The mastodon stages:

1: getting used to the interface

2: discovering that most people are just people, engaged in everyday adventures, big & small

3: the allure of the notification sound

4: a gradual getting used to the fact that not everything is about US politics, and that it's okay to filter it out on a macro level

5: a quiet moment when you think "there can still be poetry in this world"

6: some sort of reconciliation with the quantum magic that is the federated timeline

7: pineapples