A Legend Is Born…
A news media site, Mediaite, posted a piece regarding account suspensions on Twitter (this is the original from webarchive.org. The original has been updated to “correct” their original mistake. More on that later). It was written by Isaac Schorr. The result was a meme that carried on over on the Mastodon fediverse for hours, and it was thoroughly entertaining. But it was the result of some sloppy “journalism”.
How It Began
According to the original piece, Twitter had suspended (among others) an account belonging to John Mastodon. The author claimed he was the inventor and main person behind the Mastodon social network technology. The fediverse found out, and jumped all over it. I am guilty of participating in the fun (although shout out to Bob Alberti whose rework of the Underdog lyrics were waaaaay better than mine).
All manner of stories were told of this John Mastodon. Some claimed he was originally Joan Mastodon. Others said he didn’t invent the technology, Elsi Toots did. He became the fediverse’s Batman, Chuck Norris, Santa Claus, and a host of other heroes (and some villains) all in one person. It was glorious. Unsurprisingly, a number of @johnmastodon accounts appeared on various instances in the fediverse.
So What Happened Was…
The original author of the piece misread the handle for the main Twitter account for Mastodon. The handle is “@joinmastodon”. They saw “john” instead of “join”. And let’s face it, we’ve all done it. We’ve misread or mis-seen things, sometimes seeing something naughty, sometimes funny, and sometimes offensive. They’re the visual equivalent of a Mondegreen. It happens.
But the author then stopped being a journalist. They didn’t appear to make even a modicum of effort to verify this John Mastodon. They made no attempt to reach out to them for comment. You know, where a real journalist will say “attempts to reach John Mastodon for comment were unsuccessful” or “John Mastodon did not immediately reply to questions about the article” or some such thing.
Ten seconds on Google would have revealed useful information. A quick scan of the introductory paragraph on Wikipedia about Mastodon would have been informative. But none of that appeared to happen. Instead, the author appears to have decided to invent a person rather than try to verify anything.
But Wait, There’s More!
Clearly either the author or the site got wind of what was going on, and realized their error. So they correct the piece, and added a footnote indicating they edited it to correct an error. But they weren’t prepared to let go of John Mastodon. The correction says:
UPDATE: This post has been updated to correct the original characterization of the Join Mastodon Twitter account as being the account of “John Mastodon,” who is not a person as far as we know. – ed.
Okay then. Their characterization of the correction just made it all even funnier. They can’t admit that they basically invented a new person out of whole cloth. Or that they couldn’t be bothered to verify even basic information.
Let’s Do Some Speculating
This is pure speculation on my part, a feeble attempt to “read their minds” if you will. There appears to be a need in the minds of many, potentially including the author of the original piece, to require a single, controlling individual or entity behind things.
The idea that something could exist and grow with a distributed and diverse network of people and supporters is foreign to them. Mastodon is described as an alternative to Twitter, and some apparently need to see it in the same light as Twitter. A single, monolithic entity. That it isn’t baffles and confuses them.
Again, this is me guessing. I don’t know for sure that the author was thinking that. For all I know, they dashed the piece off in a few minutes and hit “publish”, and put only a tiny amount of effort into it. They invented a person, figured it sounded sensible, and moved on. They clearly didn’t care enough about their work to try to do a good job of it, to get it right.
Do Your Job
A real journalist would have done even just the tiniest amount of research. They would have ideally included links to their sources (like I’m trying to do, and I’m not a journalist). Apparently that was too hard for the Mediaite author. I get that fast is the name of the game, and clickbait means eyeballs which means subscribers and ad revenue.
But that they couldn’t even bother with the modicum of effort it would take to get it right the first time is disappointing. Will they learn a lesson from this? Who knows. My guess is they won’t. It’s “move fast and break things” journalism, and they aren’t alone in that regard.
A Debt of Gratitude
Despite the gaffe, the fediverse owes a debt of gratitude to Mediaite and Isaac Schorr. Without this blunder, the myth and legend that is John Mastodon would never have happened. It is a brilliant moment in the history of Mastodon. And for that I thank them.