“Sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a “hero,” because what’s a hero? But sometimes there’s a man who… well, he’s the man for his time and place!” – Sam Elliot (the Stranger) from the glorious The Big Lebowski
You know that classic quote about standing on the shoulders of giants (and pioneers)? Honestly, in so many ways, that’s how I truly feel about the good ol’ Fediverse.
So, to sum up-- who are YOUR heroes here, and what does keep you hanging on here, baby…?
EDIT: For people wondering about what kinds of ‘bumps & difficulties’ I’ve personally experienced, here’s a tiny sampler:
I can interact with actual people and not get swarmed with ads and botted traffic.
The fediverse is a “work in progress”, and that is fine. All the other social media sites are a “collapse in progress”.
It is much more fun to be on a small and growing platform, than on a big and dying platform.
No billionaire owners and algorithms.
My heroes? The instance operators and good mods, of course, along with everyone who contributes material.
Plus there’s more community when dealing with issues, such as problem instances and users. The fediverse doesn’t have the “old internet” feel, it’s still more restrained than that thanks to instance owners probably not wanting to host a lot of darker material thanks to the instances being under private ownership, but it feels more free than a place like reddit.
I’m banned from Reddit, but still want a similar fix like a drug addict.
Haha, gotta admit it’s a very successful format (and drug) in that way. Vastly more effective and useful than most others, IMO.
But this drug is less toxic and only available in limited doses
Bingo. When I start seeing the same content I know it’s time to log out.
My goal was to use something other than TikTok, facebook, etc… Even with all its glitches and quirks, the FV has proven to be a great replacement for those corporate apps.
The vibe is a lot like “the old internet”. Sure, you don’t get a lot of responses most of the time, but those you do get are genuine and in good faith.
On reddit you can post the most innocuous thing and be met with ridicule or disdain. Most of the posts I made were commented on in a negative way. Even harmless things like “I found this funny product at the supermarket” in the appropriate subreddit was met with insults and a bunch of negative comments. Asking for advice on a popular advice subreddit got me a bunch of insults.
Here I have few answers, but those are genuine ones and so far they’ve been in good faith, no unprovoked insults, no sifting through someone’s history to insult them based on a post from 3 years ago.
On reddit, you can post the most innocuous thing and be met with ridicule or disdain…
Yeah, I hear you on that one.
Overall, I find Reddit to be a fairly well-informed, left-leaning (which in any other 1st world country would simply be ‘average centrist’) base, but the place is indeed also chock-full of dude-bros who form kind of a vast, ‘mean-girls’ clique IMO. And they like nothing better than to punish people (or in their juvenile words “shit on”) others for not conforming and communicating in modern ‘Reddit-speak.’
So, all-in-all something of a fascinating psychological study in to how people self-guide in to becoming deliberate weirdos, haha. Anyway, yeah, sorry to hear you had to deal with all that toxicity, as a newcomer. :/
Absolutely. Reddit just gets so nasty. Lord knows WHY people feel the urge to siftthrough someone’s history and bitch them out but they do and they’re cruel. The sheer size of reddit gives them anonyminity but also reddit don’t do much about it.
I like how personal it is here, people kinda know each other and it is like the olden days. It’s a good community and you get friendly, genuine comments with far fewer bad apples. I’m really happy here
Expanding on this, because you have said almost the same I was thinking, I feel AI slop and bots aren’t really a thing here, or they are easy to filter.
easier ability block right wing astroturfing, or shilling from politics.
And how do you do that on lemmy? I use the voyager client because it offers good filter options. But is mostly designed for mobile devices and not desktops. So if you know of a good way to filter out right wing crud then please tell me.
theres a block option in the settings you can block the instances or communities, from single users, i just block that account.
The shilling and foreign interference on reddit really scares me.
because of what it’s not
i have honestly not noticed any difficulties
All social platforms get worse all around us. Fedi isn’t perfect or drama-free but around here every third post isn’t a targeted ad that knows too much about me trying to make me feel guilty or inadequate.
Plus, we’re not being monetized and our content exploited, as with all the commercial social media platforms.
The worst aspects of the fediverse are really just the worst aspects of people rather than the worst aspects of people plus the worst effects of profit motives that you find on corporate social media. Also folks are really inclined to try to shun bad behavior rather than reward it with engagement that can directly lead to money for the poster
This! And good content is not being washed away by clickbait
Want to see the collapse of mainstream media. I’m thinking globally and acting locally.
That’s a really good way of putting it. Facebook is terrifyingly powerful and damaging. Smaller is better IMO
Because fuck Reddit
It mostly works well.
Plenty of good and garbage content. I want both.
I don’t get the feeling there is a “motive” behind what I see when I am browsing content. It feels organic, like the old internet.
