Most people will probably disagree and say that I shouldn’t be here if I don’t like it, but yeah, like the title said. I switched over from Reddit for various reasons, and at first it was nice, but now it’s making me depressed just casually browsing Lemmy. Everything here is so drab and negative, sometimes even downright hateful. Everything sucks, here’s a list of companies you should never use, here’s people that do horrible things, here’s a bunch of complaints about stuff. This is why the world sucks, this is why your favourite thing is actually stupid, this is why you shouldn’t enjoy xyz anymore.
At least half of the content on Lemmy is about American politics or how they affect the rest of the world, even on meme and shitpost subs you can’t escape from the constant barrage of politically charged content. And when it’s not American politics it’s American lifestyle, like I get that america dominates the internet but I sincerely do not give a shit about your egg prices or your celebrities when I’m browsing memes to wind down.
And on top of that there’s a distinct arrogance that permeates the fediverse, where people act like they’re better than others for being conscious, and you’re stupid for not boycotting 99 percent of brands and eating vegan and ditching cars and using european FOSS applications on refurbished Linux devices, etc.
Honestly I’m baffled when people ask stuff like “why don’t more people join Lemmy?” Because I honestly would not recommend it to my friends. While it’s nice in some ways, it is also so very exhausting, and for me personally, worse for my mental health than Reddit ever was.
Rant over and obligatory disclaimer: I did not mean to insult anyone, I don’t have anything against the ideologies and lifestyles mentioned in my post, I simply wanted to share my personal opinions.
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My biggest issue with Lemmy is how anything with negative annotations can’t be praised for any positive contributions.
Right now with Musk for example. The guy is a snake ruining everything he touches. So therefore you are not allowed to be optimistic about development in space travel or having any good experiences with Tesla.
The outrage culture here is insane, and it’s clouding every topic. The latest Mark Rober video was heavily edited and gave viewers a reason to question the method of testing. But Lemmy doesn’t care because the process isn’t important when the results are appealing.
On Lemmy your are for or you are against. There is no room for contrary opinions. Trying to find a forum for your favourite hobby or game is not easy because everything everyone care about is being stuck up about something.
On Reddit every comment on any popular post are just unfunny one liners. On Lemmy you find more though out long form comments on popular post. But they all confirm the current popular opinion, so it’s doesn’t really matter.
- Find the casual communities.
- Curate your feed
- Stick to non US communities?
- Realise that the world is not in great shape right now, people are angry and scared - of course online spaces are going to reflect that.
I compiled a list of casual communities awhile ago https://lemmy.world/post/16327122 - I’d strongly recommend curating your own feed of communities through subscriptions and ditch the all/local feeds. Block the politics communities.
Had Reddit not gone down the shithole it’s in today, it would honestly look the same. Right now is not a good time for the USA, which means politics will ripple throughout most feeds.
It’s so bad, a time traveler from a mere 10 years ago would be shitting bricks. A democracy that has had global military dominance/presence for decades is about to turn to full fascism. We have military bases, in countries we are actively being hostile to. And to top it off, a pretend president keeps trying to annex Canada as an 51st state and start WWIII.
I have noticed the same thing, I think it’s really just the news. Most of the posts I see are news articles or about the news. Recently I started using Mastodon and found it to be much more positive. Yes, we are living in tough times. But we need to see evidence of things worth saving in humanity, like community and compassion to keep us going.
You can block the politics subs, although personally I’d recommend just subscribing to subs that interest you and browsing your subscribed feed. See https://lemmy.world/post/16327122 list for casual communities.
CURATE YOUR FEED
I know it’s not easy. But once you block a lot of the crap, the remaining stuff is great.
May I suggest reading “Anna Karinina”?
In all seriousness, Lemmy’s only alright. I with you on a lot of it. I don’t think I’m as effected by it, but I also think a lot of people are coping with the insult of Trump and more by posting. It makes them feel not alone. As an aside, someone made an instance that filters repetitive content. It only got posted about today, but who knows? Might be interesting to catch a unique post that might have otherwise been buried.
We’re in a profoundly fucked up timeline right now.
Silence is complicity.
The bad needs to be brought to the surface all day, every day, so we can address it. People MUST be made aware of who the bad actors are so they can be countered.
Because if we don’t, and you think what you’re experiencing right now is depressing…well, just you wait and see.
I wanted to try starting over here. But, the vastly smaller user base means specific communities are harder to find, and those that do exist seem to be straggling along.
I think the most recent post in the science fiction one I found was eight days ago.
I get it, remove oneself from corporates that defend Nazis. But man is it hard to find something to keep out the bad thoughts when the alternatives are either throwing tumbleweeds or just amplifying the bad thoughts.
Yeah you’re absolutely right. The solution is to develop a comprehensive approach to blocking all the crap. Initially this can feel a lot like a game of whack-a-mole but it does get a lot better quite quickly.
Where the platform tools fall short you can use other tools to fill in the gaps. I use uBlock Origin for a whole host of stuff but specifically here for blocking posts containing certain keywords. It’s not perfect because it also blocks humorous British fart jokes, some card games, and a certain snooker player (Judd) but those might be rectified by extending the syntax somewhat.
Uh no. Be involved or sign off. Sorry about your safe space, but we need people to do more than be a checked out online zombie.
If the world is just too tough, to touch grass and see that it follows you. Then help the rest of us DO SOMETHING about it.
What I did and still do to keep it updated is:
block users, subscripe to what I am interested and use word filters for the rest.
Even when browsing all the word filters take away the majority of what I don’t like.
Sounds like you want an echo chamber where reality is different. Check out Beehaw and enjoy the view of the walls.
Change your attitude, change your world. Instead try to frame it as how you’re incredibly lucky to live in a place where your greatest concern is the freshness of memes, instead of waiting for your life as you knew of to come crashing down. That way, talk of the unfolding horror can bring you joy that you’re not one of us on the receiving end of it.
I think it’s a phase we’re going through. Many (myself included) did not selected the platform for it’s size or contents, but we came here because we “had” to leave where we where (often reddit). So yeah, many arrive negatively charged but it’s up to all of us to build it into something we want it to be.
Making it a more positive is up to all of us. We can and will do it.
Also, and I don’t mean this as an insult to OP or those who agree, most of the people who just want mindless memes are still on Reddit. A large number of people who came to Lemmy are politically charged and mad at the world. And I guess I’m sorry to the non-Americans, I assume there are more Americans here than other countries, and we’re probably going to talk about our experiences. But more people with more backgrounds joining Lemmy will change all of that.
I do think as far as the depressing topics, the discussion here is much better than Reddit overall. But myself, I’m not here for the memes, I’m here for the politics, and I would guess that’s not uncommon here. I think if the world magically gets better that would probably change.
Haven’t you been paying attention to the world, what’s been happening? It’s rather a coincidence that you are on Lemmy, while things around us are changing on a daily basis, to the worst.
I’m sure you’ll find any community exhausting nowadays.
Don’t make it Lemmy’s fault, that the world is going full drab and negative.
