meta
@terrencefoxfur Very likely the issue is precisely in the "bigger artist" part. Twitter is made for building large parasocial followings and 'social rankings', whereas the fediverse is much more about community building in a more egalitarian manner (even if definitely not perfect).
I've found a *lot* of celebrities (at various scales) to be turned off by that change; it would mean losing their special status, and in many cases I've actually seen celebrities get genuinely angry that they don't get a massive parasocial follower base here.
This also raises the question: do we actually *want* the "bigger artists" to come here? The egalitarian community building is an important part of *why* this place is so much less toxic. Less megaphoning, more genuine community.
That's not to say that those artists aren't welcome here *as a person* of course, but I feel like seeking "bigger artists on Mastodon", in that phrasing, is much more looking for the celebrity than for the person. And what would that really bring us?
re: meta
@terrencefoxfur Oops, I just realized that I might've misread your original question 😅
If you meant "more artists" rather than "big artists", then my answer would be different: there seems to be a widespread belief among artists that "there's no reach on Mastodon, because it's not a [public square] like Twitter is".
Which isn't true in practice, because people actually *interact* with each other much more here, but it's a somewhat understandable conclusion if you're applying the assumptions of how Twitter/Facebook/etc. work to something like fedi.
Under those assumptions, less people == less engagement, because of the sense of needing to fight for every scrap of attention, because that's how Twitter and such work.
The only solution I can see is to try and explain to them how the social dynamics are completely different here, and you don't *need* a massive following to have interactions with people, because there's much more genuine interaction.
