# content
Your profile should be a place, not a scoreboard

A profile on a social network should help people understand who you are, what you care about, and what you want to share. It does not need to become a contest.

TouchGrass treats your profile as a social place: an introduction, a set of links, posts worth keeping, photos, albums, and recommendations from real life. The goal is not to rank you, push you into a follower race, or turn every update into a performance metric. TouchGrass is built as a safe, open social home for real life — without addictive feeds or platform lock-in.

Why TouchGrass made this choice

A lot of social software turned profiles into scoreboards.

Follower counts became social proof. Public likes became pressure. Feeds became ranking systems. People started posting not only for friends, family, communities, or future reference, but for whatever the platform would reward.

That changes the shape of social life online. A profile stops feeling like a place and starts feeling like a stage. Even simple things — sharing a photo, recommending a book, writing a longer thought, adding a link — can feel like they need to compete for attention.

TouchGrass makes a different choice.

Your profile should be useful even when nobody is trying to “grow” it. It should help a friend find your writing, a family member see your albums, someone in your circle read your recommendations, or a new connection understand your context.

That is why TouchGrass is designed around friends, circles, durable posts, photos, albums, recommendations, and visibility choices. Public sharing can exist, but it is not the whole story. Open does not mean everything is public. It means you should have more choice, more portability, and clearer exits.

What TouchGrass does today

Today, TouchGrass profiles are meant to support real social context.

You can use your profile to introduce yourself, collect links, share posts, publish longer writing, organize photos and albums, and make recommendations. Those pieces belong together because people are not only timelines. A person may want to share a short update, keep a family album, recommend a place, write an essay, and keep useful links in one understandable space.

TouchGrass also supports intentional audiences. Posts can be shared publicly, with friends, or with circles. That matters because not every part of life belongs in the same room. A public note, a friends-only update, and a circle-specific post are different social situations.

The product also avoids design choices that turn profiles into engagement traps. TouchGrass is not built around videos, algorithmic feed ranking, public like-count races, infinite scroll, or mechanics that push people to stay because leaving feels impossible.

TouchGrass is also built with an open-web direction. Portability, federation, ATProto/Atmosphere, Solid, ActivityPods, and private sharing are active product directions, but not every part of that direction should be described as fully shipped. Some pieces are available, some are partial, some are experimental, and some are planned. For the current state, use the feature status page rather than guessing.

Limits and important caveats

A better profile design does not magically remove all social pressure. People can still compare themselves. A public profile can still be seen publicly. Any shared post can be screenshotted, copied, quoted, misunderstood, or misused by a recipient.

TouchGrass can give you clearer audience controls, fewer engagement traps, and better defaults. It cannot promise that private posts are private from screenshots, remote-server behavior, recipient misuse, or every possible future integration.

It is also important not to treat “open” as a synonym for “public.” TouchGrass uses open-web ideas to support choice, portability, and exits. That is separate from whether a specific post is public, friends-only, or limited to a circle.

The honest claim is simple: TouchGrass is building social software where your profile can be a useful place, not an attention scoreboard. The exact feature state depends on the current product status.

FAQ
Is TouchGrass anti-social media?

No. TouchGrass is not anti-social media. It is pro-social software. The aim is to keep the useful parts of social media — friends, posts, photos, recommendations, messages, comments, and profiles — without building the product around addictive feeds or platform lock-in.

Can my TouchGrass profile be public?

Yes, public sharing is part of TouchGrass. But public is not the only mode. TouchGrass is designed around public, friends, and circles visibility, so different posts can have different audiences.

Does TouchGrass hide follower counts and likes?

TouchGrass avoids making public like counts and engagement races the center of the product. The purpose is to reduce scoreboard behavior, not to remove every possible social signal.

Is my profile portable?

Portability is a core direction for TouchGrass, alongside federation and open-web work. Some parts may be shipped, partial, experimental, or planned. Check the feature status page for the current state before describing any protocol or portability feature as complete.

Does open-web support mean everything I share is public?

No. Open-web support is about choice, interoperability, portability, and exits. Visibility is a separate question. A post can be public, friends-only, or limited to circles depending on the product’s current controls and feature status.

See what you can do: /what-you-can-do

Feature status: /status/features