Where are all the Positive, Wholesome Communities gone, and where are all the hugs, where is my wholesome memes, to help me fight, the politics
Hey, I've been looking at what I'm subscribed to on Lemmy and it really grim, and not really what I want from a social media. I'm into tech, but the tech subs talk about evil things companies do, a lot of linux meme and programmer humor, and it's all cool and all, piracy talking about how it's bad what certain company do. And when you go in global it's "Amercan Politics" "Elon Musk Bad" "Stealing data", "our world ending"
Recently my brother and I where bored, and I went to show him we moved to lemmy, and said we had memes and all the stuff here. And looking at top memes, it was "complaining about big tech", and "complaining on windows".
And, I miss a bit all I had on Reddit not going to lie.
So is there any active community with some positive things anywhere you'd recommend. I just feel like I'm in a bad angry environment.
Edit: Wow! If you come after, I'd truly, truly invite you to look around in the comments, people here truly changed the way I see Lemmy, its way different now! Way better!
I'm guessing it has to do with our early-adopter status still. Gotta remember, we're still the scrappy little underdog that only the weirdos know about. We are all weirdos, you, me, everyone else. Being here is sufficient to make that true. Over time that'll change, but for now we're just too unknown still.
So, what you have here is a lot of idealists that disapprove of reddit, a lot of people that got banned from reddit and can't go back, and a lot of tech bros and excited young people in general.
You can probably see how these different demographics can kinda come together to create what we see around us here, while a lot of the more "normie" content is still mostly back where we came from. (for us reddit refugees anyway)
That said, you can find a small handful of support group communities for things like alcoholics, and the food and cat subs tend to be fairly active and not so much of a constant clickbait downer. The various AskWhatever subs aren't bad either, though activity is still very light.
We're still in the very early stages though, a phase that'll probably last another year or two. Give us time, we don't even have our software at full functionality yet.
I really agree. I want to like Lemmy, I really do, but every post is doom filled negativity. It's like a big negativity circlejerk where people are only ever posting about stuff they hate, like Elon and Twitter/X and Chrome and capitalism. There is very little content that actually celebrates something. Perhaps this is the issue with social media in general, as that has been the vibe I've gotten from Twitter and why I've never really been much of a user of it. There is definitely a similar thing on Reddit but Reddit is large enough that you can find pockets (usually smaller niche communities) that are more filled with positivity. But maybe Lemmy doesn't have enough of a critical mass to foster those sorts of communities yet.
Being niche worked against it's favor. For example:
Lemmy.ml used to ban "anti-tankie" people while Lemmy.world openly mocks them. The mods on Lemmy seem much more open to disrespect than your average Reddit mods.
As a 40 something, I tend to find memes tedious, boring, and unoriginal. Like, to the extent that I actively block every meme community that pops up on my feed.
Except Risa. It's my favorite community on Lemmy and makes me laugh multiple times per day.
Lemmy memes are pretty bad on average, to be honest. Like... tons of "le outdated le cringe" from the least funny parts of Reddit about 10 years ago, actually about as funny as rage comics (which I think I've seen posted here, actually)
I've peaked into it, sadly I didn't get on the Trek community when I was young. My mom bought a huge amount of DVDs of them but told us it was not for me as I was too young to watch with her. I've only seen the movies
I only got into trek within the past year. I just finished TNG last week and have started on DS9. I totally didn't expect it to suck me in the way it did. TNG is fantastic
You gotta browse through the list of communities and go more niche lol. For example, I'm subscribed to stuff like aquariums and plantscaping, travel, NFL, horror movies, awwducational, 2000snostalgia, food, ramen, true crime. Of course local communities, my state and local area for example. I like birds, so birding, why not? I'm watching kaiju movies now, so I subscribed to a kaiju community. Specific games I like. Specific music genres I like, shoegaze for example, but alternativenation's an easy start. Explain like I'm five (ELI5) and Today I Learned (TIL) are popular and not full of downer stuff. I'm subscribed to stuff even if there are no\few subscribers, because one day, there will be more.
The only thing that sucks is that I'm also subscribed to tech and news, and being that those communities are the most popular, they're always flooding the top of my feed. Sorting by "hot" helps.
I'm subscribed to frugal, archaeology, science fiction, stuff like that. The communities are still growing so it's still a dice roll which will grow or die, but I try to help out by finding or making content.
The upside is that your voice doesn't automatically get lost now.
But Reddit dismembered a lot of old niche forums by stealing their members tho so it'll take a while to regain a similar amount of old niche knowledge.
I'm not well versed in Lemmy so this might be totally incorrect but I think if you share a link, instead of the c/ you put "!" at the front so people of different instances can open them community on their own instance.
I'm basically just regurgitating what I've read and it could be wrong.
Also just for the sake of conversation, one of my favourite wholesome Reddit subs was mum for a minute where people without mother's would go for motherly support and congratulations. I haven't seen anything like it here yet.
I get you, but this is how people are today - and the internet feeds it. We get a lot more positive feedback from negativity these days and the internet brings more people together which means there's more chance for a spontaneous negativoty circlejerk. And honestly, it's harder to be positive against the grain in such a situation than it is to join the circlejerk.
This behavior has nothing to do with Lemmy or Reddit or Mastodon or Twitter or whatever platform. Yes, each has a "culture" but those cultures are easily changed as more people join. And that's the problem with Lemmy. What you remember is a smaller community with enthusiasm for a new platform. Over time, as Lemmy gets more people and the "newness" dies down, negativity will surface. The only difference between Lemmy and Reddit is the management and federation, the people are always going to be the same.
The only thing we can do is be the change we want. Create your own positive posts. Interject negative circlejerks with positivity. Run against the grain. What you'll find is that, whilr you'll get hate, people will come out of the wordwork to join in your positivity - but only once someone else does it first. Misery does love company, by positivity is infectious and sometimes needs a patient zero.
Think about your contributions to this goal. You saw a lack of positivity and your immediate response was to complain about it with this post. You're feeding the thing you hate with this very post. If, instead, you had posted something positive, then you'd be woking towards a more positive Lemmy. But instead, this post is pulling it down and forcing everyone to wallow in the very negativity you think is destroying Lemmy.
Now, of course you did it because it's a much easier way to force a conversation. You see a problem, you want to talk about the problem. But that's exactly why you see more negativity. It's way easier to see and react to the negative than to react with positivity. And that's why no matter what platform you're on, you're always going to have this issue.
The best anti-war stories are those that are set during peacetime, because they show the alternative, rather than glorifying the violence of war. At the same time, you cannot fight negativity with negativity.
If you want Lemmy to be a more positive environment, you'll need to add some positivity of your own. But I promise you, your investment will pay dividends. People will come out of the woodwork to join in whatever positive message you put out. Sure, you'll have haters, but others will defend you. You just have to start the ball running.
Well, there are a lot to list (I only got to 'c'). One of the best things you can do is, post positive things that make you happy on the /c you follow for your fellow lemmies. The happiness this generates are multiple times worth the posts you read. Try it. Be a positive content relayer / originator yourself.
I've curated some other art communities in the side bar at !artistlounge@lemmy.ml including watercolour, art share and one of the photography communities
There are also lots of science and nature communities on mander and beehaw, if you search by 'all' in the communities tab at the top, type and just go down a few rabbit holes...nudibranchs, orchids, botany, minerals, geology, animals and pets etc all exist, you just need to start searching
Can you fix the last couple links? Nature's patterns isn't working for me. Also, love this thread. Going to start pulling all these communities into my All feed by clicking on all of them lol.
Pop over to !ukcasual@lemmy.world
There's a few non-Brits signed up, so you'll won't feel left out. Bring some chocolate Hobnobs and we'll put the kettle on.
If you find the wholesome, funny lemmy let me know. For months this site has been like 80% porn, Linux autofellatio and making safe spaces for extremists.
There are some surprisingly active craft communities here that are by definition pretty wholesome, but I guess probably not that interesting if you're not into the specific hobbies themselves. ymmv. You can find a sticky thread with a ton of them listed here https://lemmy.world/post/1715954
To keep negative things to a minimum I have subscribed to a cat community, aww community, two dog communities, and have restricted myself to only one technology community. No news communities.
Somebody mentioned the "imaginary" communities. This is my favourite, if you look in the sidebar you'll find others:
!imaginarywitches@lemmy.dbzer0.com
I am missing the catsubs. Calicos, voids, standard issue, whatevers. Feline fanciers posting pics of their purr machines. Doesn't seem to be a thing here.
Although I enjoy getting into the trenches with politics here on Lemmy, I'm really happy to have found a community (not on Lemmy) where I can find people like what you're looking for, just a place where everyone, for the most part anyway, is nice and friendly and supportive. Unfortunately, it won't do much for you unless you're a fan of a somewhat obscure American TV show because you wouldn't get our endless references.
The boomers had the whole summer of love, where huge hippies. To quote a famous poet of years gone by "I saw a dead head sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said, don't look back, you can never look back."
Nothing stays the same. Change is the only constant, and destruction is the beat to which humanity dances.
Wholesome isn't interesting to a lot of us. I have work, operating systems, programming, news, politics, and being right to worry about. Wholesome is for winter days off while sipping cocoa instead of coffee. We're not there yet, and even then there is the worry of certain holiday cheer being irritating, and those holiday songs that drill into your head from family and stores. Yikes.