This little instance has been great, but Lemmy and the fediverse in general is really dragging on me.
Every. Single. Thread. has the word “capitalism” or “Trump” in it somewhere. I’m sick to death of it. Even though I agree with a lot of the sentiment, the erosion of the middle class, the concentration of wealth, the consolidation of media, the “you will own nothing and be happy” mentality permeating the consumer space. In many ways that’s why I left Reddit and joined Lemmy, but dang it that doesn’t mean I want to talk about absolutely nothing else.
And the only communities devoid of politics are also devoid of content. I do a lot of worldbuilding stuff, and I’ve tried to make !worldbuilding@lemmy.world more active, but sometimes I feel like I’m the only poster. Then I look at r/worldbuilding, and there’s a glut of really interesting posts showcasing people’s imagination and creativity, and nary a mention of Musk or Epstein in sight.
And then there’s the tech side of things. Hope you like Linux, cuz that’s all you’re going to see. And if you dare suggest that Linux may not be the right choice for your blind grandmother, you get eviscerated in the comments.
Granted, Reddit itself used to have a similar problem. It attracted a very specific type of user (neckbeards) and the experience wasn’t great if you weren’t one, but ironically the same popularization of Reddit that lead to its platform decay also solved this homogeneity problem. Similarly, Tankies and their ilk seem to flock to Lemmy, explaining the tone of the discourse.
Am I crazy? Anyone else feel the same? Did I knock over a hornet’s nest and this post is going to end up deleted?
You don’t have to commit to anything. I use both. The writing communities on here don’t really work for me that well and the general population of reddit (and their god-awful app) don’t work for me well there. I just kinda bounce around to wherever I’m most interested when I feel like it.
Personally, I think it’s good to have a variety of sources if you’re gonna do the social media thing anyway. Each of them have their own subculture that sucks in the extremes, but for a visit now and again they’re not terrible.
You’re right. I know I’m being hypocritical, joining a platform for ideological reasons, then complaining when everyone else talks about ideology. People who join the fediverse are self-selecting.
But I actually joined Lemmy before I quit Reddit. I made an account on here during the Reddit APIcolypse of 2023, but only deleted my Reddit account that fall after realizing I was addicted to it. In some ways I was expecting a slower drip of content here on Lemmy compared to Reddit, but didn’t expect the quality to be so dubious. I’ve been telling myself I should probably make another Reddit account. I’ve been having issues at work that could probably be solved with a quick post on a relevant subreddit, but I’ve stubbornly refused to go crawling back to the social media I swore I’d rid myself of.