely for sure /sarc

[problemnyatic]

who wants to see tumblr once again flagrantly abusing its moderation tools to bury bad press about the blatant transmisogyny in banning patterns? I love how they use ToS and mature labels to silence trans women and anything that could serve as evidence that trans women suffer here. Because, you know, there's no need to talk about any of that if we just erase it right? :) That makes it go away and the problem stop existing, right? :)

[airprime7]

So to be 100% clear:

tumblr just added an update that requires you to verify your age in order to view "mature content". I'm not sure how they do the verification (haven't yet checked), but given recent similar updates from things like Discord, it most likely involves sending them a photo of either your face or your ID.

In addition, over the past few months, and also years in the long-term, tumblr has been incorrectly marking things as mature content. These include:

Notifications about missing persons and requests for help

Posts about youth liberation

Posts about sex education

Posts about how the mature content is poorly implemented

Posts about being trans, more specifically about trans women and transmisogyny by both tumblr and users on tumblr

Non-sexual selfies by trans women/transfems

Trans womens'/transefems' ENTIRE BLOGS even if the blog contains no sexual content

Reblogs made by various blogs, mostly trans women, which add no additional content but somehow are marked as containing mature content, when the original post is not

Posts talking about racism and antiblackness both on and off tumblr

Posts by black people, especially black trans people, that are non-sexual

And likely many more I haven't seen

In essence, this update has mandated that a majority of users (within the UK and Brazil) must either a) submit their personal information to tumblr, a website whose moderation has been EXTREMELY biased against marginalised people and who I would not trust with my ID, or b) be excluded from absolutely all conversations tumblr decides are "mature content", whether they are actually sexual in nature or not. Furthermore, anyone not over 18 will also not be allowed to take part in these conversations, or even see them, or interact with many trans women or people of colour on this site, as tumblr decides.

This update is complete bullshit designed to censor and exclude marginalised people, poorly hidden under a guise of "protecting teenagers from sexual content", and they know it.

EDIT: This update apparently only affects users in the UK or Brazil, like me. This is still bullshit even if it's just some people.

[flowercrowncrip]

The one thing I can articulate is that no amount of being disabled can prevent you from being ableist. Especially towards people with different impairment types or more severe disability.

[crownkeeper]

before there were blorbos there were little meow meows and before there were little meow meows there were cinnamon rolls

[crownkeeper]

and smol beans.

[star-mom-selkie]

happy pride month

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

"Clearly I wasn't talking about disabled people-" yeah part of the problem is that the existence of disabled people just isn't considered in your worldview like that's the problem we're criticizing not a get out of jail free card

[wcwit]

[source]

[determinate-negation]

We must draw a clear line between ourselves and the enemy. Mao I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political par

imo anyone involved in the protest scene or student movements in the western liberal democracies over the past few years should read this if you havent already

[kropotkindersurprise]

This pamphlet pairs very well with that one, and goes more in-depth on the practical organizational aspects.

[kropotkindersurprise]

Hard times are coming.

[kalatannya]

"Age in bio or i'll kill you"

You better pay close attention to the first one, and read it very carefully. I will quiz you on it later.

[kalatannya]

So much good tags

[renthony]

Via Authors Against Book Bans - May 29, 2026

Three federal book ban bills are currently alive in the United States Congress:

HR 7661

Status: Passed out of committee; to be introduced in the House Would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to prohibit federal funds from being used for any material deemed “sexually oriented.” Buried within that definition is language that includes material that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” While framed as protecting children, the bill opens the door to banning books that include LGBTQ+ characters, defining trans existence as inherently inappropriate, and narrowing literature toward a prescribed, limited canon. In short: Would treat any LGBTQ+ identity as sexual content.

HR 2616

Status: Passed the House; referred to a Senate committee Would withhold ESEA funding from schools that “teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology,” using definitions from Executive Order 14168. It frames itself as protecting children. In practice, it represents another attempt to eliminate not only trans and nonbinary books, but also any acknowledgment of gender non‑conforming people in public education. In short: Would deny the existence of trans and nonbinary people.

HR 8705

Status: Passed out of committee; to be introduced in the House Rather than naming specific books or categories of literature, it blocks federal funding for American History and Civics Education from being used to promote what it calls “discriminatory equity ideology” or “gender ideology,” definitions drawn from a January 29, 2025 executive order. Likely impacts would include fewer books on racism and civil rights, less discussion of sexism and inequality, narrower civics curricula, and publishers pulling back on diverse perspectives. In short: A funding lever that shapes whose version of history gets taught.

HR 7661 and HR 8705 are still in the House, so please call your representative and tell them to oppose both bills. Click here to find the phone number of your representative’s office.

HR 2616 passed the House, and has been introduced to a Senate committee. Please call your senators and tell them to oppose the bill. Click here to find the phone numbers for your senators’ offices.

[drill-teeth]

Something I really struggle to get people to understand is that like. Sometimes there was no intentional homoerotic subtext, the author was just extremely misogynistic. Sometimes the author wasn't "secretly shipping" those two men, the author literally just hates women so much that they see them as being literally incapable of relationships with depth. Like this is kind of a big thing with misogyny actually. A lot of extremely misogynistic people truly believe that a man can only have meaningful and complex relationships with other men because they literally just think women are so inferior they only exist to birth children and clean the house. It's like when people say along the lines of "no one worships exclusively men quite like straight men do". It's just that phenomenon actually. That happens to be manifesting in a raging misogynist's writing. Writing a man character who literally only puts effort into his friendships with other men while completely ignoring his literal girlfriend or wife is actually an extremely straight thing to write. And that doesn't mean you can't ship those men or that there are no stories with actual intentional homoerotic subtext. I just think it's important to be able to recognize extreme misogyny in writing and acknowledge it without brushing it off and assuming good intentions when literally all evidence is screaming that this was a misogynistic writing choice and not a representing gay men choice.

[anarchist-rat-swarm]

In case you don't know, churches in the US are required to remain non-political in order to keep their tax exempt status. You can fill out a Form 13909 with the IRS to file a complaint about a church or other tax exempt organization that violates these kinds of rules.

Ya know, if you ever wanted to send the IRS after Christofascist churches. It's safer than arson.

[havendance]

Anyway, I know that a lot of people here on tumblr do not actually buy comics, but I do want to encourage people to think about what you can do to support DCBlackout. I know that I am not a person who's purchases drive metrics at DC comics. I only put in a preorder for comics once in a blue moon, I read digitally, and I buy collected editions, but yesterday I canceled my dcui subscription and while the boycott continues, I'm not going to renew it. While I'll probably still get dc comics through second hand sources here and there, I'm not going to buy any new comics from them either.

There should be more opportunities for black creators at DC and there should be more stories for characters like Nubia, Steel, Vixen, The Signal, Mr Terrific, everyone from Milestone and more.

Even if you're not a comics buyer, you can still sign the petition and you can share your favorite independent comics from black creators. I'll start: Everyone should read Prince of Cats by Ronald Wimberly.

Try and seek out new works and expand your horizons. That's what I'll be doing.

[shinesurge]

Back in 2020 @bimboopo started putting together a list of black webcomic creators! Boosting her post to this discussion to help people find some new things seems helpful but I don't want to skip over giving her visibility for it, so you can find her own post about the list and a link to it here.

[pseudomantis]

the cambrian period was like 10 years ago

[toskarinarchive]

the cambrarin period was like 3 years ago

[magi-magi-tamamoland-chan]

the cambrian period is TOMORROW!!!

[fairycosmos]

why is it so hard for people to grasp that disabilities disable and chronic illnesses are chronic. yes even when it inconveniences you. yes even when your patience runs out