The once-great science twitter is, depending on who you talk to, either dying or dead. Once a vibrant place for many discussions related to my fields of marine biology, ocean conservation, and public science communication, it’s been described now as an abandoned shopping mall that’s been taken over by neo-Nazi gangs. Lots of people have been asking me what the next big thing will be, and I am increasingly of the opinion that there won’t be a next big thing, there will be a bunch of small to medium things that few people use more than one or two of. Of that bunch of small to medium things, my favorite is Bluesky, which, as of today no longer requires an invitation code for you to sign up. Anyone can join Bluesky, right now! You can sign up here.
If you’re used to Science Twitter, you are interested in signing up for Bluesky, but you don’t know where to get started, this guide is for you.
Bluesky looks like Twitter at first glance, by design.
The first thing new users often remark on is that the basic Bluesky interface looks a lot like Twitter. Yes, it does! But there are some key differences in how it works, and how to get the most of it- if you just try to duplicate exactly what you did on Twitter, you’ll quickly be lost or frustrated.
Set up your home feed preferences or your feed may appear empty
After you make an acount and add a profile picture and bio, one of the first things you should do is adjust your home feed preferences, which you can find under settings. If you do not enable “show replies,” your feed will only be original posts, which means you’re only seeing the start of conversations. I personally find this boring, but some people get overwhelmed by replies- so fortunately you can enable additional filters like “only show replies from people I follow,” or “only show replies with at least __ likes” (I personally use 1 like here, which screens out a lot of unexciting replies, as “at least one person found this interesting” is a low bar to clear.) You can also enable reposts and quote-posts, which I recommend because it lets you see what people you follow think is interesting and worth sharing. I also enabled “show posts from my Feeds,” which shares a handful of interesting posts from all the Feeds I follow on my home page (more on what Feeds are below). You can also enable threads, which many Twitter power users love, and change how to sort replies for threads (I use “most liked replies first” personally, some prefer chronological order). You should also adjust your content filters, Bluesky is new and a little bit feral and you may not want certain types of imagery appearing on your home feed.
This is what my home feed preferences look like
How to find people to follow
As with any social media platform, your experience is dictated by who you follow. (Bluesky may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for what it’s worth, 100% of people who I’ve seen complain that their feeds are empty are people who follow only a handful of others, if you want to see interesting posts, follow people who post lots of interesting things!) Following works just like other platforms, when you follow someone you subscribe to get their updates (and depending on your settings above, their replies and reposts and such) in your home feed.
There are tools that let you follow anyone who you followed on Twitter who has since made a Bluesky account, which may be a good starting point for experienced Twitter users. Once you’re reading Feeds (more on this below,) you can find lots of great folks to follow directly from there. Once you’re following some great folks, check who they follow and engage with, and follow some of them. If you want lots of great science-y folks to follow, check out the replies to my post here. Remember, you can always unfollow someone later!
And be sure to follow me, and Andrew, if you like our Southern Fried Science content!
Feeds and lists
One super-cool feature of Bluesky is that there are tons of customized Feeds that share thematically related posts regardless of whether or not you follow the people posting them. Anyone can easily subscribe to existing Feeds, or create your own. You can find Feeds focusing on just about any topic imaginable, or look through Feeds that are currently popular across Bluesky, or check out what’s new today. And the “Discover new feeds” tab that’s native to Bluesky will suggest some for you based on what you already subscribe to, or what’s popular.
Here’s a list of tons of science and science communication focused feeds! Here’s “science,” the big science feed, and here’s a marine life feed, and here’s a science communication focused feed. Note that if you want your posts to appear in certain feeds, feed admins have different rules that are usually pinned to the top of the feed (for Science you need to demonstrate some professional credentials, then once you’re added to the list, any time you post and include a test tube emoji, that’ll get picked up on the Science feed.)
Some recent Science Feed posts, please note the test tube emoji. Additionally, please note that Sara has quoted a post from someone else and added a test-tube emoji to it, thus bringing an existing post onto the Science Feed that wasn’t there before.
To view your Feeds, please note you’ll have to go to the Feeds tab, which is different from your home screen:
There are also “lists,” which is a feature that so far I have not used much myself. I’ll do it more once more people join!
Posting, notifications, and replies
Posting on Bluesky works (mostly) very similarly to Twitter. Click “New post,” and you’ll see that posts are character limited (but with a higher character limit than twitter).
You can also add images to a post using the button in the lower left- please note that using alt-text is strongly enocuraged as a community accessibility norm.
You can also add links. Please note that if you “add link card,” the URL text will not count towards your character limit total (once you then delete the URL text)
Here’s what that looks like:
To reply to a post, click on it, and a reply option will pop up. This is what that looks like, an interface very similar to Twitter.
To repost someone else’s post, which I believe you should do more than you share your own thoughts, the button is the same as on Twitter. And to like, click the heart next to the repost button- remember that Likes are more important here because some people filter what they see based on the number of likes it gets.
Your notifications tab tells you when someone shares one of your posts, likes one of your posts, or replies to one of your posts, as well as when they follow you.
Some notes on the culture of Bluesky vs. Twitter
Until today, Bluesky has been invite-only, which led to (among other things some people who you may know in other settings feeling that they could go a little wild. You may be surprised at some of the things you see and read. If it’s not for you, I wish you the best with whatever you choose to do instead, but remember that you’re joining something that already exists, and while community norms may change over time, don’t expect them to change because it’s not what you personally expected.
One thing I really like about Bluesky culture is that there is an established community norm to simply block trolls and assholes rather than engaging with them and getting them rage-clicks. This stops hateful disruptive nonsense from spreading. You should consider blocking at the first sign that someone is not engaging with you in good faith. Do not quote-tweet and spread it, that helps them and does not help you or the community.
Another important point is that since Bluesky is founded and used by a lot of Twitter expats, a common topic of discussion is “can you believe what this jerk said on Twitter” (with a screenshot shared) or “look what Elon Musk is up to now!” You should resist the temptation to talk only about Twitter and Elon Musk.
Currently, GIF support is limited, and DMs don’t exist (though based on amusing post a few months ago, some people will jokingly include “this is a DM by the way” in their posts).
I’ll almost certainly edit this as people ask questions or point out that I got something wrong, but I think that’s it for now. Give Bluesky a try, and welcome aboard!
Further reading
