A few days ago I made an account and posted a few joke/meme comments that got a lot of engagement. Unfortunately, the replies seemed to be mostly personal attacks on me disguised as jokes, when all I was doing was trying to be funny in a harmless way. I deleted that account and this one will be temporary. You people complain about this site lacking content compared to Reddit, about communities with only one person posting regularly and there not being enough niches, but how do you expect any growth to occur if the first thing someone experiences when posting on a new account is getting dogpiled on?
It wasn’t my first account either, it was my latest attempt to reenter the fray after feeling like I was becoming the butt of the joke on an account before that, just engaging with the community in the way that I like to. It almost felt like on both accounts my comments were being deliberately mass upvoted just as a setup to be humiliated. Some people have horrific lives IRL that would make any reasonable person want to kill themselves, and are stuck in those soul crushing situations for years and years with no way out. It would be nice to find a place to joke around and feel even just the simulated warmth of human connection without the same kind of nastiness I encounter in everyday life, so I’ll keep looking.
You say Reddit is toxic? I deleted my account there a long time ago, but my experience was that Reddit is like a big metropolis and Lemmy is more like a small town. Yes Reddit has jerks, but they don’t tag you with their third party app and follow you around, giving you the illusion of being accepted with (probably fake) upvotes while subtly mocking everything you say and passing it off as a joke. You can blend with the crowd there and not become a target. I really, really don’t want to give Reddit and OpenAI my data, but if I want a real social media experience that isn’t being gatekept by assholes who enjoy bullying on the internet because they’re too scared to do it IRL I may have to.
I hope Lemmy can fix itself, but my experience with small towns in real life is that those “big” (small) fish in their small, stagnant pond don’t want anything to ever change because the status quo suits their mediocrity and reinforces their egos. Which would be an ironic fate for the supposed “future” of social media. Almost none of the content, all of the toxicity. Why is it so hard for people to be respectful of others?
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Curious if anyone on here has had zero negative interactions. I don’t know if that’s possible.
If any negative interactions stresses you out, OP, a forum-style community like this might not be for you. Or maybe you would be happier on an instance that disables downvotes; there are a few of them out there.
Block more people more often. There’s bunches of folk on here who are fun and welcoming but there’s toxic people too. Block people you don’t like. Block people who are mildly annoying. You can always unblock them later if you want to give them another chance.
The anti lemmy content is still coming. It hasnt been this bad for months. Either the influx of people has really brought some shit in here or the oligarchs have found another free bastion to suffocate in their shitstorms.
In any case, if you are sincere, I can somehow relate as dogpiling is a problem in our society everywhere right now. Even in political left chats, people will say absolutely vile things because our society has degenerated that much.
I have blocked hundreds of accounts on here and i use suggested blocklists on some fedi services since I dont want corporate controlled bot armies to molest my users and me.
The issue with opinions as of right now is that, depending on the place, your possible lack of knowledge can trigger someone who thinks you’re doing it on purpose.
Example: someone posted a wholesome story about a japanese trainstation that stayed open for one kid until they graduated. I suggested people to read about the treatment pf children in japan and got banned for it. What I didnt write: japan has a massive child prostitution problem and doesnt seem to do jack shit about it. Of course i also got dogpiled on.
And this is an example of why lemmy is great. You can absolutely isolate a group of people from the outside world and its reality if they want that. But you cant shape the narrative on the whole platform, which makes this place so resilient and important.
I’m pretty sure this will get shat on but here we are, in the place where you can do that if necessary.
Cuz major Lemmy communities are devolving into Reddit. There is less intelligence to be found, and more keyboard warriors.
Pro Tip! Leave communities with nasty interactions and block people. Cancel culture does wonders. Overall, though, my interactions are usually very pleasant, the atmosphere here is more positive than on Reddit or other social platforms.
I really feel this. I’ve said versions of this before in other threads, so I won’t repeat it all again - but suffice it to say I’ve had the same experience more times than I can count. The problem isn’t just the occasional jerk; it’s the tone of the platform as a whole. There’s this ever-present undercurrent of smugness, snide one-liners, and tribal hostility and gate-keeping that makes it feel like you’re either on the inside of the joke, or you’re the joke.
It’s exhausting. And the irony is, like you pointed out, everyone here talks about wanting an alternative to Reddit, but then they turn around and make this place even worse in all the same ways - just smaller, more insular, and with more groupthink.
I don’t blame you one bit for feeling the way you do.
One thing I learned over the years is, leave the internet for the niche interests that are hard to find in the real world and you’ll be mostly fine.
I know that I’ve been blocked by some people because I only see some comments if I load Lemmy in a private (not signed in). This is likely because of my anger toward the genocide in Palestine last year, when I got a bit unhinged about what it would mean for the election in November. Oh well, I don’t care.
I haven’t been plagued by abusive users. Maybe try lurking for a bit to check the tone of communities before contributing. I find Lemmy welcoming. I gave up on Reddit in the mids of the last decade. We might approach web forums from very different places (example: I love the text-only Hacker News).
If you blocked somebody you won’t see their comments.
If they blocked you, they won’t see your comments. But you will still see their comments.
tl;dr?
