Federated Following Confusion Featuring Matt Haughey

I love that apps (services?) like Mastodon or Bluesky exist that allow us to have social networks that aren't dependant on any one tech-bro's whims. And as replacements for photo sharing networks—like Pixelfed—pop up, it's making it easier and easier to move to a Meta-less life.

Ya for federation!

Federation is a form of decentralization. Instead of a single central service that all people use, there are multiple services, that any number of people can use.

And cross-posting apps like Micro.blog make it easy to post once and have it go out to multiple social networks where you might still want to have a presence.

Overthinking: Where Do I Follow Matt Haughey Though?

So I mostly get the idea behind federation. I almost kind of understand how Mastodon works a little bit like email with different servers hosted around the web, but we can all follow or reply to each other somehow through the various tubes.

What I don't get is where I should follow someone posting on Pixelfed—or their video sharing app, Loops—from?

Let's use Matt Haughey / mathowie, "American programmer, web designer, and blogger", according to Wikipedia, as an example.

If I have my own account on Mastodon (for posting text and pictures and videos) AND Pixelfed (for posting just pictures?), and Matt Haughey has an account on Mastodon and Pixelfed, do I follow Matt Haughey on Pixelfed from my Mastodon account or from my Pixelfed account?

Tangent: I've already been following Matt Haughey on his Mastodon account from my Mastodon account. At some point, for reasons known only to American programmer, web designer, and blogger Matt Haughey, he followed me back on Mastodon. (I suspect it was common ground because we both use the Ghost CMS?)

My options are:

1) Follow his Pixelfed account from my Pixelfed account. I'll only see the pictures he posts when I remember to check Pixelfed.

2) Follow his Pixelfed account from my Mastodon account. I'll see his pictures mixed in with all the other text, pictures, and videos posted by the people I follow on Mastodon.

3) Follow him everywhere. Follow his Mastodon and Pixelfed accounts from my Mastodon account, and follow his Pixelfed account from my Pixelfed account. That way I don't miss out on any Matt Haughey content.

This is the blessing of federated networks like Mastodon and Pixelfed vs closed ones like Instagram. On Instagram, you can only follow someone if you also have an Instagram account. And you can't use any other app besides Instagram—and now the web—to access content on Instagram.

The downside is I spend an afternoon overthinking how best to follow American programmer, web designer, and blogger Matt Haughey's photo journal on Pixelfed instead of editing the podcasts I'm supposed to be working on.