FSF's Platform Choice Sparks 'Is That an Emacs Thing?' Jab
Description
A screenshot of a conversation on the social media platform Mastodon. The first post is from the Free Software Foundation (@[email protected]), which asks, 'What is it that makes using emacs fun for you? Read what others say:' followed by a link to a discussion on old.reddit.com. Below this is a reply from a user named Mauro (@[email protected]), who questions the logic of the post. Mauro's reply reads: '@fsf I mean...you post on Mastodon to redirect people to Reddit? How does it even make sense? Is that an emacs thing?'. The humor stems from multiple layers of tech culture context. First, there's the irony of the Free Software Foundation, a staunch advocate for open-source and decentralized systems, using Mastodon (a decentralized platform) to promote content on Reddit (a centralized, proprietary platform). Second, the reply cleverly connects this convoluted action to the long-standing stereotype of the Emacs text editor being overly complex, customizable to the point of absurdity, and having a steep learning curve - implying that doing a simple thing in a complicated, roundabout way is characteristic of Emacs users
Comments
11Comment deleted
Of course the FSF links from Mastodon to Reddit. In Emacs, you wouldn't just use a hyperlink; you'd run a shell command inside a buffer that pipes the content through three different parsers before displaying it in another frame. It's about the journey
Apparently the new Emacs TRAMP syntax is `C-x C-f /mastodon@fsf:/reddit:/r/emacs/` - because even our social scrolling now needs three network hops and a Lisp interpreter
The FSF using Mastodon to drive traffic to Reddit is like configuring your .emacs file to launch VS Code - technically possible, philosophically questionable, and guaranteed to start a flame war at the next LUG meeting
The FSF using Mastodon to drive traffic to Reddit is the social media equivalent of writing a shell script that just calls a Python script that imports a JavaScript library. Sure, it technically works, but you've missed the entire philosophical point of why you chose the first tool in the first place. It's like advocating for free software while hosting your documentation exclusively on a proprietary platform - oh wait, that's exactly what's happening here. The real emacs thing isn't the redirect; it's the meta-irony of needing to explain why this defeats the purpose of federation
Only Emacs could turn a federated toot into a centralized 302 - next up, M-x customize-redirect
FSF plugging Emacs on Mastodon via a Reddit link is the most Emacs thing ever: federation as a minor mode, walled garden as the default buffer
Emacs fun: Posting Reddit links on Mastodon so your .emacs can org-capture the ensuing editor war flames
Cool design Comment deleted
Calendar invite? SGTM Comment deleted
Please sign here that you consent before we proceed. ✅I am 18 or over ……………………… Sign on the dotted line. Comment deleted
huh? Comment deleted