Personally my 'brand' is earnest because I just can't manage anything else. When you interact with others, be earnest. Also I don't know why anyone outside of biz wants high follower counts it is a pain in the ass mostly.

Lately my bluesky brand is sincere posting, mourning the loss of my puppy. Normally my brand is just being me, which is probably why I don’t have a big account. Aside from liking the dopamine hit when I get a like, life’s too short to cultivate a persona here unless it impacts your income.

All of this!

I crave earnestness on social media. I don't want to follow people who only post about expensive restaurant meals and fancy travel photos. I want to see a cool weird bug you found on the porch or hear about something dumb that happened at the grocery store.

Because I am desperate for attention, obviously

10 people that interact somehow > 10000 people who follow but don’t talk to me

This is the best way.

Yeah, I want to know why I follow every single person I follow and go on whatever tangent I want. Don't know how a bigger follower count helps that.

Feels like at some point, the cycle was to make a bunch of hot takes and gain a following so you could have enough of a base if you ever needed to launch a GoFundMe to pay for an important surgery you couldn't cover.

hell yeah.+

well at least on the previous site I wanted a higher follower count because they tied the limit for how many people you could follow to how many people followed you in return, but since I haven't hit any equivalent limit here, I don't really care as much here...