Why is Birdsite a Thing?

Good Morning Friends! I’ve been talking quite a bit about the Fediverse or as the media is damned determined to refer to it Mastodon. For me, Mastodon is the software that most ActivityPub federated instances run, and the flagship instance is run by its originator Mastodon.social. Side note: I would never suggest anyone create an account there because it is a bit of a mess that is constantly struggling to maintain itself… both mechanically and from moderation terms. I refer to the whole proceedings as Fediverse or the community of websites that federate with each other utilizing the ActivityPub protocol. While most sites run Mastodon there are also a lot of sites running Pleroma, Pixelfed, Peertube, or Funkwhale just to name a handful of alternates each designed for their own purposes. While we have a habit of referring to things by the “brand name” version… I personally am going against that practice here.

There are a lot of things about the Fediverse that come off as odd to someone migrating from Twitter. I’ve talked about this at length in a number of other posts, already so I won’t labor those points now. One of the almost immediate quirks you will notice on day one… is that most people are extremely reluctant to ever say the word “Twitter”. You will see it referred to as things like “Hellsite” or simply “That Other Site”, but most commonly you will see the term “Birdsite” used. At this point I am used to it since like I have said before, I first came to the network in 2018 during the Wheaton Exodus. While I do not have the exact reason for why the popularity of the term has taken hold, I will attempt to give you my understanding and why I chose to adopt it myself.

The WoW Tourist Problem

This is something that likely only MMORPG veterans are going to understand, but when a brand new game launches it is inevitable that general chat will be filled with an endless stream of fights about World of Warcraft. It is natural for something new to be compared with the industry leader, but it also gets really annoying when you are trying to experience something new… and you are constantly being reminded of the thing that you are not actually playing. To be truthful this is one of the big reasons why I almost always turn off general chat in any game alpha/beta that I am testing because I know without a doubt there is going to be a pissing contest between those who hate World of Warcraft and those who seem required to defend the game’s honor.

For all of the folks being transplanted into the Fediverse from Twitter, there is always going to be a group that is sick to death hearing about it. They have moved on past it, and keep getting dragged by chat back into dealing with it. Sure you can say “well just don’t read local or federated feeds” but a lot of the experience of the Fediverse is the browsing nature of being able to read what people you are not following are saying. Being on an Instance is in many ways like playing an old-school MMORPG with a fixed server population. While every Instance is effectively an island… the other folks are your neighbors on that island. Even if you don’t follow each other, you notice the folks who are regularly chatting.

The Trauma Problem

I’m a CIS White Man, and when I use twitter I have the privilege of not really drawing the attention of many attackers. Sure I got some DDOS attacks during the height of GamerGate for some comments against it on this blog, but I’ve never had to suffer any real lasting consequences of my social interactions. That was not the case for a lot of folks on the margins of what was considered acceptable by certain segments of society. There are folks who live on the Fediverse now that came there to escape torrents of abuse that they received on Twitter. The Trans community especially has been actively hunted down and made to suffer by conservative groups on Twitter, and now for some… the mere mention of the platform brings up deep-seated trauma.

This is the reason why I try not to use the word Twitter while on the Fediverse, and have adopted the local custom of “Birdsite”. I don’t really personally care one way or the other, but I know the decision of choosing to buck this custom means that I might be causing someone else out there unintended harm. On Twitter, your voice only carries as far as those who are actively following you. On the Fediverse your voice is out there in an unknown number of federated feeds. Basically, I worry about how my actions might impact someone else out there, and if I can make a simple change that means nothing to me personally… I am going to always err on the side of doing less harm.

I Care About My Impact on Others

Ultimately at the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that I care about my potential impact on others. There are a lot of words that I used to carelessly use before knowing how tangible their impact was on unintended targets. I’m thankful that I have had friends willing to call me out on my shit, and as such, I have evolved constantly as a person to adopt better practices and abandon those causing harm. For me, it was never about being “woke” or some sort of performative action, and entirely about being a better person. While it is unlikely that someone is going to call you on using Twitter regularly, I personally made the choice to stop using the term while on the Fediverse.

It is my way to adopt the customs of the environment I am in, so long as those customs are not harming anyone. It was a simple choice for me. It was not a hill I was willing on dying on, because I had no real attachment one way or the other. Four years later, I just sort of do it as a relfex without even thinking about it.