My Reflection on (nearly) a year on Bluesky (and the ATmosphere at large)

Joining the ATmosphere

Wow. Has it really been that long?

I joined the ATmosphere (via Bluesky) on 15th April 2024. It doesn't feel that long, to be quite honest. It feels a lot shorter. Yes, of course, I know that one year on a social platform isn't that long; after all, people have been on Twitter for over a decade, but Bluesky is special to me in a way that neither Twitter nor even Mastodon ever was.

A Platform That Feels Made for Me

It feels alive and made for me. Not in the sense that it was literally made for me, obviously, but in the way that I can fully optimise the social experience for my own use. I can use Graze to build my own feeds. I can follow whoever I want and even migrate seamlessly between Personal Data Servers . It's refreshing to know that my data is mine.

I mean, you could be reading this on my dedicated blog site or the WhiteWind blog site . It's the exact same content, just on different interfaces, and I love that. My personal website is essentially a glorified RSS feed of my Bluesky and Frontpage posts, but even so, it's great to know that everything is synced from my PDS and fully automatic. There's no friction, and I have full control over how my activity is seen.

Unexpected Growth

Somehow, I've managed nearly 1,600 followers on my Bluesky profile in just a year. I find that insane, as that's:

My largest follower base on any social media—previously, my peak was on a Mastodon account with around 150 followers.

Roughly 4.3 new followers per day.

All I do is ramble online. Why do people like that?

I'm not really complaining. I like it when numbers go up , but it's just surprising to me that people would put up with me bombarding them with werewolf reposts from my werewolf feed and technobabble—much like an Anglo-Saxon speaking in what the Romans considered 'the language of the barbarians.'

Technical Learning Journey

I will say, though, the AT Protocol has helped me learn how Linux and Docker work on a fundamental level. I did sysadmin on Ubuntu Server when I was running my own PDS, but both instances were short-lived—ultimately due to the energy costs of leaving my laptop (acting as a server—it's now running Arch Linux and is what I'm typing this on) on and plugged in 24/7. Even so, it was a very valuable experience for me. I learned how to troubleshoot on my own and be more independent.