On to Mastodon

Joining Mastodon is incredibly easy. The quickest and simplest method to join Mastodon is to go to mastodon's flagship instance mastodon.social and register an account. You will have immediate access to Mastodon's network of users.

But most people who have been around on Mastodon long enough find that Mastodon's Flagship isn't quite for them, and eventually leave to a space with a more dedicated community. While mastodon.social is the flagship, that also makes it the most singularly populated instance, with a moderation team a bit too small to handle such a high number of users (and potential bots and trolls.) And since Mastodon's strength is in its decentralized possibilities, people end up migrating to an instance that fits better for them.

You might be lucky and know someone who either has an account on a more dedicated instance or runs an instance of their own. If so, asking them is the best way to discover an instance to join. They can give you a list of instances that they know of to be good, and sometimes a list of instances to stay away from.

The next best option to find an instance aside from mastodon.social to join is using a site like

https://joinmastodon.org/servers
or
https://fedi.garden/

The next best option is to make your own instance! You don't need any developer knowledge to do so! If you've ever made a discord server you can make an instance!