Instead of Muting You, My Private Addon Marks You With a Poop Emoji
- john raymond
- Aug 27
- 2 min read
On Bluesky, the official options for handling people you don’t want in your feed are block and mute. Both are crude instruments. A block breaks threads and removes the user from your world entirely. A mute hides their posts behind a placeholder, requiring extra clicks to reveal the flow of a conversation. In both cases, context is lost.
That’s not how I want to read the social web. When a person proves themselves to be a turd, I don’t want to erase them. I don’t even want to mute them. I want to remember exactly what they are while still being able to follow the dialogue they provoke.
That’s why my own private browser add-on for Bluesky exists—among other reasons.
Turd Mode in Action
The principle is simple. Every handle on Bluesky gets a toggle beside their posts. When someone reveals themselves as a turd, I click the toggle. From then on, every time I see their name, it’s branded with a poop emoji 💩.
Nothing is hidden. Nothing is erased. Their words are still there, their replies are still in the thread, and the conversation remains intact. The only difference is that I never forget what they are. I see them, but I see them for what they are—turds.
Why It’s Better Than Mute
Mute in Bluesky works by silencing a person’s posts and replacing them with a placeholder. That breaks the rhythm of the thread. It creates a blind spot. If I want to know what others are responding to, I have to click through, exposing myself again to the very noise I meant to avoid.
My turd mode does the opposite. I lose nothing. The conversation flows naturally, but the turd is permanently tagged. It’s context without clutter, discourse without delusion.
The Point
In the end, this is about control and clarity. Social platforms force us into their definitions of silence—block or mute, disappear or click through. But neither is adequate when the goal is to see the world as it really is: full of people worth hearing, and full of turds worth shunning.
So no, I don’t mute you. I mark you. And every time you post, I’m reminded that you are a💩.
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