this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Unpopular Opinion

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I know mastodon joked about not changing their name in their recent changelog but I wish they really did change it. It's long, doesn't exactly roll of the tongue and it's difficult to pronounce in most languages.

End of rant.

Edit: above all I don't think it's a cool name. Can't imagine asking my friends to follow me on Mastodon. They're just gonna think it's something dumb or weird. At least if it had a cool name they would be curious and ask what it's about.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah I thoroughly disagree with this one. They are an amazing band, and the name really evokes a sense of what they are - massively loud beasts of heavy metal. Fuckin rock on

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a fan of the dinosaur era of power rangers, mastodon was one of the coolest to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Brachiosaurus and I'll fight you on that (Black dino ranger)

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It’s long

Eight letters, and 7~9 segments depending on the language. Compare it with other common brands like Facebook, Coca-Cola and Volkswagen.

it’s difficult to pronounce in most languages.

I'm casting doubt on this claim, based on the following:

  • the vowels can be approximated fine in a 5-vowels system, i.e. the most common vowel system out there.
  • it doesn't use any sort of complex onset or coda.
  • even the coda consonants are non-occlusives.

doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue

This is subjective. Personally I think that plenty brands there are considerably worse in this aspect. With a notable mention: that phonotactic trainwreck called Threads. (Four consonants in a syllable, two of them exotic [for most languages at least]? No. Just no.)

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Twitter is available. 😁

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I think it sounds pretty cute!

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i disagree with just about every point of this, good job!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

rename it Y

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Split your lungs with blood and thunderrrr!!!

Wait, wrong Mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Only card to me is the ACE OF SPADES!

Wait, other correct Lemmy 😉

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I just saw them a couple weeks ago, killer live show.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yep that's what this community is for

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tech nerds kinda like to name things stupidly. I find myself doing that too. Because overall, I'm not looking to market/brand it and make millions. Many of my projects were proof of concepts or passion ideas that if the open-source world thinks there's value, other nerds will let it grow.

I came to this conclusion as I thought about WINE for Linux. It's a silly name.

But when Valve built Proton, they were intentional in the name sounding "marketable".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We learned this with 'blogosphere' years ago, and now 'fediverse'.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Will you change your mind if I tell you that the "masto" in mastodon means "breasts"? ;P

https://www.etymonline.com/word/mastodon

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Agreed. We prefer Mumakil, my precious.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

what else would you call a service where you post toots?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think they officially changed the name to posts, rather than toots. But I always did feel like that held back the platform from being taken seriously. Like, can you imagine a news reporter saying, “Responding to the rise in reported domestic terrorism, President Biden tooted to the nation…”

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, how much dumber is that than "tweeted"? We just get numb to it eventually.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tweet was definitely normalized over time, but it also isn’t a synonym for fart so there’s that.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tweet at least had a clever background. Along with the bird mascot.

The whole thing was based on people just chirping about like birds, but it also played into the common saying of “a little birdie told me” when you want to tell someone something you know from someone else you know without telling them how you know it. Like when your gossiping with a neighbor about something another neighbor told you about them, you’d say “a little birdie told me that they saw you at the sex shop down town, you and Bob doing alright?”

Every kid in the English language also learns that birds say tweet tweet, and “the bird tweeted”. So it made sense that when you’re the little birdie, the things you say are tweets.

Slap the bird on it and it’s intuitive without explaining anything because pretty much everyone who learned English as a child has it deep in their brain already. And birds are cute. Everyone loves birds.

In contrast, a toot is a less crass thing you say when someone farts.

Also not using a relatively unknown extinct animal as your mascot for a platform you’re trying to bring to life is probably a good idea. Everyone knows what a wooly mammoth was, but not as many know what a mastodon was.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

It's a way better name than X, or Xwitter, or whatever the Fffff that site calls itself these days.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Mastadons are amazing and hence Mastadon is an amazing name.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Cutting it short to 'Masto' would be the best idea tbh. Nice and short without making a huge change.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Apparently that means tits

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's makes it even better. Everyone loves tits

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True (well, almost true), but I'm not sure everyone will want to ask people to "follow me on tits" 😄

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you close your account, are you off your tits?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I vastly prefer Don. Or, if you must, Tits. Masto is tits and chewing

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Please, just do not. Do not shorten any name or word. It sounds terribly, as if some wannabee-cool marketeer without a basic dignity of language-user invented it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Tooties 👀

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I couldn't stop spelling it Mastadon .... I even spelled it wrong in my id I gave to people. 😀

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I like it because it reminds me of the dinozords from MMPR. To see the whole set coming together as one federation would be hilarious/awesome.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I think it's a cool name. And I dunno if it's still a thing but I remember back in the day posts were called toots or something, which I approve of. :P

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Doesn't matter, other services implementing the ActivityPub standard can have names easier to pronounce by non-English speakers, like Misskey, and the two can interact.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The first time I heard of Mastodon I thought it was a drug similar to Methadone

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