Unpopular Opinion

I'm starting to conclude that social-media is addictive precisely because the people we interact with trigger us and piss us off.

If I want a rational, polite, and balanced discussion and conversation, I use AI. It's not perfect, but it's clearly a superior communication compared to people on any social media platform.

So why am I here? Complex emotional reasons that make unpleasant interactions compelling (and addictive) and a deep-seated desire to have my worst views about humanity confirmed.

I've used this platform for 24 hours and I'm already thoroughly pissed-off by its users and the abusive way they communicate: Lemmy delivers.

Social media use is masochistic.

The Lemmy userbase is human, which is more than I can say of Reddit's.

I don't know why one would expect Lemmy to be different when it's entire userbase consists of ex-redditors.

I don't think there's much difference between platforms. Everyone is performing to either get pats on the back or to stirr up something. The moment everyone around you seems nice is when you've entered the echo chamber.

I accidentally posted a link to some right wing borderline racist article which sounded sensible on first skim reading it. Commentators noted this. I apologized for not reading it carefully or noticing the other associated articles and the other Lemmy users were understanding. Just my experience but I think a nicer atmosphere prevails.

I dont know. Not that Lemmy users are necessarily great all the time, but Reddit has decayed to the point that its barely better than a generic Facebook feed.

Reddit has a perverse incentive to keep the user base frothing for engagement

There is no such incentive on Lemmy. We are toxic because we choose to be. All natural, free range, grassroots haters

I think you're missing the point.

People are people everywhere you go. Nowhere is free of people unless you want to be by yourself.

Lemmy and the Fediverse is not about only being around people that are exactly perfect for you to associate with.

It's about not giving your thoughts, your mental energy, and your time to build an empire for someone else to profit off of.

the point is lemmy is ours, not some psycho billionaire's.

It depends on the server. But the nice thing is, you can pack up, walk away and move to another instance.

You are not tied to your first choice. And that is better than reddit. Go where you want to be.

ffs, Lemmy's strength is in it's decentralised non corpo design, not that we users are a better quality of human. It went from Usenet, to the centralised shitiness of Reddit back to a decentralised system in Lemmy/Piefed more akin to Usenet

but, I'd also argue just by being here you're a better person.

So far I'm having a lovely experience

It's much calmer

Idk I kinda like it here. Everybody uses linux in this place.

I'm doing my part!

PSA: you can block users. Don't be afraid to do it. There's nothing you can say that will convince flat earthers or similar stupid people.

Haven’t been there meaningfully in years, but when I was there regularly if I logged in and saw I had a bunch of new comments I’d have a mini panic attack. Did I say something clever or something stupid and get eviscerated?

I rarely get the number of comments here that I got there, but when I do get them they’re almost never toxic like the ones I got at reddit were, even when they are critical or disagreeing.

…I do still get a mini panic attack when I see I have a bunch of unread comments though. It’s less intense though as Lemmy seems to be slowly curing me of that reaction.

The difference is that you can curate the people you associate with. Find an instance whose values represent your own, or run your own, and you can avoid the people who you find the worst. You can't do this in reddit as anyone can join and you have no chance to prevent yourself from interacting with chuds.

I disagree, Karl. Zionists are out of effing control on reddit today, and they pollute threads with denials of whats clearly shown in the news, or else make wild claims without evidence.

You are of course, wle come to your opinion, but what you are saying makes no sense to me.

Not true for me.

I made a joke, and someone got upset. I explained that I didn’t mean it seriously and apologized. Then they told me they were in a bad mood and apologized for their reaction.

I'm agreeing more with this every day. Just yesterday some guy made fun of a genuine and reasonable concern I had then made of me again sandwiching in an "apology", and when I told them it still seemed they were making light of it, they flipped the fuck out and told me I would die alone among other completely unnecessary and inappropriate insults.

I mean, I get overreacting sometimes, but it kinda feels like some days half the people you interact with are either actively shit humans or are having the worst day of their lives. I wish you could feel at least safe enough to challenge a viewpoint without some dickhead coming for your jugular. It's pretty pathetic and I've gone through several rounds of wondering if I want to be here or not. I've definitely had to block a lot of people in order to stay.

I have been called a Nazi and zionist for literally no reason. Once I responded to a comment from someone saying Nazis aren't human to say "I hate the things they believe and do, and I think they should be punished harshly for their crimes, but they are still indeed human". You would've thought I said "Nazis just have an opinion and do nothing wrong," which of course I was not even slightly hinting at or thinking. I was told I was a Nazi sympathizer who should kill himself. Then the zionist accusations will come at the drop of a hat. I literally think Israel is evil yet if I say something as innocuous as "trump is hurting Gaza even more than any Democrat" that makes me a "sHiTlIb zIoNiSt". I'm probably in the left-most 15% in the US. And yeah I know that's not saying much globally but how about we understand that people live in a context and you cannot scream them into being on the exact same page as your own personal politics? People can be so self righteous it's painful to think about. It's really taxing to my mental health when I think "this space where I relate to people more than anywhere else on the Internet is also full of people who will wish death or suffering on me if I mention one thing they don't like."

I don't use Lemmy much anymore nowadays because of this. While it's important an alternative to Reddit exists, so I try to support it, it ironically feels more like a hivemind than Reddit does (ironic because you'd expect the opposite for federated services). I think it's because switching to Lemmy from Reddit requires either idealism or a Reddit ban, both of which disproportionately attract people who feel good when they verbally attack internet strangers for disagreeing with them on 1% of the implicitly agreed upon joint viewpoints. It also strangely reminds me of the feeling I got being part of an old gaming community that was slowly dying out, where eventually only the unpleasant ones who defined their identity based on it were left.

I'm always happy to see there are also people here who dislike this attitude, though, or even to see neutral posts. There is still hope!

It's kinda like the founding of Australia - we get a ton of exiles who were wrongfully prosecuted by the Reddit government, but we also get a fair share of degenerates and murderers who also got banned and ended up here. There's even a native Lemmy group who was here before Reddit shed users and they really don't appreciate it to say the least.

There is way more "I'm 14 and very edgy and very badass" vibe here.

Lemmy is hostile to nazis. Reddit coddles them.

I’d rather hang with these shitty people over here than those shitty people over there.

The userbase is largely overlapping as most Lemmy users are current or former Reddit users. The difference is largely in the communities and moderation, not users...

Some people over here can’t understand that sensitive questions can be asked without bad intent.

This just screams mott and bailey fallacy. It is very reminiscent, for example, of transphobes complaining that they get attacked for having the gall of claiming "sex is real". And that's basically what happened here. You said some upsetting shitty things in the thread about the two child policy, and now you're whining about people getting upset about it. Go touch some grass.

Hell is other people.

Most every community has some assholes, or at least people that rub each other the wrong way. There's a lot to be said for clicking off shitty responses and not picking up the hate.

Honestly I agree. In a way, lemmy has even more in the way of edgy teenage hot takes on certain issues.

People are people, wherever you go. People are flawed. There are many good reasons to leave reddit for lemmy.

The Lemmy user base id wager has a higher percentage of folks who are less socialized. Be that for a multitude of reasons.

Lemmy is filled with people who are too principled and too adamant about their stance to use Reddit because of the enshittification. If you put a bunch of highly opinionated and stubborn people in one place, you get this.

No, they’re not. The hivemind isn’t as bad. But there’s brigading of sorts, plenty of trolls, circlejerking, bad mods, and bad faith arguing.

I mean, that’s pretty much the internet in general, just reddit’s got much more of it by the numbers.

Lemmy is still social media that's full of anonymous posters with no consequences to their posts so of course discourse is going to be absolute shit with trolls and disingenuous people vying for imaginary points and wearing that negative points as a badge of honor.

That said, with a smaller user base, while there are still complete contrarian, disingenuous users, I do find that the discussion on average are at least better than reddit and the one key to better conversations and debates I found after moving from reddit is I'm much, much more judicious about using that block user button and block communities button.

It's just another bubble. Choose the bubble that fits you.

I'm sure it's already been said a few times, but with few exceptions Lemmy/mbin/etc. users ARE redditors, or recently former redditors who, for historical and practical reasons, are more likely to be interested in

• Open source software
• Alternative social web
• Privacy
• Left wing politics (especially early on)

While that applies to me to varying degrees, I must acknowledge that it means we're probably sometimes going to be difficult and slow to assume good faith. I try not to be that way, it's the only thing I can do. I think the left wing politics/parapolitics is better than the usual right wing variety that was common on other reddit alternatives, but that's my bias.

Not just users. Mods/admins too.