Mastodon users love the platform's founder, John Mastodon. They're writing sea shanties about their hero, generating AI art in his likeness, and creating all manner of memes about the reclusive genius. The only thing is, there is no one named John Mastodon, at least not until Mediaite columnist Isaac Schorr accidentally conjured him out to thin air two days ago in an opinion piece titled, "Hypocrisy and Fear All the Way Down at Twitter." Schorr misread the Twitter account @joinmastodon as "John Mastodon," and when Twitter's Chief Karen Officer Elon Musk suspended the account, Schorr wrote:
Then, the platform removed John Mastodon, the founder of a competing social media company named after himself, for posting a link to the jet tracker's Mastodon account.
Schorr's column has since been corrected, but the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has a copy of the original.
By the way, many of the Boingers have Mastodon accounts: Carla Sinclair, Rob Beschizza, Jason Weisberger, Cory Doctorow, and Mark Frauenfelder.