In many ways, Mastodon feels like rewinding the clock on social media back to the early days of Twitter and Facebook. On the consume side, that means that your home feed has no algorithm (this can be disorienting at first).
Practically, it means that you see only what you want to see and only see it linearly. You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”. Content can only enter your home feed via your followed tags or handles and the feed is linear like the early days of social media.
I’m one of the new folk around here as well and I can fully understand that kind of feeling once it feels like the flood gates have opened and your small community ain’t so small no more and people bring different vibes than what you’re used to / what you enjoy.
Genuinely, I’m sorry, it sucks.