Has the Reddit exodus killed the former Lemmy culture?

When I first started using Lemmy it seemed like such a nice place with interesting discussions. It seemed like the first group of people to join after the app exodus were being quite careful to be respectful of the existing culture.

Now, it seems as though the culture from Reddit has completely replaced it. Toxicity and all. I will say I do follow a lot of communities from a wide range of instances so it’s clearly not everywhere.

Am I the only one who’s feeling like we’ve just stormed in and bulldozed Lemmy?

ToroidalX,

Everyone wants to pretend like the ones who left reddit where the good guys. Most of them just want the same thing: attention, controversy and bad memes. We where a part of reddit and as such, we brought reddit here too. Maybe is not you or me, but there’s people out there who will bring their toxicity everywhere they go. Be it Reddit, Twitter or Lemmy

DrMango,

Nice. Lemmy is finally big enough for “Lemmy sucks now, the old days were better” posts 🥲

mojo, (edited )

lemmy.ml on a good day had like 15 to 30 upvotes on the front page. There wasn’t much of a culture before.

See the traffic in April this year, a little over 4 months ago. Lemmy.world only been around for like 2 and a half months now. That’s the most active it’s been since before the exodus. The exodus definitely helped jumpstart the site.

thawed_caveman,

Yeah, my answer to “has the Reddit exodus killed the former Lemmy culture” is “what culture lmao”

Not that i was on Lemmy before, but i was on Mastodon before Elon bought Twitter and it was a ghost town.

shinigamiookamiryuu,

It’s most likely just a phase, though it doesn’t help I made something for it.

Kissaki,
@Kissaki@feddit.de avatar

I don’t quite get what you made that community for?

Linking to bad content, that was downvoted, and then participating in a celebratory culture of them seems like an inherently toxic and negative thing? I don’t see how it’d help the issue.

though it doesn’t help I made something for it.

Are you saying you made it to help the issue, or irrelevant to it not helping?

shinigamiookamiryuu,

I’m saying I made something that’s more becoming of something that’s not a phase, and the way you describe it isn’t accurate at all. It’s not celebratory in the least, it exist to examine the why’s, and your perception having been cast, I will demonstrate for you and all your upvoters who probably have either never been on Reddit or want to taunt for the sake of it.

Kissaki,
@Kissaki@feddit.de avatar

You actually posted a screenshot of these comments? The -2 on your original comment counts as “downvoted into oblivion” as per the communities rules?

The community description says nothing about celebratory vs exploring as you claim it to be clearly one over the other here. And your example does not help that distinction either. It makes it more confusing / less indicative of your supposed intention - because rather than facilitating an open discussion and exploration you use a passive aggressive tone, and use this comment chain that was critical and started a discussion. You seem to be doing the opposite - specifically what I talked about - a toxic elevation.

shinigamiookamiryuu,

It’s because of what it’s based on. It should be noted OP asked a question based on a real issue, and I answered optimistically only to be have it deceptively demoralized, especially considering the whole point of Lemmy is to be another, hopefully better Reddit, and for that to be rewarded more than the optimism, all the while the post grading system many promised wouldn’t exist. Hence I said (not passive agressively) that I would use this as an opportunity to demonstrate what the average Redditor would already know, since it did leave the door open to interpret everyone as taunting me “for the safe of [demonstrating the community]”.

Gnubyte,

Things are fine man. There’s just a lot of de federation lately which I don’t think is exactly right.

EremesZorn,

That depends entirely on what instances we are talking about. Lemmy.grad and Hexbear users have no business existing anywhere but their own shitty tankie bubble.

AlexTheTurtle,
@AlexTheTurtle@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

TRUE. fuck tankies.

Gnubyte,

Are those the super communists that are like fuck any place that’s not Russia and China? Lol

If so I guess I feel the pain but I just give em the block

RickyRigatoni,
@RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml avatar

I do too but my fingers are starting to hurt with them infesting every corner of the fediverse.

silvercove,

Yes it has. You can see this in political discussions very easily. There are too many people (mostly Americans) who are accusing everyone of being a Russian bot. This did not exist a year ago.

FrostyCaveman,

When I see the term “Russian bot” I can’t help but think of en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEDOR and that video of it awkwardly and inflexibly shooting guns

Fizz,
@Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

I haven’t seen a platform that can have political discussions in good faith.

Maeve,

American here and I’ve seen it. The biggest turnoff is “tankie” bashing.

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

I had heard the term before, but I never figured out wtf a “tankie” was supposed to be until about a month ago when I joined Lemmy. It seems to be part of the Europification of US politics, which is interesting but perhaps not a positive trend.

Maeve,

My point is, you don’t have to accept an idea to consider it. I’ve heard good and bad from them. You know, like most people.

squiblet, (edited )
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

People very often decide and insist that someone is a “repost bot!” with absolutely no evidence, as if someone couldn’t do that manually. Repost? Sure. Automated? Not necessarily.

quinkin,

Tragedy of the commons.

JokeDeity,

Unpopular opinion, but I really hate the soft bubble space every social media is becoming and welcome the freedom of speech. I’m not saying people should be harassing each other, but it is nice knowing I could call someone a fucking dumbass when they’re being one and not expect an IP ban.

Spiracle,
@Spiracle@kbin.social avatar

Yes and no. I’d prefer user choice/curating your own list of instance you interact with.

However, each community also adds further burden on moderation. The communities you allow affect the culture, and some are very clearly more trouble than others.

My current solution would be to have multiple accounts for different sections of the fediverse. Currently I only have a generic Kbin and a Lemmy account, but if you find a Lemmy instance that’s federated with the broader free-speech spectrum without just veering into insane territory itself, I’d be interested.

Maeve,

What if instead of that we asked why someone thinks a way, and what led to their conclusions?

JasSmith,

The first step is allowing others to think a different way. On Reddit, using the wrong word can see you banned from 20 of the top subreddits and even earn you a site-wide ban.

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

I recall that 5-6 years ago on reddit, veering into a disapproved sub and saying anything at all, such as "Wow, I really disagree with this", could result in automatic bans from other subs for participating in the disapproved sub. Also, the widely disapproved sub would quickly permaban you with a hateful message containing various insults.

Nemo,

True. I got an automatic ban from r/BlackLivesMatter, as sub I participated in regularly, for calling out a wrongheaded comment on r/conservative, a sub I’d never visited before. And while the mods at the BLM sub were happy to review and correct this ban, it was still a bit jarring.

kick_out_the_jams,

Getting banned by a bot and having to beg somebody to actually read what you posted is an experience.

Levsgetso,

I think radical and hateful people should be called out but just insulting each other is going to radicalise them even further. The best way is to have a civil discussion and see the other’s pov, and when they can’t do anything but be an asshole, just ignore them.

Ensign_Crab,

I think that anywhere that welcomes bigots is truly welcoming only to bigots. Not every site needs to pretend forever that bigots are just misguided souls who just need a lil’ more understanding before they stop being bigots out of the goodness of their hearts because they’ve attained satori. Bigots can and do take advantage of sites like that.

If you want to engage with bigots, there’s plenty of places for you to go do that. reddit, facebook, threads, xhitter, truth social, 4chan, the comments section of any youtube video, hell even lemmy has exploding-heads.

There’s too many nazi bars already. Not every bar needs to be one.

Levsgetso,

Definitely agree, some people are just not worth even engaging with.

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

People can and do undergo change and become enlightened. Certain people, however, are not willing and do not engage in any sort of good faith exchange of ideas, and I agree - it’s useless. I’m not here to provide angry psychopaths or government shills with therapy.

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

It’s quickly getting more toxic and aggressive. But we’re not counting karma, so as soon as you recognize that someone is arguing with you in bad faith just block them.

spider, (edited )

It’s quickly getting more toxic and aggressive.

Can personally confirm.

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Exactly. About a month ago your most likely negative reaction would be I’m not sure if I would agree with that because of x and y but I could see why you would say that. Maybe you get ± 2 votes

Now they have to die on every hill to prove you wrong no matter what you bring to the table and magically it’s -10

And you go through their history and they have a two week old account with 27 fights picked.

Hopefully they’ll get bored of making new accounts and the block lists stay strong.

frogfruit,

After blocking most of the meme subs, I find it a pretty nice place.

pm_me_your_puppies,

Could you share that list by chance?

reason,

Just browse lemmy on all and block community which you don’t like i have blocked 526

Breezy,

Ive been thinking about doing just that. Its just the ratio of memes to news to interesting stuff is so bad on here. To many memes man.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I felt that way until I found out the bigger instances aren’t even much older. Lemmy World itself apparently started as soon as the changes were announced but before any big protests began. Instances that were around even before those either were not very active to even have an established culture, or are so niche they’re not really affected.

Cethin,

Also, it’s likely that anyone on Lemmy had tried reddit prior. Lemmy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Lemmy culture is former reddit culture to some extent, for better or worse.

thelsim,
@thelsim@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m one of those Reddit refugees. I can’t say anything about how things were before I got here, but I would like to add that I treat Lemmy a whole lot different from Reddit. When I joined there was plenty of talk about the lack of content, people only upvoting but not commenting, that kind of thing.
So I took this as a sign that I should be more of a participant and not the three-posts-to-my-name lurker that I was at Reddit. And I saw similar motivations with other users. So I do hope that at least part of the refugees have added a positive influence, and more so than they ever did when they were still using Reddit.

andrewrgross,

Also, to add to this: culture is a living thing, like people and ecosystems. Change is inherent and healthy.

It’s totally reasonable to debate whether an event brings good change or bad change, but complaining about a community being different is, imo, not healthy or rational.

Harrison,

We can, through collective effort, precipitate change away from or reverse negative change, and the first step to that is complaining about it.

Nugget,

Same here. I vote on almost every post I see, even if I’m not interested, based on if I think it’s a good fit for the community. On Reddit I just upvoted things I liked

thelsim,
@thelsim@sh.itjust.works avatar

I meant more like writing comments and posting things, but I like that you’re making a conscious effort to do better so do whatever you feel comfortable with :)

d3Xt3r,

Votes don’t matter much here, because there isn’t enough content in the first place. Votes mattered on Reddit because there was too much content, and small posts would never be seen unless you’re browsing by new. Also, people farmed karma so that they could resell their accounts, or access karma-restricted subs. No such incentives here.

Kroxx,

As communities grow from obscurity to populated change is inevitable. I used to use reddit and the #1 thing I hated was the condescending, holier than thou attitude that was rampant. I have seen it occasionally on here but for the most part Lemmy is a breath of fresh air, so I personally don’t think reddit culture has replaced it. I can definitely see a strong cultural influence from reddit but I personally think Lemmy culture is significantly different, in a good way.

Illegal_Prime, (edited )

Yes!

I’ve noticed it in political discussions especially. I often find the nitty gritty of my political opinions at odds with much of the apparent consensus on both Reddit and Lemmy. But on Lemmy I generally find people to be a lot less dogmatic, and more open to constructive discussion, rather than repeating the same slogans over and over. Not that it doesn’t happen on Lemmy, but I can’t really remember the last time I heard someone say “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature” unironically.(I have heard “orphan crushing machine” thrown around a bit, but at least that one is kinda funny.)

Overall, the mainstream on Lemmy feels like an upgrade from Reddit, though I do miss more niche communities catering toward my interest.

Flambo,

As a Digg migrant now Reddit migrant, the "has <new user base> killed our culture?" thing is a heavy dose of deja vu. No mockery intended; I think it's a reasonable question.

thoro,

It makes sense.

Most people who came here two months ago did so because they explicitly wanted to leave Reddit, but not because of Reddit content or the site culture. It was because admin decisions on third party apps and the API.

They still wanted Reddit, just with different Admins and different apps. Ideally, they’d have wanted communities to fully migrate over.

lemmy.world specifically became basically a lifeboat, having been linked to from original third party apps.

Yes, it was created and had the technical and resource requirements to keep up with the new influx of users without constantly crashing (in the beginning), but nonetheless, that meant it got the largest influx of the migration.

It’s honestly a bit strange for me to see people in here with two month old accounts saying “oh yeah the culture has just changed so much”.

You all were the change. It’s that influx of users that basically brought Reddit here.

Anyone who came here before the API changes did so either because they had some kind of issues with Reddit, whether it was the dominant culture or what, and wanted an alternative or because they were interested in the open source and federated nature of the project regardless of Reddit’s own decisions.

Though tbf, pre migration, this place was basically dead. Posts would have a handful of comments at best and it was mostly Lemmygrad users and also FOSS enthusiasts. Hexbear was the most active Lemmy instance and was a chapotraphouse lifeboat formed in 2020 but it didn’t federate so it was really mostly just Lemmy.ml as a general instance and Lemmygrad unless you explicitly knew and cared for Hexbear. Neither was very “toxic” in their own communities and there really wasn’t much inter instance fighting, even if there still were people on lemmy.ml who didn’t care for grad, as far as I remember. I honestly mostly lurked and didn’t participate often.

The apps also were much worse.

Things started picking up as the API announcement happened. That’s probably when we had the best balance of positivity and user growth.

It exploded when the API changes went into effect and voila.

Still, I would say it’s mostly still a bit better than Reddit and there’s more effort in commenting for the most part.

I don’t think I’ve seen a pun chain or a “he’s not your buddy, guy” or anything like that.

AlexisFR,
@AlexisFR@jlai.lu avatar

And that’s only the first migration. Expect a way bigger one once Reddit sunsets the old reddit interface.

MaybeItWorks,

This is exactly what happened to Reddit with the Digg shitshow and then gradual public adoption. Reddit used to have thoughtful conversation and was where I could go to get interesting perspectives. Eventually enough people joined that the quality went way down.

thetreesaysbark,

Always depends on the community/sub though. Niche subs specific to the subject will have good discussion. Big subs that tend to be a bit more generic content will have the generic subs.

I don’t think it’s a Lemmy/Reddit thing and more of a small/large community thing.

MaybeItWorks,

Oh, I agree completely. As the masses arrive conversation generally gets less nuanced and less thoughtful. Group think becomes more obvious too.

idiomaddict,

I changed my account to reduce traffic on my my former server when the Reddit refugees came

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@beehaw.org avatar

Tbf many of us, myself included, had had a problem with the general reddit culture for a very long time (in my case dating back to 2011)

The API change and Sp*z’s libelous lies (egregious even by his abysmally low standards) finally gave me the motivation to leave, and I’m genuinely happy that I’ve never checked back on my old account (which is still up, but has been mostly scrubbed of content)

I didn’t come here to find more reddit. In fact, I tried switching back to tumblr at first before learning more about the potential of the fediverse

d3Xt3r,

I don’t think I’ve seen a pun chain or a “he’s not your buddy, guy” or anything like that.

And no Schnoodle guy either! No more annoying pseudo-emotional poems followed by celebrity worship, which didn’t add anything to the conversation, except for making threads long and wasting screen space on mobile devices.

BonesOfTheMoon,

I came to Lemmy from reddit and I find it an incredibly nice place to be, full of polite discussions and fun posts. I haven’t seen any of what you’re saying.

polskilumalo,
@polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

It’s difficult to have a respectful discussion of disagreements on lemmy.world and sometimes even lemmy.ml, especially since a lot of the users I try to engage with start of with “ewww lemmygrad” and I tend to disengage there. It’s just not productive nor is it anything worth my time.

If both parties already agree on a line you won’t find any disrespect. And this kind of interaction is one I see most often, especially when it comes down to politics over on lemmy.world…

I think Hexbear has a posting startegy, that I’ve seen countlessly now, which works well. Start of with good faith discussion, if it goes well continue on the same path, if the other party decides to be a shitty person then post PPB, troll or disengage.

BonesOfTheMoon,

I don’t see any of that but maybe I’m in the wrong places. I’m actually really happy to be here because it’s nice and people are friendly.

polskilumalo,
@polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

More luck to ya, I wish I could say the same outside of Hexbear and Lemmygrad. Either way, I’m happy lemmy is working out, at least for others.

givesomefucks,

When the rightwing communities started getting defederated, their users started making alts on the main instances.

Then you’ve got lemmy.grad which I still have trouble believing aren’t just all trolls.

I’ve never seen a logical comment from any of them. And they agree with the rightwingers waaaaay to often for it be a coincidence.

Like, there was a thread the other day filled with people saying Islam is a violent religion and no other religion encourages violence. And all 1.7 billion Muslims support terrorist extremists.

Maybe because China and Russia have also been oppressing them for centuries so lemmy.grad has to act like that’s the right move?

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

Like, there was a thread the other day filled with people saying Islam is a violent religion and no other religion encourages violence.

Any links for that one?

givesomefucks,

No idea how to link so other instances see it on theirs but:

lemmy.world/post/3293542?scrollToComments=true

There was like double the comments from last time I looked at it tho, it’s been a couple days

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

No idea how to link so other instances see it on theirs but:

I’m not sure there is a way right now.

maegul, (edited )
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

Thanks!!

I’m struggling to find any anti-Islamic sentiment in there from lemmygrad users?? (which is what I was interested in seeing … ordinary Christianity > Islam isn’t too surprising to see anywhere I’d say, however shallow it is).

EDIT: All I could find was this one comment from a lemmygrad user (along with a small exchange afterwards) that seemed to me entirely sympathetic to the Afghans and not at all anti-islamic.

chomskysfave5,

Internet leftist gets spooked when they see comments that don’t perfectly subscribe to their cult. Their brains don’t know what to do but call them right-wingers and Nazis. This really is reddit.

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m honestly not sure what you’re talking about, but I think you could work on being respectful and sincerely engaging.

Pandantic,
@Pandantic@midwest.social avatar

No kidding. Talk about toxicity.

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

Ha yea … oddly ironic.

uberkalden,

Aaaaand there’s the troll we were talking about

grff,

Ha same. When I first started lemmy, every time I would accidentally stumble upon a lemmy.grad post I would be so confused. At first I thought it was trolls, i thought it was satire.

And yeah I also remember that post from yesterday, all the comments underneath were people telling eachother to fuck off and that every single Muslim was a violent terrorist who wants to oppress woman. I think these people probably don’t get outside much is my best guess . I have noticed quite the lack of civility in some of the threads here…

BonesOfTheMoon,

I guess I’m just not seeing that part. Hopefully the admins do something.

conditional_soup,

Seen this. I commented on the lemm.ee meta discussion about considering defederating from Hexbear. I mentioned some of the things I’ve seen from Hexbear users and that I wish they’d just take a chill pill. Cue Hexbears (I assume), refusing to take chill pills.

Kecessa,

I don’t feel like I see that many people from the alt right or tankies with my instance being defederated from theirs, so I don’t think them creating alts is that much of an issue, but maybe it’s because I don’t see that much political content on All/top 6h 🤔

zndl972,

People I disagree with all around me!! Oh the horror!!

pewgar_seemsimandroid,

same i suppose

BonesOfTheMoon,

I did see some anti Islam memes on the atheist community but that’s not really unexpected, they’re anti all religion.

Kecessa,

“We’re egalitarians, we hate all of you equally!”

Skotimusj,

I agree. Came from reddit in June. Lemmy has been a very friendly place. I just posted for advice with a typo in the title. Noone even mentioned it. No belittling advice or bickering. Just kindness and helpfulness.

Mr_Blott,

Did the same and was helpfully informed that unlike Reddit, you can edit the title if there’s a typo in it :)

BonesOfTheMoon,

Firefish is also incredibly sweet. Honestly the fediverse makes me feel good about the Internet for the first time in years.

Driftking,

I disagree with you in a snide and condescending tone while missapropriating your argument.

BonesOfTheMoon,

Let’s fight.

Driftking,

:(

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