This Is the Best Way to Find People to Follow on Bluesky
If you follow digital culture news at all, it’s impossible to miss the talk about Bluesky over the past month. The fledgling social networking site, which looks and acts much like Twitter did a decade ago, long before Elon Musk bought it and renamed it X, is rapidly doubling in popularity, doubling in size in the past two months to reach an estimated 20 million users. .
Suddenly, a site you’ve probably only heard of if you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about your diet on social media has topped the App Store charts and attracted a flood of people wanting to quit X as it shifts toward promoting toxicity and even disinformation before and after the US presidential election.
Beyond all the reasons for the site’s recent boom, if you’re a new user, then probably the most important thing for you to do is figure out how best to use it, from moving from X to learning Bluesky’s features to finding people you’re used to following elsewhere .
But as similar as it may be to Old Twitter, Bluesky has a few unique things to offer, most notably the lack of an algorithm that “learns” (or decides) what interests you. This is where the independently created Bluesky Directory tool comes in handy.
Find over 47,000 Bluesky Starter Packs
Created by Mubashar “Mubs” Iqbal , the Bluesky Directory is essentially a collection of links to Bluesky tools and utilities from around the web, from a Chrome extension that helps you find all your old X subscribers, to links to third-party clients that are more customizable than official Bluesky app and website.
The most useful part of the catalog, at least for those new to Bluesky, will be the searchable index of more than 47,000 “starter packs.” If you haven’t come across it yet, a starter pack is essentially a list of Bluesky accounts sorted by what the people behind them have in common. When you open a starter pack – in the Bluesky app or website – you can follow all of its members with one tap or click, or scroll down and select who you want to see in your feed, one by one.
So, for example, if you’re a big movie fan, you might like a starter pack like Filmmakers , which features over 20 directors (Rian Johnson, Kevin Smith, and Lily Wachowski among them). If you love podcasts, you might want to check out Women in Podcasting . If you want to follow everyone writing for Lifehacker, I’ve created a starter pack for that too .
You can search for starter packs on Bluesky itself, but the experience is limited. Bluesky Directory’s search index is much more user-friendly. You simply enter a few relevant terms into the search bar and all matching starter packs will be suggested (the site is a little sluggish – which is to be expected with a million new users coming online every day – but that’s not too bad). ).
You’ll be able to see a description, the number of accounts listed, and even a preview of some of them right from the results page.
There’s a starter pack for (almost) everything
You can browse a list of the most popular starter packages , but if you want a truly customized social media experience, it’s worth doing a detailed search. As of this writing, the index includes 47,450 different options, with more being added every minute. (If you’ve created a starter package and want to add it to the database, there’s a link right on the search page to submit it ). And chances are good that if you are interested in a particular topic, there is a starter package for it.
Perhaps you want to follow authors who love to write about their cats ? Or maybe scientists with a scientist’s opinion about pizza ? Porn actors worried about COVID ? I was disappointed that a search for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” didn’t turn up any results, but it’s still early days; on the other hand, I found lists of journalists who write for some of my favorite publications , as well as people who have been guests on my favorite film podcast .
Once you find a channel you like, click on its name and you’ll be taken to Bluesky, where you can choose who from the list you want to subscribe to (or subscribe to everyone). You can also switch to the Messages tab to view the latest messages from all Starter Pack members. Before you know it, you’ll have a hyper-specific list of Bluesky subscribers tuned to your specific interests, which in my opinion is much better than having an algorithm throw rage bait in your face every time you open the app.