A Bluesky How-To Guide and Our Managing Editor Call for Applications

Here's how (and why) you can join us on Bluesky

On November 14, Andrew Wille, a brilliant editor and writer who’s been my dear friend since we met as Fiction MFA students at Naropa University in 2002, sent me a WhatsApp message. It said, “If you have the time, there is a lot of writer movement on Bluesky—a lot of migration there from people closing their Twitter, and as a result a lot of new connections being made. A lot of energy.” I sighed. Not another social media account!

I reminded him that I not only have Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Substack accounts, but also YouTube and TikTok channels. It’s too much already. I sulked all day at the prospect of taking this on. But Andrew, who’s famously patient with me, persisted. He wrote, “They have this thing called ‘starter packs’ where you can follow a lot of like-minded people with one click.” Starter packs? It all sounded so confusing, but Andrew’s been giving me great advice for over two decades. And anyway, I’d always wondered what it’d be like to join a social media platform when it was getting started.

The long list of platforms I’m on notwithstanding, I tend to resist social media. Knowing how much time a platform takes up, I wait and ponder and question the value. Then I invariably give in. This time I decided not to just give in but also to embrace the experience. Since Bluesky’s community is currently getting a jolt of newcomers, I thought I could help shape how some of the platform’s practices and discourses evolve in my areas—Rhetoric and Composition and Creative Writing.

You’ve already guessed (from the title of this post, no less) that I gave in and that I liked Bluesky so much that we also made an account for constellations.

As we invite you to join us on Bluesky, I thought I’d give you a sense of how the platform works:

1. Bluesky doesn’t penalize you for sharing links. Twitter and Facebook’s algorithms hinder the visibility of posts that feature links to other platforms, and Instagram flat out doesn’t let you use links on posts at all (only on stories). This makes it hard to promote things dear to us, like articles and books you’d like others to check out.

Our constellations accounts promote our journal’s content, as well as Cultural Rhetorics and Rhetoric and Composition work we admire. Not to mention exciting conferences and workshops in the field. We need to share links without being penalized, and since Bluesky’s algorithm welcomes links, the platform makes perfect sense for us.

2. You can find your peers through Starter Packs. As Andrew mentioned, Bluesky’s Starter Packs are a feature that allows you to gather people around an interest or topic. Anyone can make a Starter Pack. They do have a limit of 150 accounts, so not everyone can fit into a particular pack. I created a Starter Pack titled “Rhetoric and Composition Scholars and Instructors,” and as with other Starter Packs, you can click on it and see everyone who’s in it. You can choose to follow them all with one click, or you can manually choose who you’d like to follow.

The starter packs also come with a nifty image (like the one above!) that you can use to increase their visibility when you share them. One pro tip I learned from being added to the Starter Pack for those who’ve written essays for the Criterion Collection is that you (the creator of the pack) can reply to the post you use to announce it with the usernames of everyone you added. That way, they know they’re in it. Some go on to share your post, which gives everyone more visibility. They also (like I did) follow everyone in the pack.

If you’d like to join the “Rhetoric and Composition” Starter Pack and/or the “Cultural Rhetorics” Starter Pack constellations created, reply to or comment on this message and we’ll add you.

3. You can use feeds to find content that matters to you. On Bluesky, you can follow feeds around topics that interest you. Moreover, you can create feeds using the SkyFeed app, which allows you to choose the hashtags (or even emojis) you’d like covered by your feed. For constellations we created a Rhetoric and Composition Feed that gathers every post using any of the following hashtags: #TeamRhetoric, #RhetComp, #CompRhet, and #WritingStudies. I was worried having a feed would result in us having to do all sorts of work to keep it going. However, the algorithm does everything. You create the feed, yes, but afterwards you just click on it and you go to a collection of posts using any of the hashtags you selected. Then you can interact, follow, engage. You can help mold this Elon-Musk-free Bluesky world into what you want it to be. 

You can add feeds to your profile (to make it easier to find them). You can also give feeds a like. I’m not sure what likes do for a feed (please tell us if you know), but I suspect the like count tells the algorithm how many people are using that feed and whether it should suggest it to people looking for content on that topic. Either way, we’d appreciate it if you’d give our feed a like if only because of the dopamine kick we get from that sort of thing. And please use it! That’s why we made it.

For me, the feed has been a huge time saver. All I need to do is click on it and I can see who in our field is doing what. As long as they’re using the hashtags, that is. It has helped me follow new colleagues, provide visibility to interesting questions and publications, and feel like I’m helping foster the kind of dialogue and community I’d like to be part of.

4. Bluesky is a growing space so you can grow with it too. As newcomers join Bluesky, you can welcome them, follow them, engage with their posts, show them the ropes. This can lead to new connections, collaborations, friendships… Publications? Jobs? Who knows? The (blue ha ha) sky is the limit. I hope you have fun in this new space. If you’re going to spend time and effort on yet another social media account, you might as well enjoy it.

constellations Is Seeking Applications for Managing Editors with Expertise in Black Rhetorics

We’re excited to invite new members to join our editorial team. Please visit our Call for Applications for a sense of what the position entails and how to apply. The application deadline is January 15. If you have any questions about the application process or the position, please write them in the comments or reply to this message. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you to everyone for reading. We wish you the best of luck with the end of the semester and we hope your holiday break is restful, regenerative, and fun!