Hope a two part question is allowed but after mostly lurking a lot, I’m noticing that there do seem to be quite a lot of Xennials. But on the other hand, also plenty of rebellious youth.
In my mind I’m thinking that Lemmy userbase is (very broadly generalizing) dividing into people who saw internet’s early days and as such, aren’t scared of the slight technical hurdles to enter. They tend to be a bit worldweary but Lemmy does feel a bit more like OG internet, which they like (this is me). But also, there’s younger people who are techy enough to deal with the hurdles too but see using Lemmy as a sort of an act of rebellion against the mainstream internet (which I appreciate).
That said I feel like the two clash a lot since the former tends to have fewer shits to give than the latter. As often is the case in the whole history of humanity.
Obviously there’s plenty of people who don’t fall into either camps, which is why I’m curious. Lemmy is small enough to have a sense that there are actual, real, individual people here, as opposed to Reddit’s amorphous blob of a massive userbase most of whom seem like bots.
early 40s. Reddit API scandal in 2023.
This is me
Same.
Same. Tried to go back late last year and it was a sloppy disappointment. Partner kept talking about Lemmy and after checking it out I joined. It sorta reminds me of old Reddit (joined in 2013) yet very different.
It’s a bit less clean cut for me. I started using Reddit in 2012, at first just the Minecraft sub and later mostly IT related stuff. I joined the threadiverse via a small niche Lemmy instance after the API scandal in summer 2023 but didn’t delete my reddit account until that November. I lurked on Lemmy for about a year before I started posting in earnest on the Worldbuilding community on .world. Now I’m bouncing around various fediverse platforms.
I wish NodeBB would take off as a platform. I want a home for more permanent discussion and personal connection.
Me too
Same!
In my 70s. In response to the U.S. aggression, I switched to Lemmy.ca, a Canadian owned media. Not many other Canadian owned social media sites out there.
Gen X but I came to use (and host) lemmy as an act of rebellion against corporate controlled internet
same
41, came to Lemmy during the API thing.
I think I’m pretty rare on Lemmy: I use Windows on my PC (although I’ve dabbled in Linux) and I don’t work in a tech field at all.
I am 41. I found out about Lemmy because of Reddit’s API bullshit, and ended up staying here ever since the actual API shutdown that killed all the 3rd party apps which were the only usable way to browse the site on mobile. Was already getting sick of the place, since it was becoming more and more obvious that the admin staff had a nazi problem, and probably would have come sooner if I was aware of it 4 or 5 years ago. Or maybe I would have only seen Lemmy.ML and got turned off by the tankies. IDK…
I’m 22 and I came to Lemmy after my Reddit account got permanently banned/suspended for no reason
less than 20, reddit pissed me off by killing the API so i could no longer use Infinity for Reddit.
40s. Saw Lemmy mentioned on Reddit around the time of the API debacle. It became clear to me that reddit would not be usable in the long run, as it is unusable without 3rd party clients.
Upon checking Lemmy out, it reminded me of the kind of internet I hadn’t seen in ages, so I stayed.
Which instance and time of day you ask this is going to give different results I suspect. I’m a 500 year old antarctican. I came here after stopping on mastodon for a bit after leaving reddit.
I’m 65 and I hate the generation labels. I genuinely think they were originally pushed as another propaganda mechanism to create further artificial divisions between people. There is no doubt that people of significantly different ages are often different in various ways, but the over simplicity of the named generations just provides another convenient way to stereotype people instead of understanding them as individuals.
I think I joined reddit in 2008. I’ve been involved in social media since the days of dial-up bulletin board systems in the late 70’s. (And I ran one of my own in the mid-80’s.) I had an email address on Bitnet in 1983 and was on Usenet in its early days. reddit was an interesting and open place for a while there and I enjoyed the variety, but most of it was becoming too cynical and tribal for me by the early 20’s. I discovered Lemmy a couple years before reddit’s API debacle, but that is what convinced me to drop reddit and focus on the Fediverse.
I like the decentralized model of the Fediverse. I think the idea that different servers can have different rules is healthy. I stay away from parts of it, but I have found plenty of communities that are friendly and interesting to me. After hanging out on several different servers, I joined Fedican and have been happy here. It’s a nice place to call my home online.
59, been on Mastodon for years, saw the occasional mention of Lemmy and came over for a look some time ago to lemmy.world, then to the instance I’m on now. Also have a piefed alter and the original .world alter.
Spend more time here than on Mastodon these days, I find the shitposting here is if a higher equality.
Had used reddit in the way distant past but it annoyed me the usenet structure was being centralised and replicated for $ off the back of “slaves” and left way back.
Late 60s. Came here on the heels of the death of Apollo and the Reddit API fiasco.
I’m 30. Came here after Reddit perma-banned me and this was recommended as an alternative. Found an app that basically makes it look like Reddit so it was easy to transfer over.
Late 20’s
I used reddit app so the api fiasco, while it bothered me on a fundamental level, did not directly affect me.
Then I read some article about the potential for reddit to create paid subreddits or something?
I don’t remember exactly why paywalled subreddits bothered me so much, but it was enough for me to decide to leave.
