Why are Mastodon's trending hashtags so ... dull?

As a new user, I’m enjoying Mastodon’s vibe so far but the one thing that is a letdown is the trending hashtags. I’ve been checking them regularly over the past couple of weeks and it seems like they’re pretty much always like this.

Even on days with big news stories, people on Mastodon are only talking about what day of the week it is like company employees on some internal message board?

Is there anything that can be done to liven them up a bit?

Tigbitties,
@Tigbitties@kbin.social avatar

No egos, rage bait or dumbasses.

atyaz,

Sometimes I miss that though. I remember seeing a tweet a while back that said something to the effect of “twitter is boring until the unemployed people wake up at noon and start their shit”. Unfortunately, it looks like everyone on mastodon is a normal employed adult, which isn’t as fun.

esty,
@esty@lemmy.ca avatar

this is threads now

cmat273, (edited )

Mastodon feels empty because most people probably aren’t using it as intended (following people you want in your timeline, following/using hashtags, etc). Also, it is empty compared to the popular platforms - they only have like 2M users which is a lot but not compared to Twitter or Threads.

mtcerio,

Agree, and I think hashtags (or similar) are very important unless you are literally just interested in the current toots only, or you check Mastodon every minute.

WidowsFavoriteSon,

Good god. The number of people whining on this thread that Mastodon is solo boringggg.

Its not.

You are.

Within 2 weeks there,I had my feed filled with news intelligent hot takes and links to cool blog thought pieces. Without the snark and baitshit that was most of twitter.

Get a grip. Learn what a hashtag is.

jesus

tootytootwoo,

Ah yes I really got energized by the thrill and excitement of #misheardlyrics

Just an absolute rollercoaster that site

CarlsIII,

The hashtags are also kinda useless in another way. For example, if you follow the hashtag “#music,” (or any music-related hashtag, really) your feed will be filled with bots that just post YouTube links. You can go through and block these accounts as you see them, but there’s so few people using the hashtag in a non-spammy way that you might as well just not follow the hashtag in the first place.

renlok,

I had the same experience with #comics it’s just bots posting comic book covers. Makes it much harder to find stuff you want with the bots if there’s no algorithm

ttmrichter,
@ttmrichter@lemmy.world avatar

Bot accounts are supposed to register as such, and you can ignore them. As in ignore all bot accounts. If there’s a bot account that’s not flagged as one, you can complain to the instance admin.

renlok,

That would be ideal, but I couldn’t find that setting anywhere

spaduf,
@spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Can’t believe I haven’t seen this said here but check against other instances. Some instances have stuff in the trending tab set to manual approval. I’ve noticed this in particular with my trending tab posts section on tech.lgbt

lolola,
@lolola@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t think the chatter is exciting? For real though, I get the same vibe. It usually makes me close the app shortly after I open it. Maybe I’m not giving it enough of a chance.

CarlsIII,

When I first started using mastodon, I started believing it’s actually a tool to train people to stop using social media

Skyler, (edited )
@Skyler@kbin.social avatar

If you have any specific hobbies / fandoms / communities you're interested in, you could see if there are instances specific to those interests you could migrate your account to. The local feed and local hashtags are sometimes way more interesting if you're on an instance you jive with.

Brochetudo,

oh my god I can’t fucking believe the gaslighters on this thread trying to counterargument an obvious truth

UnixPornViewer,

Oh man, you weren’t kidding.

danwardvs,

You don’t want to see some thick trunks on Tuesdays?

lackthought,
@lackthought@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

is there a specific type of content you want? you can try following ‘groups’ instead of hashtags

the benefit of groups over hashtags is that you see posts from profiles that have not yet federated with your specific server since the group itself boots anything that is posted to it, so you can sometimes see things that hashtags miss

here is a website explaining it a bit more:
a.gup.pe

to follow a group simply put whatever you want to follow before @a.gup.pe like so:
[email protected]

possum,

Sounds a lot like how Lemmy communities show up on Mastodon. Maybe one day we can have the reverse as well (Mastodon groups showing up as communities)

ricecooker,

Probably lack of marketing. It just is what it is. If you want to see what the latest is or , that’s probably on TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter…it’s easier for influencers to monetize their content.

Pixlbabble,

Pretty much my experience.

stackPeek,
@stackPeek@kbin.social avatar

I don't know, but to me this isn't really dull. I wonder if it is matched with actual current events? Like, for example, if an earthquake, and similar hashtags will show on trending section

aleph,
@aleph@lemm.ee avatar

That doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, on the day that Threads was launched there was plenty of people tagging #Threads, but it wasn’t mentioned in this list.

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