Everything in your main "Home" timeline on Mastodon is there for one of these reasons:

-An account you follow posted it
-An account you follow boosted it
-The post contains a hashtag you follow
-An account you follow replied to an account you also follow
-An account you follow replied to itself

Nothiing else gets in your main feed, it's just these things.

If hashtags are at the end of a post they are displayed in a smaller font below the post, which some people miss.

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If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://social.growyourown.services/users/FediTips/statuses/115566976720290279 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)