The Diff Between the Smol and the Lorge Platforms

[pineaura]

It's always interesting to me when a smaller, cozier place like Mastodon seems to grant me more activity on my work than places like twitter. Like even before I switched to the art instance on Masto I had more people looking at my stuff while I only got crickets on twit.

Every now and then I'll have activity on something I've posted at both places, but in the end, Masto still triumphs over twitter and it's such a fascinating thing to me.

I'm not bothered by numbers really. Twitter isn't really a place I even want to be, but I post on there sometimes anyways. And I'm no machine and don't care for algorithms so it's not like I'd be "acing the twitter" thing so sure it can be reasoned that's why I have less activity happening with my stuff there (I also don't really want to be noticed on that site either, but that's besides the point). But I do the same thing on Masto and yet I still have more people looking at my work, even commenting on it and twit is making sure nobody sees anyone else's posts because Reasons.

At this point, I'm really using twit to make sure people I've known for some time get a chance to see my doodles since we're not on other platforms together. But uh twit sure knows how to make sure they miss things, too. (The fact that I've had a couple of people ask if I can notify them about my posts so they don't accidentally miss them is pretty telling. Just saying.)

I always kinda wondered about stuff like this. Because it was the same with Pillowfort. I had both Pifo and a tumblr when I first joined Pifo and yet I still had so much more interactions (and cozy interactions at that) than I did on tumb, which was wild. I had been on tumb for years at that point and Pifo was early in beta (I am second wave). Masto seems to be doing the same thing for me in comparison to twit. I am curious if I'll have a similar situation if and when Pixelfed is more secure to try them out and see how that fairs to when I used to use instagram.

Ko-fi is kinda the same thing, too. Ko-fi has granted me more despite it being smaller than Patreon. I think the only thing Patreon had given me that I haven't yet received on Ko-fi is a monthly supporter, but there's like no reason for me to push it and it's great. Patreon is all about trying to encourage nothing but continuous support with no other options in play. However, I feel like people have noticed me on ko-fi and supported me via ko-fi far more than when I had my Patreon.

I do vibe more with the smaller, cozier platforms in general, but even without doing anything different when I post on them all I get such a different response between the bigger and smaller ones and it's just neat to see.

Comments

[horizonofstars]

I like Pillowfort for that reason; the community knows that it's smaller, so it's almost like we know that if we want interactions, we have to interact also. Twitter and Tumblr are so huge now that it's easy to fall into the trap of "Well, someone else can rt or reply, I'm scrolling on"; but for smaller places like pfio, we know how much every interaction counts. I love how much more comfortable it is to be there!

From an audience standpoint, I prefer giving support via Ko-fi than Patreon, myself. I have so many recurring monthly subscriptions that I can't really bring myself to add one, two, or seven Patreon supports to my bills. So even if I would like to support someone or they have Patreon-only content I'd like to see, I just don't want to commit to that when I have so many other monthlies going on. So I love it when you and other artists I love have a Ko-fi linked, because I know I can support anyway, even irregularly :')

[pineaura]

It's interesting that taking some time to interact even a little on a smaller platform is so much more cozier than having any kind of interaction on a bigger site even if it's a similar sentiment. But I'll take the small, cozy vibes lil places like Pillowfort have over any of them bigwigs.

Yeah, Ko-fi seems much more reasonable as it feels like you have more options than what Patreon offers. You can support monthly, but you can also do it once at random or by purchasing something in their store or getting a commission and so on. Whereas people on Patreon have to organize that on their own, but you still have to commit to monthly only options. I feel like there's less pressure on Ko-fi, too, if that makes sense? It's just a neat place.