So writing a mini-guide to Pillowfort wasn't necessarily on my radar today, but here I am doing it anyway lol
Pillowfort can be loosely described as if Livejournal and Tumblr had a baby. It features privacy controls, communities, a reverse chronological dashboard that displays posts from the people and communities you follow, and allows for NSFW content. Terms of Service Here if you want to take a look at them (they include the official content policy as well), and Staff's Pillowfort 101 post if you want a better overview of features. You can also login as a Demo User if you want to poke around the site before signing up.
Sign-up is via a rolling waitlist, invitation, or buying a $5 registration key. I hear the waitlist isn't very long at all, but I can generate some invites if people are interested. The site is also completely user-funded via premium subscriptions and donations- there's an entire Pillowfundraising community dedicated to encouraging people to donate by offering small commissions in exchange for proof of donation.
Additionally, Pillowfort now has a PWA app! Mobile Firefox currently does not support PWA apps without using extensions, so if you're a iphone user like me, your mobile option is the mobile site, which is pretty decent tbh.
I mostly use Pillowfort like I do tumblr except with more original posts and more frequent ghosting because I'm predisposed to lurking (You can find me here btw).
Much like Tumblr has Xkit, Pillowfort has Tassel. Out of the two, I'd say Xkit is more necessary to site quality of life, but Tassel does offer some additional QOL and customizable options that Pillowfort does not natively come with
Cool! But what about those crickets you may have heard about? How can you actually find people on Pillowfort?
Firstly, there's an IntroduceYourself community dedicated to helping users find other users to follow. Secondly, that's where communities come in handy. A selection of active communities that may interest my followers are as follows:
(Sidenote: There is also Katekyo Hitman Reborn community. I mod it apparently.)
Additionally, a few users do community showcases to help people find communities. Examples here, here, here, and here
Finally, there are more than a few user-made Pillowfort Tips posts that make the rounds semi-regularly, like this one by DoktorHobo
