this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
126 points (97.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

36157 readers
1819 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] viking@infosec.pub 2 points 3 hours ago

No, I never liked Twitter, so I can't even begin to bother about mastodon. Never heard of the other one.

I tried the Instagram clone for a few days (forgot the name), but it was so empty I left it again.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 2 hours ago

I tried Element for Matrix, but I prefer forums to chatrooms.

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

No. One social media is enough. Lemmy meets all my needs.

[–] magitian@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

Perhaps it's because I haven't subscribed to a lot of communities here (Lemmy), but I find Mastodon (and Sharkey by extension due to their federation with Mastodon instances) more active than Lemmy.

I've got an account in programming.dev (Lemmy), fosstodon.org (Mastodon) and fedia.social (IceShrimp ≈ Sharkey, loosely). I've also got a very inactive Reddit account.

[–] kopasu22@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

I was interested in PieFed and plan to give it a try at some point, but still have only used Lemmy. The other formats just aren't as interesting to me. I don't care about specific people, so Mastodon isn't my bag. I care more about the conversations with friendly internet strangers. I don't even have profile pictures enabled on Lemmy, I'd prefer everyone to just dissolve into a sea of unrecognition.

[–] cerafredo@reddthat.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Haha... get this... I made an account, and then got banned for spam. Without a single post ever being written by me! Stupid website full of wannabe tyrants.

I just joined Reddthat. Never looking back. (Unless this place goes to pot too. Hope not.)

[–] Iunnrais@lemmy.world 10 points 7 hours ago

The use case of Reddit/lemmy is entirely different from Twitter/x/mastodon. In Reddit/lemmy, there’s a topic of interest, and people chime in. In Twitter/etc, there’s people of interest, and they discuss topics.

I don’t care who is talking, I just want to talk about stuff. So the twitter style has zero interest for me.

[–] MissJinx@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I don't care about the social media as much as I care about keeping the app I already know how to use lol. I used boost for reddit for years, then I changed to boost for lemmy.

[–] s3rvant@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago

I've tried a handful with Mastodon being my favorite and Lemmy a close second.

Never heard of Sharkey.

[–] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 6 points 9 hours ago

No. Twitter always sucked, even before Musk. Instagram was always stupid, even before Zuck. Facebook was a stupid copy of MySpace, which was stupid to begin with. Reddit was a good format, though made worse repeatedly by being run by Reddit. Hence, Lemmy.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 hours ago

I was in mastodon first for several months before moving to lemme. some good interesting posts and content but it was harder to filter out advertising and self promotion and I just prefer following topics and communities instead of people. Monsterdon is worth experiencing if you haven't though, Monday 2am gmt cheesy horror movies watch party just having fun and cracking jokes.

[–] xz25@opensocial.at 2 points 16 hours ago

@url Friendica is where it's at!

[–] ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’m more of a forum user than a microblogger, and google says sharkey is a kids haircut place

[–] tangonov@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think they meant Misskey

[–] AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Sharkey is a misskey fork

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 5 points 17 hours ago

I thought that was a water gym trainer in Pokemon.

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago

I started with mastodon but i can never get into that kind of social media. Everyone was super nice and i tried for a bit but it felt now like looking into people's lives rather than whatever this is. I prefer this.

[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 52 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Mastodon, not my cup of tea (to be fair, neither was Twitter). I just don't find micro-blogging to be very engaging and my mind categorizes it as "brain rot".

Sharkey? Haven't heard of that one until I just googled it, but one look at their mascot and....no. Just... no.

Have been looking at joining Piefed instance, though.

[–] d00phy@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Same here. I don’t mind microblogging, but I find it hard to find good content to follow on Mastodon. Also not a fan of my feed being filled with replies. Not having the thread right there for context is distracting and annoying.

No idea what sharkey is. Don’t really care to find out.

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sharkey is mastodon but with way more features.

[–] simon574@feddit.org 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

idk, Mastodon has official apps for iOS and I think also more users

[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 hours ago

Aria is a client for Sharkey. Users doesn't really matter since they interoperate. (Also: it supports the mastodon API.)

the thing you have to remember is that the internet is built off the backs of furries and trans women.

that's not to say that all tech workers are one of those two, but a lot of those two work in tech, specifically open source.

Don't believe me? look up programer/Unix socks.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] early_riser@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

The concept of twitter was never appealing to me, so I naturally won't like platforms that ape it. I joined Reddit at the time because the Minecraft sub seemed like it was getting more attention from Mojang vs the forums. I stayed because the entire IT industry is on Reddit. I left because of the API nonsense in 2023.

Honestly the two big problems I see with the fediverse are the political stridency of the userbase and the friction of picking an instance when you don't know what that even means. The first problem, as I've said elsewhere, is somewhat a result of fedi users self selecting (again I include myself in here) and might resolve on its own if mainstream platforms enshittify to the point that even the normies can't take it anymore and we figure out a way to onboard people better. These problems are probably why I don't try other fedi platforms.

But I'm rambling again. I haven't slept well in days.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 31 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

No, because they were alternates to social media whose formats I had no interest in before they went to shit as they all seemed to be accounts yelling into the cloud, not somewhere that conversations could happen.

So just lemmy and piefed so far.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Twitter wasn't a thing for me way before the Nazis bought it, so I don't know why a replacement for it would be the thing for me now. I don't know what that other thing is.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The other use for Twitter was for porn,

[–] winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 16 hours ago

Brother I been watching porn since before twitter on way better websites

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago

I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of peer tube.

I also had mastadon for a non profit I supported and it seems like a good community with good content and lots of it.

At the same time, I've litterally never understood that particular way of both creating and interacting with content (I never understood Twitter, still don't get it).

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not really, I always strongly disliked Twitter and the idea of something that's basically like Twitter never appealed to me. Might try that stuff eventually though.

[–] pugnaciousfarter@literature.cafe 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I am on bluesky, and I have never understood why people tweet every 10 minutes about anything and everything they ponder or find.

I get doing it every day perhaps, even thrice a day but every 10 minutes?

No judgement, just curious why are people so keen on revealing aspects of their life so openly.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 20 hours ago

It's the addiction, like with reddit.

[–] callyral@pawb.social 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, I tried Mastodon prior to Lemmy, iirc. When I post my art I post it from Mastodon because it's easy to crosspost it to Lemmy.

[–] public_image_ltd@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

tried mastodon did not understand how it works lemmy felt familiar so I stayed

[–] TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I tried mastodon but it's not really the sort of thing I use even when there are accounts for me to follow. Also the way it links with Lemmy feels weird, you can always tell when someone replies to a post from mastodon because the formats don't link very well.

[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Also the way it links with Lemmy feels weird

And the culture is just different. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I'll try. It's like...imagine the threadiverse portion of the fediverse as a library or a meeting room where people are having a quiet discussion. Mastodon accounts feel like they're barging in all loud and boorish like "HEYYYYY! LOOK AT ME!!! HASHTAG HASHTAG HASHTAG"

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think there is a real divide on the internet between those who prefer longer format conversations around posting reposts, and just, micro logged, idk, I don't want to be derogatory, but like, micro content?

I just throw it up as "I never got twitter", but it does precisely 0 for me.

[–] AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Idk, on lemmy back-and-forth conversations are usually just a few replies at most, not particularly long format, unless you count length by all of the separate comments/branches

Unlike discord for example

[–] pmk@piefed.ca 6 points 1 day ago

I use both and I agree. I have a different mindset on mastodon, there I care more about who is saying something than what they say. I have a small group of people I care about. On lemmy/piefed I care about what someone says but not who they are. It's all about the topic.

load more comments (2 replies)

No.
I specifically wanted a Reddit-like thing.

Mastodon is more a Twitter-replacement, isn't it?

And never heard of Sharkey before...

[–] PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I've tried Mastrodon and PeerTube, but bounced off both due to a lack of quality content. On Mastrodon, the only person I found worth following was Technology Connections, and on PeerTube, I didn't find any of the more scripted and/or well-editted videos that I normally enjoy.

I haven't tried PieFed yet, but might consider switching at some point given Lemmy's idology, and increasingly present shortcomings.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 1 points 1 day ago

This was me a month ago.

[–] Pamasich@kbin.earth 4 points 1 day ago

I never used websites like Twitter and Facebook either. Sure I have looked into stuff like Mastodon, Friendica, Misskey, etc. But you're never going to get me to actually use them, they're not the kind of social media I'm interested in.

When it comes to the threadiverse, I actually use Mbin, not Lemmy. I did try both Lemmy and Piefed, but Mbin fits my tastes as an Old Reddit user best out of the three.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

I use Lemmy and Mastadon daily. Two different things. Love them both.

[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago
load more comments
view more: next ›