I wonder if the people in the Fediverse that are being unnecessarily shitty to people new to Mastodon and the Fed are doing so because their comfort was based on an extrapolation of a false sense of exclusivity and superiority.
If you wanted to be isolated from anyone in the Fediverse, frankly the best way to achieve that (other than not using it at all) is to create private networks and instances.
Surely, that's a better use of your energy than the insipid gatekeeping I see you lot doing.
There's something to be said about how people who gatekeep. They aren't simply content with obsessing over controlling others. They are also keen on maintaining a very exclusive circle and they insist on conflating their social circle with every single space they happy to occupy.
I cannot stress this enough: the Fediverse, Mastodon... hell, the internet writ large doesn't belong to you. Your niche, your space, your presence is yours. That and that alone belongs to you.
Nothing else.
