Saying goodbye to cohost

For two years, cohost was my digital home. I've been posting there for almost as long as they would let me, with topics ranging from my music & coding projects to stargazing, Mahjong, social media philosophy, sinkdog, and the joys of mutual vulnerability. I joined in on newfound traditions like CSS crimes, 140-character title posts, and wrong answers to Pictionary prompts. What cohost gave me in return: artists to follow & art to share. Old & new friends to learn more about. A snapshot into the wayward lives of queer furries I would have never met otherwise.

In the wake of cohost's shutdown, I want to write about what I'm taking away from my experience there. Despite its flaws and failings, I think there's a lot to learn from the things cohost got right. Some of those things were a first across my 16 years of being a social media denizen — that's an impressive feat for a team of four! So, in no particular order, here's what I want to remember as we move on to other platforms, other modes of communication, and everything else life has to offer us — online or otherwise.

I should mention before we start: this post's audience is a mix of cohost and non-cohost readers. I take time to explain some things that everyone on cohost already knows, as well as anything I think is important for non-cohost folks to understand about it. It's also my longest post, ever. I've written a researched essay and a two-act short story and this retrospective exceeds both of their word counts. Buckle in!

Long and short form can coexist

One of the early Internet's greatest strengths was the variety of choices it offered for self-expression and communication. The modern, corporate-owned Internet lost the plot on this, but the capacity is still there, waiting to be tapped into. What if someone tried?

I want to share the post that convinced me to start actually using cohost. It was a short story about a robot girl being fixed by her technician girlfriend,¹ presented in a way unlike any social media post I've seen before:

cohost's accidental support for inline CSS turned out to be a great way to dress up longer posts, especially creative writing. There was suddenly a whole new dimension to experiment with, far beyond the most flexible offerings of contemporary social platforms, which typically caps out at Markdown support. Words spoken in a haze could be given a faint blur effect; the pace of conversation could be fine-tuned with negative space; background colors could cue perspective shifts to new times and places. These are tools that were previously relegated to people with experience in web development. cohost lowered this barrier to entry massively.

This section isn't about CSS, though. Let's back up: we're reading a short story on a website that, for many people, served as a Twitter replacement. This isn't a novel idea by any means — Tumblr and Livejournal support this mixed usage, just to name a few — but it's an idea that's fallen out of favor in recent years. The big players in social media thrive on their limitations. Twitter achieved brand recognition in the 140-character era, and it only barely supported photos at the start of its rise! TikTok gives you two seconds (optimistically) to capture your viewers' attention and a minute or two² to prove your point.

The average creator doesn't have many options for exploring long-form media. Want to make a movie-length video as a TikTok creator? Put it on YouTube and plead to your audience to go find it there. Wrote something longer than two paragraphs for your Twitter audience? Stuff it into tweet-sized chunks (and get them all exactly right the first time!) or hope your readers will click a Medium or Substack link. Want to upload a 4096x4096 PNG art piece? You're making a new account somewhere, because nowhere you go today supports that. Limitation breeds creativity, sure, but the modern Internet seems to have settled on the same profitable limitations for everyone. It was so nice to have options for once.

Most of my posts & shares on cohost were on the shorter side. It's less effort to write and read, so it's no surprise that there's going to be more of these posts by raw numbers. But the posts that had the greatest impact on me wouldn't have been possible on the websites I used before cohost.

The software matters

What really set cohost apart was its greatly reduced network effects. Network effects are, for the purpose of this section, the sum of all the ways that you can traverse the network of users, along with whatever consequences (positive or negative) that entails. Most big platforms use what we often refer to as an algorithm to induce network effects; this is where recommendations & "algorithmic content" (posts in your feed from people you don't follow) come from. Network effects can also be induced by making different kinds of interactions on the network publicly available, such as follows, likes, replies, and shares.

cohost deliberately eschewed almost all of these functions. There was no algorithm to recommend users or posts. There was no way to view a user's follows, followers, or likes; nor could people check who's interacted with someone else's post. You could write an entire PhD thesis on the outcomes of these design decisions, but I'm not a sociologist. All I can tell you is how this felt different from my past social media homes.

For one thing, being able to freely like and comment on posts without worrying about how it might influence some algorithm was a breath of fresh air. No disinterested people were going to find my interaction randomly inserted into their feed. I could talk to my online buddies, IRL friends, and NSFW artists all from the same page. We used to crack jokes about people who do this sort of thing on Twitter being on a higher plane of understanding; cohost brought it to everyone.

Still, I made some side pages for my more niche interests that most people probably wouldn't be interested in. On Twitter, my equivalent accounts are permanently set to private; on cohost, the reduced network effects made this feel wholly unnecessary. Having the space to bond with new people over these things — without the stochastic anxiety of some recommendation engine outing you to your own colleagues — was a massive plus. I'm really going to miss having that affordance; being able to open up in this way felt like therapy.

On the topic of visibility, cohost's system for fine-tuning what you see was by far the best implementation I've seen. Posts could individually be labeled "18+" or given a content warning, with no public index of either. Users could "muffle" tags and keywords, or they could opt into showing 18+ or CW'd posts by default. It was the most intuitive & least burdensome way of solving these problems I've ever seen. It boggles the mind that so few social media platforms come even close to meeting this bar.

If anyone ever tried to sell you on cohost, they probably led with "look! no numbers!", or a similar spiel about how cohost never shoved engagement metrics in front of you. They weren't wrong, but I think presenting this design choice as a selling point is putting the cart before the horse — and you haven't even led the horse to water yet! It did make a difference, though. No numbers to make bigger meant that clout-chasing was largely a relic of platforms past — not completely eliminated, but nowhere near as ubiquitous as on Twitter.

The lack of following / follower counts in particular meant that there were fewer reasons to follow someone, or to continue following them. Everyone on cohost unanimously & silently agreed that manually checking for unfollows was not just inconvenient, but impolite. This freed a lot of baggage from these functions; rather than maintaining social links out of a sense of obligation (or perhaps fear), you were free to curate your feed as you saw fit. Follow whoever makes your feed worth checking, knowing you can change your mind at any time. This is technically within reach on other platforms, but the psychological effect of removing the numbers can't be understated. It's just better this way!

Back in June, I shared an article on trans camaraderie that resonated with me, with no commentary of my own. Another cohost user responded to the article's message with a cautionary take, one that was well-received by hundreds of people (according to the flood of notifications). Initially, this interaction made me flinch; on Twitter, this might have been the start of a "ratio", or at least an unpleasant online experience. What were people going to say about me?

In this case, the reflex turned out to be an overreaction. Some people offered their own thoughts on the subject, but no one was mean or tactless about it; everyone seemed to be operating in good faith. The particular demographic who saw the post certainly made a difference here, but it's hard to ignore the software's role in this interaction. cohost gave the user who responded the space to write a thoughtful, nuanced response, in an box the same size as mine. Her and my words were presented in the natural, chronological order that one would expect of a dialogue. And, yes, no one was trying to make number go big. It was a remarkable interaction precisely due to how unremarkable it was.

I often hear cohost described as "intentional", as a way of contrasting it to the unintended consequences of contemporary platforms' network effects. I'm sure the details of Twitter or Instagram's design went through plenty of scrutiny, but those decisions strictly served a corporation's interests. Being on a site that was designed for people — not for advertisers, and not for our ceaseless engagement — felt like tasting the golden nectar. I don't know if I can ever come to terms with the affordances I'd lose by moving back to a corporate-owned network. And I think the huge swath of the userbase migrating to personal blogs (to the exclusion of any other social network) would tend to agree.

You are (still) capable of harm

I've painted a rosy picture of cohost so far; I would be remiss not to mention some of the negatives. On numerous occasions, the notion that cohost was somehow "healthier" than other platforms was proven to be more of a meme than an actual boon. The incident that's burned into my brain the hardest was the one that taught me that I will still join a dogpile if I don't immediately recognize it as one.

The chain of consequences involved here was subtle: the reduced network effects across cohost meant that if the author of a poorly-received post didn't follow you, you could almost guarantee that they would have no way of seeing your quip about them. Furthermore, you could freely engage with other posts dunking on the user. After all, there's no public index of who's liked or shared a post for them to check.

These aspects of cohost's design were intended to discourage these sorts of maladaptive behaviors. In reality, ratioing on cohost was just as much of a sport as it was on Twitter — it just assumed a different form. Rather than punchy one-liners, the cohost ratio manifested as a whisper network of vague, untagged contrary takes, each with its own veneer of plausible deniability. I have to imagine these whisper networks were practically impossible to moderate in any meaningful way.

The result was an incredibly effective system for alienating the authors of poorly-received posts. As much as I appreciate cohost's thoughtful design, this was one area where it definitely did not have the intended outcome. Rather than preventing the harmful behavior, it swept it under the rug; it made it harder to articulate what was actually failing. People left cohost over this cliquey behavior and I can't blame them for that.

I participated in this system at least once, and possibly more times in the past that I haven't self-interrogated. I'm not proud of that fact. The claim that cohost "fixed my brain" doesn't sit well with me for this reason. I have yet more growing to do, and you probably do, too.

Many of cohost's non-white users expressed frustration with the site's overwhelming whiteness. It was evident from the racist & invasive messages they would continually receive in replies and asks. It was evident from the staff's repeated refusal to take action on reports of this behavior until their inaction was publicly admonished. It was especially evident from the way these issues were quietly ignored by most of cohost's white contingent for so long. The entire notion that cohost's design worked to prevent harassment was null and void for many of its non-white users. There were efforts to improve, but none of these problems came even close to solved before cohost shut down. It's the site's biggest miss by a long shot.

These failings were documented in painstaking detail by @alyaza in "Cohost So White", which I recommend reading for a much more complete picture. Unmitigated racism was a near-constant stain on cohost, and while the details vary from incident to incident, much of the blame lies squarely on its operating company, Anti Software Software Club.

Countless communities across the Internet have (what I would consider to be) better leadership than cohost, but they're each moderating a tiny fraction of cohost's active users. On the other hand, ASSC handily exceeded the leadership quality of any corporate-owned social media platform — but, again, the closest competitors get orders of magnitude more traffic than cohost ever did.³ It's almost impossible to grant ASSC a fair comparison against anything anyone else has ever tried. With all of this in mind, I'm still grateful for what they tried to build with cohost. They showed us a possible future that was unbelievably unlikely to last longer than they did. Anyone who thinks they can fix its underlying problems now has a tried-and-tested model to start from.

But something needs to change. I'd rather see communities a fraction of the size that effectively protect their members of color than a second, cohost-sized cohost. I'd rather see a compromise on the funding model than a compromise on racially equitable moderation. If this failure mode can't be designed out of cohost's guiding principles, maybe the idea's just not ripe for this world.

I'd like to believe that's not the case. The Website League is one such effort that I'm cautiously optimistic about. The compromise being made here is on paid moderation; volunteers are expected to moderate their own instances, much like Mastodon (and using very similar software). But, being seeded almost entirely by ex-cohost users, the Website League will inherit cohost's demographics unless something is done to course-correct early on. Its stewards know fully well that federation is only a technical solution; I'm rooting for them to find the rest of the answers.

People are the point

Not nearly as many of my existing friends joined cohost as I would've liked, but that proved less of a problem than I assumed it would be. Following anyone who posted interesting things on cohost turned out to be a fast & effective way to make new friends. Not every time, but often enough to be worth trying. The worst that could happen is the quality of your timeline improves!

The reduced network effects did mean that this was an ongoing manual process — you had to be really deliberate about following people. I suspect most of the people who called cohost "dead" didn't make it very far into this process, and I can't really fault them for that. Most commercial social networks are explicitly designed to increase the connectedness of their user network; they have a profit incentive to make this as easy and convenient as possible. It takes time and patience to learn how to build your social graph without the help of an algorithm. If you missed the opportunity to try, take my word for it: putting in this work brought cohost to life.

I'm going to cherish this unique opportunity to peer into the lives and minds of likeminded weirdos for a very long time. They were artists, musicians, poets, essayists, gamedevs, and creatures of all shapes and sizes. A lot of them are trans furries; more than a few of them are people I look up to. Most of them are still strangers to me, and that's perfectly okay. I'm better off knowing that they're all out there, doing their thing.

If I carry one regret coming from cohost, it's that I didn't get to know more of these people. I think if I had known how short our time together would be, I would've tried harder. But I'm still so thrilled to have made the new friends I did. I hope we can all keep in touch.

Furry art rocks

@catte's fluffy critters were like MSG for my bowl of posts — the highest compliment I can think of.

Everything @kingsillysmilez draws makes me wiggle with joy and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I'm so glad I found @cupsofjade's gorgeous work. I'll own up to my promise to commission her someday.

@33feareraser knows exactly what's appealing about the furry form; they never miss.

Seeing the one and only @catboots join was a highlight of that Sunday.

@idioticbat deserves the world for what they've been through. Their art stayed whimsical and full of love through it all.

@kinomoto draws girls that make me want to be a girl more than any other artist's girls.⁴

@TuxedoDragon draws animals that make me want to be an animal more than any other artist's animals.

@phimerai's slice-of-life scenes fill me with fuzzy feelings every time.

I was so excited to see @rabbitwedding999 join from Tumblr. His creatures brought a unique flavor of trans joy to the site.

@Dvorakir reminded me what an awesome art tool Blender can be in the right hands.

Everyone who drew fanart of sinkdog made the world a better place in doing so. Same goes for the hundreds of other artists whose work graced my feed over the years.

In my previous social media homes, I filtered my interests in furry art pretty heavily, trying my best to cater to a broad array of palettes with what I shared. On cohost, I very deliberately eschewed this rule in an effort to draw in an audience that would let me be myself. As far as I could tell, this plan worked perfectly. I got a lot more comfortable sharing art with my friends and audience that explores the beauty of trans bodies. I stopped drawing the line at what we furries call "fetish art"⁵ and put transformation and macro/micro and pooltoys on main, where they've always belonged.

There's so much beauty to be found at the outermost edges of our desires; I treasure the space cohost gave us to openly celebrate these things. Maybe that was the confidence boost I needed to carry these feelings elsewhere.

In conclusion, a better world is necessary

cohost is behind us now; there's nowhere to go but forward. For some, this means laying the groundwork for the next big shot at a healthy, equitably governed social media platform. It's certainly one of the things I would consider working on; heavens know I've daydreamed enough about how I would do social media the "right way".

I don't think building or operating social media is my calling, though. I've never been impressed with my own leadership abilities, and there are more than enough programmer types invested in this problem already. One day, I might spin up an instance on the aforementioned Website League, but I think I'd rather let the dust settle for a bit; no one is placing bets on where I move to next.

Rather than thinking about social media, I'd really like to get back on the music grind. I promised a whole dang album that's sat on the backburner for a variety of circumstances, some of which are soon to change for the better. Having fewer websites to procrastinate on will probably help, too.

In January 2022, I decided to stop tweeting and start writing this blog. At that time I was in between Tumblr accounts, Bluesky wasn't a thing yet, and I had already passed on Mastodon, so I no longer had any social media presence to speak of. It was the start of a new era of my life. I re-learned how to write outside the context of microblogging. I thought hard about how I wanted to use my time, which people in my life deserved my attention, and what kind of life I was trying to manifest for myself. In the absence of posting, I started DMing my friends more frequently, and generally tried harder to keep up with what they were doing. I'll admit that habit didn't last for long, but I tried, and I can always try again.

Later that year, cohost was revealed to the public. I signed up on day 2 and started posting there by November, ending my months-long abstinence from social media. I'm glad I did. Being on cohost made the Internet feel a little less lonely and a lot less hostile to me. It was the best experience I've had on any social media platform by countless metrics. I wish that could've been everyone's experience.

It's funny to think that I was already prepared to let the social media ship sail on without me, some 2½ years ago. It was a hard decision, but I have to admit I liked the idea more when it was my choice to log off.

Oh, well. There are other websites.