I know this has been the norm on Twitter, but I'm getting tired of seeing people use mock names like "Melon Usk", "the Muskrat" when referring to Elon Musk, or "the Cheetoh", "the Grump" when talking about Trump, and so on.

First of all, there is no need. There's no central authority in Mastodon who will hide your post because you criticize a notable person.

Second, if you don't want shills to find your post based on the person you criticize, you don't need to worry about it, this is precisely why full-text search is disabled on Mastodon: to protect you from dogpilers.

Third, because distorted names mess up people's filters. I know folks who explicitly add "Elon Musk" or "Trump" to their filters so these posts won't appear in their timelines. By trying to be clever, you accidentally make those people's online experiences worse.

Just use the actual name of the person you're criticizing or insulting and let the filters do their work.

BTW, if you're extra worried about people finding your post, just set your post's privacy mode to followers-only🔒.

Thank you.