The first rule of Mastodon is "filter the term 'Mastodon'".

While you're at it, filter out mentions of any other social media you can think of. All of that metadiscourse is apparently important for people to get off their chests, buy it's numbing to read.

I'm fairly happy using Mastodon, but the lack of algorithms made it necessary to curate my feed very strictly. I turned off boosts/reposts in my app, too, and I now have a slow-moving, low-drama newsfeed that doesn't stress me out just opening it.