Tangoverse

Author: Daniel de Kay

  • What is “the Tangoverse”?

    The global tango ecosystem, consisting of various tango scenes and their communities — and more — have greatly benefited of Facebook as a social platform to foster sharing of content (posts, pictures, videos), helping with discovery of opportunities (events, classes, shows, teachers, …) and generally contributed to “feeling part of the global tango community”.

    This started around 2010, and worked wonders in the years until maybe 2015. In 2025 Facebook doesn’t work like it used to work, especially when it comes to organic reach of content. It has become “pay to play”, and actively engineered its algorithm towards monetization and “engagement”.

    While we can game that algorithm and try to get our own content (like an event) out there — it often doesn’t work anymore, and more and more tango dancers feel that Facebook doesn’t provide the value for them anymore that it used to do.

    But is there no alternative?

    Yes, there is: Tangoverse — the online representation of the tango universe or the universe of tango — aims to re-create that:

    • Visibility of tango content — without need for algorithm
    • Discoverability
    • Sovereignty — we as the tango community own our own infrastructure and thus what is and what is not possible.
    • Decentralization — no dependence on any one source, on any single platform
    • Resilience.

    What is Tangoverse? It is much more an idea, and a narrative — because we don’t need our own platform: we just need to use what the open source world has already provided: an alternative.

    The alternative to “surveillance capitalistic platforms” can be found in the so-called “Fediverse”, and in building our own universe there, I call that “Tangoverse”.

    Elena Rossini (https://mastodon.social/@_elena) explains the Fediverse in the following 4 minute video:

    Over the next posts, I will share more about what the Tangoverse could look like, and more:

    • How can we get started as a community?
    • How can you get started as
      • a dancer
      • a teacher
      • an organizer

    Stay tuned.

  • The Tangoverse — only an idea?

    Since the early 2010s the global tango community has been growing on Facebook. At its peak you could find most tango dancers on the largest social networking site, as well as find events, join groups, and enjoy photo album and tagging your friends.

    In 2025 this is mostly still the case. But Facebook is no longer the same: its parent company has started to fully turn on the monetization machine: every third post in the feed is an ad, many of the other posts in the feed are from pages or groups that you don’t care about, and the holy algorithm that promised to show you what you care about, doesn’t do that any more.

    On top of all that we have many cases of Facebook abusing the private data stored in its databases, witnessed by the legal authorities who have fined Facebook for many hundred millions of dollars… and still they are milking the network of locked in users for ad revenue. Cory Doctorow calls this #enshittification.

    There is a certain unwillingness to play that game in many dancer’s heart — and while you don’t see it yet, the level of interaction is declining, as well as the willingness to participate in event groups and more. Yes, and while invasive, the tagging features of dancers in photos was very useful — and isn’t writing anymore. Maybe this was the driving force of tango networking on Facebook after all?

    Where does that leave us, as the global Tango network, and the various communities in the world of Tango?

    Facebook is not the only social networking platform on the planet, but for tango it has been that. Some regional communities, like Turkey, are more active on Instagram — with all its problems and lack of features like groups or events. others are talking about Bluesky, but that is just another Twitter, and that never resonated with the tango people, so why should it be any different now?

    Other people have been dissatisfied with the likes of platforms like Facebook for years… is that something we can go to? Is that even a place? Is it controlled by a benevolent corporation that won’t enshittify our communication media?

    Of course there is a place, and it is called the Internet. The World Wide Web by the people and for the people — it still exists, but of course it has lost a lot of its glamour and ease of finding it. There is a whole movement around the terms and , where anyone should be empowered to have a Web presence that suits them, and not some algorithm that only wants to maximize your engagement with ads.

    In addition to that, the consists of many social networking platforms that ask can talk to each other, and each has a different ways of interaction with the world. There is Mastodon, the free Twitter alternative, or Pixelfed, which Is centered around shared images, and Friendica, something more alike to Facebook of the good old days. Each of these software is free and open source, and anyone can create a need server for themselves and their family or friends, own their data, and connect to the rest of the Fediverse.

    So, and thank you for reading this far, the idea of the Tangoverse is simple: an interconnected web of tango related services, all available and findable for the greater Tango network and Tango communities. Not driven or owned by any one person, but as a product of cooperation and networking.

    The first social server that is open only for tango dancers is based on Friendica. Will you join us? https://friendica.tangoverse.org