Eternal September is when influx from some other (often shittier and collapsing) platform overwhelms the unique culture that existed before, and in time fully replaces it. Destroying what existed before.
🧠 💭 Figure out strategies & actions in comments below … participate!
For example, I introduced 2 hashtags for awareness:
- #AvoidEternalSeptember Raise attention to the culture clash.
- #DonateToFediInstances Help admins and moderators withstand the influx and give them your support.
We want to be gentle, welcoming to newcomers. Show them around. But also keep having the nice chattering and culture we had before, and maybe give those some extra boosts to exemplify and spread the vibes.
Here’s a poll to make newcomers aware that taking Twitter culture with you on the Fediverse is just weird.
Indeed, I was less interested in the historical event and, so I generalized the concept.
Right now, not only is there somewhat of a culture clash, but a vanguard of CEO’s, CTO’s and high profile Silicon Value (laid-off?) workers streaming in.
Birdsite has a couple’a hundred million users. But the influx is potentially much, much bigger and continues going, as - due to all media attention worldwide - Mastodon and by extension the Fediverse becomes a household name.
I am not only fretting about an Eternal September to take place, but increasingly more expecting it to happen. And with the inevitable corporate takeover following in its strides.
Yes, I get your concern, but the Fediverse already has large corporate instances (in Japan) and I don’t think that has been much of an issue so far. As long as they don’t start trying to monopolize the network like Google did with Email and XMPP, it is probably good to have some of these.