[recuter]

  I've been thinking of metaphors to try to understand why I've found it so upsetting. This is supposed to be what we wanted, right? Yet it feels like something else. Like when you're sitting in a quiet carriage softly chatting with a couple of friends and then an entire platform of football fans get on at Jolimont Station after their team lost.

  *They* don't usually catch trains and don't know the protocol. They assume everyone on the train was at the game or at least follows football. They crowd the doors and complain about the seat configuration. It's not entirely the Twitter people's fault. They've been taught to behave in certain ways.

It ain't their fault its the way they were brought up.

I/We/Gaia would like those gross football fans to not exist on their planet. There is only I/We/Gaia. Not asking what Gaia wants is bad. There is only I/We/Gaia. (https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Gaia)

  I struggled to understand what I was feeling, or the word to describe it. I finally realised on Monday that the word I was looking for was "traumatic".

  Suddenly having hundreds of people asking (or not) to join those conversations without having acclimatised themselves to the social norms felt like a violation, an assault. I know I'm not the only one who felt like this. The tools, protocols and culture of the fediverse were built by trans and queer feminists. Those people had already started to feel sidelined from their own project when people like me started turning up a few year ago.

There is only I/We/Gaia.