Not that you need validation from a straight, middle-aged, mediocre white guy, Mara Cavanaugh, but your concerns about Mastodon ring true, especially this: “It feels like when you get on the fediverse, you must have an opinion on all these things. And if you don’t people are not going to care about what you have to say because you are uninformed.” You say that it isn’t a “groupthink machine” but in many ways it is, and there are very decidedly some firmly-established insular cliques.
Addenda
- I should add that it’s not just things like capitalism or philosophy that you seem expected not just to understand but to agree with the prevailing opinion on, you’re also expected fairly quickly to get on board with taking sides on Mastodon’s internal politics, even though no new user can possibly know the details.