It seems like the worst migrated here because they got banned from Reddit for having an extreme stance and, instead of talking and discussing things like a normal person, they would just immediately have a toddler-level freak out on everyone who didn’t share their view.

Then they’d make a “safe space” community here where even mild disagreement / someone fact-finding / an errant downvote while browsing /All would result in a ban, thus creating a completely worthless echo chamber and causing them to become even more extremist.

As a litmus test, if your community has custom words they use for normal people, you may be in an extremist echo chamber.

I’ll be honest, I’m starting to fall out of love for Lemmy because of this shit. Recently I’ve taken up Bluesky to contact a friend of mine, and when I decide which app I want to use when I zone out, Bluesky usually wins. I know a lot of you hate it because it’s corporate owned, but God damn it, the vibes are much better there.

Also I’ll say this flat out: at least when I go there I’m never bombarded by “voting and protesting are both stupid and you’re an idiot for thinking you can ever make the world a better place within legal methods” propaganda, like I do from a certain instance.

Agree 100%, you really notice it when you start creating posts regularly and like 80% of the comments are some variation of a complaint.

I found a small private forum and haven’t come back to lemmy in months.

This population is jaded, angry and brittle. It’s like being bullied in school again. Why would anyone want to stay here?

I dunno. I find this better than being in an echo chamber of positivity

Welp, you’ve summed up what I’ve been thinking for a while. I don’t know if it is really a Lemmy thing, pessimistically informed folks, or just the Internet. It’s probably all of them. I know pretty much exactly what OP is referring and have no answers.

Edit: strike through; and on further thought, this is basically more or less the same complaint I had about imgur. They’re seem/seemed pretty insular and quite an echo chamber. It seemed to me that if your weren’t one of the annointed ones, you were a dirty peasant whose posts would never leave user sub, a place only visited by those who hate themselves. And there is a lot of nonsense in there. But comments wise, it’s basically the same. “Oh, you liked that video of a cat/dog/animal? How dare you, did you know x, y , z? No? Well now you do do you can feel bad about it.”

And the politics is similar. I remember seeing posts about the 2020 election and how the Marrieta, GA voting was very slow, i.e., the lines were very long and some folks waited 8+ hours. And of course the majority of comments were about how “this is voter suppression!!1!!”. Except I was there. It was just a really big turn out. Really big turn out. But, sure, it’s was voter suppression . Didn’t matter that I was there.

So, yeah, to whoever way up at the top that mentioned it’s really not just algorithms, but people using these things/social media in general: totally agree.

Also, if you happen to be reading this, what are you doing? Why are you down this far? Don’t you know you’re only supposed to read the top 3 comments and form.your opinion from there? And, if you read OP’s post and somehow are reading this, what are you even doing? You’re not supposed to read the whole thing! Headline, first comment, echo dissent, move on.

it really does. if people don’t agree with you they bully you. And then the mods delete your comments when you are just trying to be civil and have an opposing viewpoint.

Negative post. Downlemmied, nerd.

This place is honestly worse than reddit at times, not every community here obviously but I have stumbled across some that just felt like everyone who was too cynical and doomer for reddit decided to come here.

This is not even remotely as toxic as reddit.

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Here’s a key thing I think you’re missing about Lemmy: Lemmy is anti-corporate and anti-capitalist by nature. That is the single thing that pretty much all Lemmy users hold true. That’s why we’re here. It’s not all negative. It’s negative when you’re trying to push a product, especially when it’s made clear it hurts other people.

Try discussing an indie game, especially one with a good track record of treating employees well, or one owned by a cooperative. You will almost always see positive responses. Lemmy users are happy to support good things. They’re also skeptical of corporations (for good reason) and are quick to turn against them when it turns out they’re run by bad people.

I’ll give you an example: Anyone who sees this, what is your favorite indie game, and what about it is special to you? Mine is probably the incredibly standard response of The Outer Wilds. It has so much soul and understanding for the human experience, and it gives you the freedom to discover it for yourself.

I agree and think balance is key. One should always embrace happiness when possible while also trying to better their local environment, if possible. Knowing the truth doesn’t mean I have to be sad or angry about it 24/7.

I’ve posted comments where the overall response seemed to have a sense of “it’s not okay to be happy”. Shit will always be shitty somewhere at any given time. It’s okay to smile and have fun. We all need a break from the shit every now and again.

It took me years to finally find happiness. I’m not going to give it up.

I saw 3 posts in a row today saying hope is evil and stupid. Ya’ll sound like fucken Morgoth shut up. Would Gandalf have said that!? OR DID HE SAY THE LITTLE THINGS KEEPS THE DARKNESS AT BAY