this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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A toot?
The mastodon version of a post or, sadly, tweet.
It’s, uh, not the best name.
But maybe, just maybe, it more appropriately attributes correct value to a social media thing. ;)
Most people these days refer to them as posts, toots is older Mastodon linguo.
Etymologically, I think the word "tweet" was slowly being supplanted by "post" even before Twitter's name was officially changed to X. After all, "post" is universal, and there were many uses of thingposting that go back years, even on Twitter itself.
When Twitter launched, they used "post" instead of "tweet". Tweet was a word created by the community.
TIL - thanks!
Mastodon devs were clearly aware of the quality of text people tend to write online. It’s a very fitting term IMO.
A mastodon, like an elephant, has a trunk it can sound like a trumpet.
A toot
it's like someone looked at the word tweet and thought "how can i make this infinitely worse?"... i hope it never catches on. I don't know why people want their posts and announcements to sound like farts.
There is a bigger history on this. Involving the Mastodon developer Gargon and a famous YouTuber Hbomberguy:
https://mastodon.social/@Hbomberguy/146524
Gargon, at that time wasn't aware of the double meaning, as they where non-native English speaker.
It got changed back to "publish" relatively recent.
Personally I liked "toot" it was unique and funny. Many Mastodon-Users still prefer or use "toot".
if hbg had anything to do with it I have no choice but to retract my objection
If you don't like the term "toot" it's fine, it shouldn't matter who coined it. Don't make your likes or dislikes dependent on who stuff or ideas come from.
I just wanted to explain some history of that term.
The knowledge of that history and context is what should influence your taste, not the specific individuals involved.
I thought the begrudging tone would make it obvious but I was joking. so was hbg by the way; he clearly said it because it would be ridiculous, not because it would be smart. it's fucking dumb.
Its catchy and funny and everyone remembers it once you tell them. In other words, its perfect.
we can call them sharts. it satisfies all the criteria.
No, no. The fedi toots with short videos are sharts.
Personally, I like to browse my feed of sharts before I go to bed.
we finally found a slogan.
"care for a shart in bed before you sleep?"
Nah, that's not very realistic. Once you start shart scrolling, its hard to stop at just one shart
It varies from where you're from, where i am nkbody uses it (or even knows it refers to) farting
As far as I'm aware most instances no longer refer to them as "toots" and instead refer to them as posts. Likely because "toot" is used in some places to refer to farts.