Lemmy Babies of the Rexodus - it's been 9 months, how has Lemmy changed you?

I comment now.

I’ve already moved on. Couldn’t care less about Reddit any more.

Before the APIcalypse, I was already playing with the thought of quitting Reddit. Spez just sped up that process.

I'm a full-time Linux user now.

1. I haven't gone back to Reddit since the rapture. The only time I use it is for Google results.
2. I use Lemmy A LOT less than Reddit. This is a good thing imo.
3. Since it's a smaller community I find that my posts and comments get a lot more traction.
4. I miss the smaller niche subs. Yes I know that I should contribute and make it a thing on Lemmy. No I won't because I'm mostly a lurker and would rather just close the app than do any work.
5. I like how the platform is full of socialist/communist but it can become a bit of an echo chamber.

Overall I am happy with the change. Fuck Spez.

I've noticed two things.

1. I am a lot more active. On Reddit I was mostly just a lurker. On Lemmy I want to comment and post.
2. Following on from 1. It feels more like a community here, on Reddit after a post had a certain number of comments/upvotes, I knew that mine would never be seen. I don't have that feeling on Lemmy.

I want to like this place.

People seem too aggressive here though.

And apparently everyone's hobby is using Linux and neurodiverging.

Lost a lot of my hobby subs and spend more time posting political crap now.

I dunno - at first it was promising, but today I was actually thinking of leaving Lemmy and trying to find a larger site.

I'm not sure if the entire Internet has somehow become addicted to groupthink or if this is just a symptom of Lemmy's smaller size and a selection bias, but it's been getting worse and worse over the past nine months and it's definitely turning me off to the community here.

What I loved about Reddit was that on any given story you saw a number of well informed opinions debating the nuances of those opinions. You'd learn so much more by engaging with the comments than just reading the article itself.

But here it seems more and more to be turning into a confirmation bias machine, where discourse and nuance takes a back seat to conformity to locally populist narratives. I can't tell you the number of times I've been downvoted for linking to multiple recent research papers (from places like Harvard and MIT) because the implication of those papers was contrary to popularly held beliefs here.

While I've had a few good interactions, it's become less and less of a signal to noise ratio on those interactions.

It's possible this is a larger trend, but I haven't noticed it to nearly the same degree on other less generalized forums I spend my time, so I suspect it's just a Lemmy thing.

A shame, as I think the tech is outstanding. But as is often the case, good tech is only part of a product, and in the case of social media it's the community too, and I've been growing increasingly disappointed in Lemmy's community who likes to pat themselves on the back for a welcoming spirit with the apparent unmentioned footnote in small print that it's a welcoming spirit that only extends to people regurgitating their own opinions back to them.

I kinda feel like I have more of a persona here? Lemmy is a smaller community than Reddit and I recognize people more than I used to. Read: I ever look at usernames. I've bothered with an avatar, for instance.

Something I still miss is the "brain trust" that was Reddit. You could ask "experimental exo-ornithologists of Reddit" and get at least ten of them. Reddit had a culture of tracking down mysteries, I don't think we have anything like The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet or Celebrity Number Six. I miss stuff like that.

There are a lot of Linux talks, but I can't stand all the people who keep saying all this place talks about is Linux. They are the ones who are everywhere here.

By the way, I came back to reddit briefly for a very specific community and ever since the stock sale started getting this:

whoa there, pardner!

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It could just be my VPN since I also see this on my tablet/phone but I gave reddit another chance and they didn't want it.>

I want to actively build community and engage with people here; to make this place home. That's how it changed me. I'm not a lurker or passive. It has made positive improvements to my reading and cooking, along with bending my language more positively. I've also further grown in my appreciation of diversity.

I'd scroll for hours on reddit. And while I'd love to see more content here, I'm glad that I don't spend so much time on mobile as I used to. And when there is more content, I hope I'm already trained to stop if I'd start to be exessive.

Also, got educated on FOSS and privacy, ditched most of google products. Wins all around

• switched to a split ergonomic mechanical keyboard
• working on a fork of Lemmy geared toward inventory called “Lemventory”
• moderating multiple Lemmy communities that are basically ghost towns (and I don’t care)
• got rid of my Instagram (and all centralized forms of social media except YouTube) and replaced it with Pixelfed and others
• letting my NixOS flag fly much more regularly now
• hexbear defederation only created a Streisand Effect and piqued my curiosity about Marxism. I’m now much better educated about it and have come to conclude that lemmy.world is basically filled with smug, tech-bro, hive-mind, blue maga, chuds that support censorship of simple ideas and subscribe to blind, disingenuous American exceptionalism that wouldn’t even stand up to the most generous critical analysis.

I browse Lemmy occasionally and it’s nice having real engagement on my comments and posts. But, many of my favorite hobbies have zero traction here. The board game communities are basically Ghost towns, and god forbid if I mention on here that I own an AVP and enjoy it. Much less expecting a whole community about it. So mainly Lemmy is just memes and bullshit scrolling. That and the absurd confirmation bias here, as well as the outright violence towards other political parties is nuts. I regularly see highly upvoted comments about “let’s just kill them, etc”. It’s fucking insane. Every time I mention this there’s a string of comments saying “they deserve to die” etc

i feel a little more comfortable commenting here.

being a smaller community, i feel like i'm actually contributing when i post something, instead of just adding to a sea of noise

it also helps that i've come up with this new "persona". i'm able to be more of the real me than i can with my main account.

it's like half way between anonimity and publicity. this account has very little connection to my meatspace existance, so i feel safe to say anything. but at the same time i'm not gonna act like some 4chan user. halfway_neko's a good girl lol

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, Lemmy seems to be finding its groove, and I genuinely feel like I'm part of a growing community. But there's definitely something missing, and it's difficult to put into words.

On Reddit, I tended to frequent specific subs, and rarely doomscrolled the front page. But that's all I find myself doing on Lemmy. Most of my feed is either politics or memes, and nuanced discussion seems rare. New communities apparently have a hard time getting off the ground, and I think it's mostly because decentralization makes discovery a hastle.

Reddit's whole purpose is to aggregate content from other websites, whilst providing a central access point. This is antithetical to the very concept of the Fediverse, which is all about decentralization. I find myself wishing for an easy way to aggregate Fediverse content, so that I could access Lemmy, Beehaw, Kbin, etc. all in one place, regardless of whether they're federated. Really, all the drama surrounding instances federating/defederating is obnoxious as an end user.

The apps are certainly better, though, and in general I'm enjoying myself.

I'm less stimulated, but also less angry.

I don't miss reddit at all.

It’s nice to rarely deal with trolls. I say rarely, as I’ve seen a few users recently argue, just to be assholes.

Ironically, both appear to be very heavy Lemmy posters, and one seems to be downvoting me, still.

That said, I’ve actually met users I run into semi regularly in others posts, which is a nice change.

I've written this before but I am comfortable here, it reminds me of the text chat groups in Usenet, the first 'social medium' I was part of. Not mainstream but enough people.

I keep a Lemmy-World cocktails community and in this nine months have had to moderate exactly one post and read exactly one report. Users grow in number, slowly, every day. It is So Nice here. Could there be more engagement? Sure. But high quality overall, a lot of what is missing is the crap.

I stopped using reddit, I'm on my phone a lot less. It makes me less angry and more present, and I really like that. I also comment more, as many of you have said here.

I really miss Ask Historians. It'd send me down some lovely rabbit holes, get me reading books about niche topics I never knew I wanted to learn more about.

It's great!

The single biggest problem i see is the lack of network effect.

We need more people to use Lemmy and create and participate in communities. I know part of that is actually using and participating ourselves. so I will try to be better about seeking out active communities already here and patronizing them regularly :)

I CAN ACTUALLY POST ON c/asklemmy NOW!!

Back when I was like 13 and on reddit, I posted what I thought was a good open question to askreddit, and it immediately got deleted with no stated reason. Now, I can ask any interesting question I have, and receive tons of interesting responses from people!

I still use Reddit, maybe more in recent times actually. I don't like the platform and the app is a massive pile of wank, but there's more "normal" people there who don't spend every waking moment hating America or going on about Linux. I still use Lemmy nearly every day but it's more morbid curiosity now.

I use it less, which is better for my mental health. I still find there are similarly depressing posts and attitudes here. People are nicer, but the breadth of topics is far more limited. I won't go back to reddit, but lemmy definitely doesn't hold a candle to the number of communities they have. I've been using Tumblr as well and quite enjoying that.

I deleted my Reddit account and have not gone back. That said, I’m not particularly fond of Lemmy either. I’ve found… maybe? two communities here of interest that may have migrated from Reddit and they aren’t even active; and even as a socialist, the politics are tiresome and pervasive.

Aside from fascists getting the smacking around that they deserve, the one thing that’s nice is that there are far fewer cringey “yay lemmy is the best isn’t it guys” circlejerk posts now than there were back then. I don’t spend nearly as much time on here as I did on Reddit, so that’s a plus.

i'm better at rust now

It's refreshing to not have so many Trumpers. They're still around but not as prevalent. Overall this is just so much friendlier.

I'm still a bit confused about the instances and the political alignment of people on certain instances. I'm on Lemmy.ml but apparently people can be quite toxic on that instance.

Having to subscribe to the same subject on different instances feels a bit weird. I always wonder what I'm missing out on.

It also seems like we're missing some critical mass but I'm over Reddit, that's the bottom line.

9 month already ?

Well, I was already active on mastodon, and had a pixelfed account (but not active there) for years. So the reddit fiasco was the right time to move.

Moving to lemmy wasn't such of a big change as I was familiar with the federation, and the fediverse in general, was already considering it for a while.

I have a lot less to say, and I'm more careful about what I do say.

I believe it's mostly because of the smaller community. It's easier to be an ass at a soccer game with 15,000 strangers than at your great-aunt's birthday. (Even if your third cousin is a neo-nazi.)

Jesus. I've left 1,124 comments already.

My wife's right; I am that guy.

Well, with the smaller communities, I'm trying to comment more. However, I still mostly lurk because I usually don't have anything to add to a convo.

Made me have a healthier relationship with social media, my smartphone usage, and overall thinking. I almost exclusively used RiF and curated it enough that I could readily get lost in it for hours in threads and/or following drama.

I knew what I liked about reddit was the mods, the 3rd party apps, and the communities, and the company behind the website was the least appealing ineffectual part of the experience. They were slow in every sense of the word and consistently made out-of-touch decisions.

Lemmy was a great transition point for me. At first I was trying to treat it as a clone. Instead, I found a place (and the fediverse in general) where there wasn't a mass amount of resources spent to keeping me engaged - it's just content of the day, no strings attached.

I found a space that was indifferent to the amount of time I spent on it, passionate communities that were more responsive and literate, and just felt more respected as a person.

I've moved on, I only use reddit when I want to find already existing stuff.

I miss the niche subs, but I comment more here on threads I normally wouldn't bother with because I know I'd get buried. Interactions here are slower, better thought out and generally more positive. I have actually witnessed someone back down from a position when presented with evidence a couple times and that was a breath of fresh air.

I'm mad much more often and I don't like it.

Lemmy is hyper Reddit without all the bloat. And not the good aspects of Reddit either

I'm glad that Reddit gave me the push I needed to finally join the fediverse. I absolutely love the technology to the point I don't care so much about the content.

I wish there were more people here, but the slower pace of posts has helped me spend less time on my phone. It's not quite as good as reddit was for me when reddit was good. But Lemmy is easily good enough for my needs and is better than any alternative including the what is left of reddit.

I'm delighted by Lemmy. I post all the time and probably am a bit annoying but I'm really having fun.

I wouldn't say it was Lemmy that has changed but it's been an integral part to a change in my lifestyle. I don't use Reddit anymore, I switched from Windows to Linux, Degoogled my phone, I take way more consideration into my privacy. All social media account but Lemmy are gone now. Cancelled my Amazon prime and all video services. I have blocked ads from everything in my life to the point that when I see one, it stands out like a sore thumb. I am far more aware of how companies manipulate customers in order to sell product.

Some of the more niche communities I had on reddit don't exist on Lemmy yet, and likely won't for the foreseeable future. DPS chasing for a small MMO seems like a thing that could exist here, but for now the majority of the public would just use Reddit or whatever instead.

The custom mtg card community I joined is pretty much just dead. I did a card a day for a while in there, but then I ran out of cards is already made and now it's just sitting again.

Other than that, the general purpose of it is doing exactly what Reddit did for me, so...

Comment less, but I've enjoyed it much more. There's so much shit slinging in reddit. Every comment thread eventually devolves into one guy with an out of pocket comment or hot take, or miscommunication even, and then everyone dunking on the guy. So much negativity.

Folks are generally nice here.

Less niche content from the subs that I couldn’t find an equivalent for here. Also less random bullshit from all the reposted recycled memes that were often somehow just perpetually in my face. It would be nice if there were more people here on Lemmy commenting to link over to relevant related communities (sublemmys??) to a post that they think others would like. Sometimes that’s a good way to find more subs. Don’t really see that happening round these parts. TL;DR Wasting less time on interwebs

For the better :)
I haven't been active in online communities for over ten years. It's been fun to contribute with comments and posts and I feel like I'm finding my voice again.

I'm on my phone less, commenting more, avoiding more ads, and much happier with the content/comments on Lemmy. Reddit chains sometimes felt a little brain-rotty.

I bought a mobile game for the first time in my life 😐

I check FB more often cause I run out of posts on lemmy faster 😐

Started playing chess again cause I have little else to entertain myself with on my phone 🤓

I wish there was more porn

Never posted pictures of my naked body online before Lemmy

I've been a lurker on Reddit for forever (about 15 years) and then the APIcalypse happened and my first and unique post on Reddit was asking for a Tildes invite. I didn't enjoy Tildes, so now I'm here. We're so much less that I feel I can't lurk here too, so now I regularly comment here.

I learned what a tankie is, which is fun.

I've been commenting a bit, whereas on reddit I would only post a comment a few times a year when I could be bothered dealing with the likely burst of negativity that would come as a response to it.

Kind of feels a bit more like Web 1.9 or so from about 2003 which I think was about the sweet spot for minimal rage bait and crazy and still a decent bit of user interaction and scale.

It would be about perfect if you could chop out a few of the folks trying to shoehorn in politics to every little thing.