I think it's more just because we're early adopters and the first wave of refugees.
We're building something here - and right now, for some it's a new home, for some of us this is something big - a place that resists monetization. This isn't just the fresh new version of social media, built by cool people who have the best intentions and a vision (I think most of them did, at least initially)
Admins go bad, already some of the instances I'm on have people starting to look at not just paying for servers, but making a profit. And if they can live off the donations - fine, more power to them.
But when someone comes knocking with a bag of money, what are they going to do? They can sell us out, but they can't go far before we leave... What do we miss out on? The content will either follow or we're missing out on content elsewhere.
And we can mitigate it further - too many talented people care too much to let this idea die. We're going to face difficult times, but it's a new ephemeral Internet built on top of the one stolen from us - it doesn't start or end with a reddit clone.
And I think that's why we care - because this time is different. It can't go bad the way everything else does. It relies on no one, and it's built from all of us
This place is ours. No kings, no masters, no capitol, no capital
Agree. But it's not kids, it's stupid people of all ages. Same thing happened with Reddit and with the Internet as a whole. Used to be you had to be a little smart to know you wanted to be on the Internet and figure out how to get it working. Then same was true of forums and IRC. Then same was true of Reddit. But then Reddit changed formats trying to be a TikTok style quick content scroll app, so idiots who just want to scroll started using the site and quality of discussions went down. I hope Lemmy grows but I hope the sign up process stays as it is, to weed out the extra stupid.
I think the influence on Reddit was deeper than a lot of people have considered. The hivemind was so strong it made it difficult to have decent and useful discussion, even the puns that muddied down nearly every post's comments achieved that end. The amount of posts I've seen of people feeling much more comfortable actually interacting on Lemmy, in my mind, lends weight to how Reddit wasn't a place for objective dialogue. That's why it felt so adolescent, like sitting at a high school lunch table.
lemmy looks like it does now because it's first of all and most importantly small.
the reason why it's small is that there are barriers for entry, be it effort needed to understand federation for the first time or choosing instance. "ooh just choose anything it's not that hard" shut the fuck up. it's a barrier because you can see that numbers are quite low, and just because you've come through it already doesn't mean it's not there
but there's bigger issue. depending on instance and how do you count, some 95%+ of new active users could have been rexxiters. this means that by coming there they have to leave reddit, and that means leaving communities that were there
average person isn't stupid or malicious or unenlightened plebeian. average person is just. average. because of small lemmy's size people there are subject to strong selection bias, namely on gaussian distribution of "how much do you care about moving there" that's far right tail that sits there. what are reasons for that, for every person that would be a bit different. some of these are FOSS enthusiasts or techlibertarians or softcore anticapitalists. this has some serious implications. some were banned from reddit but want replacement (some of these were shown door already, like exploding-heads).
now, crossection of "people who cared to come there" and "programmers" is reasonably big, as evidenced by programming.dev, but for any other unrelated topic there's much less. crossection of "people who care" and "people who are good at identifying mushrooms" or "aviation fans" or whatever is small, maybe too small to form new community. these people would need to leave reddit and their community and come there, doing nothing because they have no other fellow mushroom identificators to talk to. so, many don't. there's also probably negative selection of specific kind of people like some conspiracy theorists, at least for now
if you want to see lemmy grow, you would see dilution of that concentrated techbro sentiment with people who are otherwise average, but these people are also there to form new, specialized communities. you might want to gatekeep them out with some eternal september scenario, but it most likely won't work. personally i think that lemmy needs to grow a few times over for these "unrelated communities" to form, and then things will get pretty sustainable
another thing is that there's no ads and no selection for hostile content or conspiracy theories, and that might be related to how lemmy's algorithm is not driven by engagement, at least that's how it looks like
I suspect that one of the reasons Lemmy's texts are longer, meatier, and more thoughtful is the age of the users. My gut tells me that we're an older audience that doesn't need to dump the usual social media BS - hasty comments filled with unsubstantiated arguments. Everyone has an opinion and should be heard and respected. As a Reddit refugee, I feel Lemmy provides such space, and that's what I enjoy most. Like many others whose profiles match mine, once you get past the initial confusion (where should I register, what app should I use, where can I comment) and get comfortable with the jargon, you feel more encouraged to participate in discussions. So far, I've been pleased with the civil environment of the discussions, as most users are able to express their thoughts in a relaxed and non-toxic manner. Honestly, I'd encourage anyone who has been just lurking to participate and share their thoughts.
I had a lovely conversation with a 19 yr old. He kind of reminded me of myself, only growing up in this crazy time. He was really thoughtful about his experiences. Any one here now is probably a touch more mindful, but we can all slip and be dumb or even bad people, and when there's more people, it's easier to do, especially when there are people who are sad or mad or whatever.
This is like when people in 7th grade say that the 6th graders are sooo immature omg
And no repost bots. Reddit top posts are so filled with trash reposts I have seen the 69420 times like I am looking back my primary school homework
Lots of kids, but the mental age of the user base is all adults (for now)
This is the time before the Eternal September. Enjoy it while you can.
I dont know, it feels like reddit still and it isnt much about age. Pseudointelligents are present, braggers present, ad-hominem enthusiasts present, fingerprinting my machine to death most likely present, i still fear getting banned for speaking my mind as in all english-language spaces so it will probably be my first and last post on this website if not for the omnipresent abusive and constantly angry mods on every community oriented site i had posted on that bullied me for me being me and high functioning but still autism Mixed feelings, but gatekeeping quality destroyers works, thats my experience and objective knowledge that it works, and some spaces have lower demographics by age than this place but are the cozy village with admin that doesnt exploit it. Its not about age its about maturity Lets sit and watch what is going to hatch of this site, my feelings are mixed
What do you mean? I'm 16/f/cali
I disagree. Terrible take. It's never wise to discount, alienate, or exclude our youth. Growth is the name of the game and they're the ones who are going to be ushering in hopefully a better future. Who will they learn from if not us? You want them stewing with each other?
No. We maintain whatever nebulous internet "culture" we like and establish rules. Anyone, young or old, who doesn't adhere can suck eggs. That way young people learn how to act and we can hear them tell us about all the ways we need to better society.
Truly I believe that the children who develop during this time of overstimulation and rapid technological advancement will emerge maybe a bit... maladapted but better than us. Humans can be so resilient especially under supportive circumstances. Our intelligence is adaptive. So if you want to make a great internet community, maintain your respect for our kids.
the kids are alright
Meh, lets not.
In my experience, older people have to make conscious effort to maintain critical thinking and reasoning and not start lazily regurgitating settled, memorized opinions they've come rely on as absolutes, intead of allowing those beliefs to be subject to fresh challenges from novel perspectives that may change those opinions. Many do make that effort, and many do not. To paraphrase my favorite fictional character, if you refuse to change your mind, then you will die stupid.
Individuals are individuals of course though. I'm of the opinion that, on an individual basis, beyond the age of around 12, age is an extremely poor metric to estimate someone's intellect, wisdom, and insight. I'm in my mid 30s and have a master's degree in psychology with a 3.9 GPA. I recognize that there are 18 year olds that dwarf me intellectually, and more commonly 80 year olds who've lived lives devoid of reflection, who will die defending their long dead pappy's narrative about how the world works with anger rather than reason, solely because that's what they were told to believe. I have pity for that type, but very little patience.
Maturity really isn't the same as age: plenty of legally adult people (many already so for decades) around who are anything but mature individuals.
That said, as others here I think the absence of the subtle pressures derived from commercialization and profit-seeking make most of the difference.
Also, I've been thinking about the possibiility that both those already in Lemmy before and the Reddit refugees who came in recently, are at the most principled end of the spectrum compared with those still in Reddit (whose principles on the subject of ultra-authoritarian top-down imposition as done in Reddit clearly aren't strong enough to make them try something else), possibly also more confortable with change. This might make the crowd here at the moment a self-selected bunch leaning significantly more towards a certain psychological profile than the average which in turn (or so is my theory) affects the dominant tone of discussions here.
I remember shortly after the death of digg rage comics being peak humor and suddenly an influx of kids not understanding how to make a rage comic killing that sub.
It reminds me of the day the internet died, when so many new AOL users overwhelmed the forums at the time and killed all the etiquette that had formed up to that point. Internet been stagnant for longer than it should have been. I’m excited to see where things go now.
I’m so happy to find a new community. Looking around quickly this seem like a much better group of people to interact with than reddit.
I can’t express enough how glad I am this place exists and I can be done with reddit forever
I hail from the days of BBS (Fidonet days), text based internet, email, Newsgroups (Eternal September Survivor), Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, now here. It's all about what you have to contribute, how you communicate, and how you present yourself.
Because of the lack of children there are no discord mods either, paradise manifest
I'm torn between "hey that's ageism" and "yeah! those younger than me can rot in hell"
I'm not convinced.
Pleased to be here.
I came after Reddit broke Google. Or more correctly: reddit fixed Google, but then broke itself. Dunno about kids.
I'm emotionally 15 does that count?
Do kids really impact the level of conversations on social platforms? Many adults are just as immature.
There is lemmygrad though
Bitches be like "I hate those elitists assholes" and then post shit like that
man. i hope there would be an age barrier to those or something, or they be periodically flagged so they dont spread around. i had enough of kids and shitposters. is this heaven
we have to commit to our duty as users of the community if we want it the way we like it
Agreed. Reddit became horrible once everyone got on it.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Enjoy it while it lasts. In no time in your favorite community there will be homework help types of questions as well as those lazy requests for recommendations. "I want to read a book with X vibes." Not to mention the troll posting on science-related things like "If you are what you eat, will I turn into an eggplant if I eat an eggplant?" Actually, it would be nice if Reddit just recovered and those types of users stayed there. This is so chill without all that stuff.
More like doomscrollers.
Sounds like someone needs a good teabagging followed up with a dab... or are kids not doing that stuff anymore? I don't even know what's hip now.
me_irl
Nope
Eternal September comes to every platform at some point.
Are you my mummy
