Intermix Session - What is Mastodon??
What Is Mastodon?
Date: February 21st
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. PST
Check out the Intermix website. Join the Meetup group!
Description
In this Intermix session, participants click & consider Mastodon's functionalities and discuss their opinions with the group, live. Mastodon's one of the most widely used applications in the Fediverse. Despite offering Mastodon of the same core functions as mainstream social media platforms, the actions of posting, following, replying, and sharing are structured differently.
The second Intermix session, focuses on Mastodon as a media object, and participants can expect to interact and critique the application live. Mastodon, has a unique user base; these users often focus on decentralization, federation, and accessible moderation. During this session, we will also consider why Mastodon may feel unfamiliar to users coming from corporate platforms.
Conversation is open-ended and welcomes a multitude of perspectives from all backgrounds!
Media / Platform
Mastodon, a federated social networking platform.
Rather than a single website, Mastodon consists of many independently operated servers (“instances”) that communicate with one another.
This session may reference:
The Mastodon web interface
Instance home pages
Public timelines or short example threads
Where to View [Educational Purposes Only]
Terms You May Encounter / Know
UX (User Experience)
UI (User Interface)
Fediverse
Federation
Conversation Starters
How does Mastodon’s structure influence how people communicate compared to centralized platforms?
What design choices shape trust, moderation, or visibility on Mastodon?
How do interface and platform architecture affect user behavior and community norms?
Sources
Mastodon gGmbH. Mastodon Documentation. Accessed 2025.