I honestly don't think it's a bit. I think they miss having a lot of followers and they want to instantly replicate that here but they're not nearly as interesting as they think they are.
So, they're left with either introspection or blaming BlueSky, and… welp, they definitely made a choice!
It’s an attempt to come crashing in here like the koolaid guy &guilt people into following them so they can build perceived clout- instead of just talking to people& organically finding those you vibe with
Pple here like to follow! But they follow fields or people they think might be interesting
I block these whiners too, they aren't here for any good reason. This isn't some popularity contest and I'm far beyond any schooling for those to matter.
People always complain about this on threads too and I don’t get it. Who cares? I actually get really anxious following people. It’s been misinterpreted as an invitation to send me a bunch of DMs. Also I’m so overwhelmed with social media for my art business, I post, reply, & sign off often.
yeeesh, sorry to hear that. I don’t use threads much so I didn’t realize it’s going on over there too. Could just appreciate your cool art but of course some ppl are more interested in dm slides 🙄
Yeah this is a pretty new dynamic over here as far as I can tell
I think it’s coming over with new Bskyers and they don’t quite get that amassing follows/followers here doesn’t really matter in the way it does in other places
If I follow someone pretty "big" the last thing I expect is a follow back. I'll just have to find a way to get by, knowing they aren't going to see my (not) amazing and sporadic content
People are weird, there's definitely a point where you follow enough people and then you're basically following no one - all your little tiny friends from inside the computer are washed away.
/s The asymmetrical following nature just means there isn’t an underlying conservation law implied. Which of course leads to the obvious question: what is the correlated conservation law for Facebook?
If it's any consolation, I am currently following about 3 times as many people as are following me. But then again, I don't exactly have the name recognition as those examples (or name non-recognition of Anonymous, as it were).
I'm being a little more discerning with my following for now. Curating my feed for interests and avoiding posters who may be interested in what I do but don't post things that I am interested in.
I don’t follow randos just because they follow me. Why? Well, my previous policy ended up with me following someone on here called (at)milkingcoach. One of my friends pointed out I added him to a sports team list.
To me it's like asking why Taylor Swift doesn't know the names of all her fans. Social media are not two-way streets. They can't be, once you have more than a few hundred people following.
plus especially for big accounts there’s an opportunity cost - people have only so much free time and they could spend it posting or they could try following back all 100,000 accounts…
I figured out pretty early on I can’t follow more than about 1k people and have a good experience. I try really hard to interact with anyone who interacts with me but I just can’t follow everyone.
I agree with @planetdr.bsky.social I think there's a natural cut off in which if you go beyond, it feels that you're not connecting to people but just seeing a stream of posts. The initial data on Facebook said it was about 600. Beyond that, it was tricky to build connections. Here I'd say 800-1K.
It will be interesting to see if BlueSky survives the transition from "This is neat and cool and interactive" to "Everyone has thousands of followers and is yelling into the void".
Without an algo, you can follow a lot more people because there is nothing injecting "busy-ness" into your feed.
Facebooks algo and feed is absolutely TERRIBLE. I use a browser extension to check Facebook and once you disable the algo feed and go to timeline, it's super quiet - but somewhat calming just being connected with people you know. Facebook would be a better place without algo injected feeds.
oh, yeah. they seem to think that following someone deserves an automatic follow back. it becomes downright annoying when they start commenting “please follow back” all over the place.
Follow back whining has been drifting through the aether the last few days. Inevitably it’s from people who couldn’t Post their way out of a wet paper bag so why would anyone be clamoring to follow them?
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So, they're left with either introspection or blaming BlueSky, and… welp, they definitely made a choice!
But on the other hand, whinging about how other people choose to negotiate the weirdness? It’s a waste of effort. I wish peace of mind for them.
Pple here like to follow! But they follow fields or people they think might be interesting
I think it’s coming over with new Bskyers and they don’t quite get that amassing follows/followers here doesn’t really matter in the way it does in other places
It seems like none of my Facebook friends post anything these days...
Boy howdy that just slipped right on past me.
😈
Without an algo, you can follow a lot more people because there is nothing injecting "busy-ness" into your feed.
(This was a joke! Not intentionally being a jerk!)
Idk *why* 6K are following me, that's their business and I feel no urge to make my TL unusable for no clear reason