I dont know if this has been asked before or if this may be a little goofy of a question but I didn’t see anything relating to it and I’m kinda curious what the culture of Lemmy is like and what sort of common things people see. ive been paying attention to interactions but nothing is as good as just asking everyone.
The instance of choice has a surprisingly large impact on experience here. I’ve tried several.
huh thats interesting I guess that makes enough sense since you have your subscribed section, your home server section, and then the everything section. so you are seeing more of what you choose to see unless you explore things that aren’t your interests so much or check out the everything section a lot.
Since lemmy is decentralized, the demographics are going to vary greatly depending on the instance. You’d have to create a pretty generalized poll and then post to most of the major instances to get anything close to even a general read.
@JetpackJackson this community had a thread on them last week, scroll a bit and you’ll soon see it.
at first I wasnt picturing how that would work exactly but then I realized you are a bit locked down into your own communities a bit unless you intentionally explore other areas or mainly look at the everything section
Not so much. One has the freedom to explore and subscribe and participate in communities across the lemmyverse (mostly) regardless of what one’s home instance is.
However, one’s home instance often has quite the influence on one’s… perspective and one’s exposure— even one’s intended exposure.
For example, one will probably have a notably different experience if one starts from Lemmy.world vs lemmy.ml (or even lemmygrad.ml) vs lemm.ee. Or, especially Beehaw.org. And that experience may color how one views how one experiences external communities.
My point is that it’s mor complex and nuanced than you’re giving it credit for.
That’s a good question. From what I gather, Lemmy (and most of the Fediverse) is an alternative to something, with less focus on the money/advertising. So I would guess most people are looking for an alternative way to connect about common interests. And because it’s not the easiest path for social media, I would guess most people have a desire for agency/self-reliance.
And because the whole Fediverse seems to be a different way of approaching social connecting, it takes a little more understanding of computer technology, so I would also guess most people have a least a higher than average affinity for computer technology. Linux and Programming Humor are larger communities.
That said, I have enjoyed a somewhat active participation about woodworking, gardening, jokes, news, medical updates, etc. Like mentioned in another comment, the different instances will have somewhat different norms and practices.
There’d better not be any ads.
Lemmy is free and open source (AGPL), the ad money would only go to the person offering your client not the people hosting your instance. If your client has any ads I’d recommend switching. I use Jerboa (Android, play store) and the official web app hosted by my instance.
I’m pretty new to fediverse stuff and hadn’t use many clients but I heard about boost for reddit as I was trying out Lemmy the first time and found out there is boost for Lemmy too, it has ads but I think there is also a pay version? I may be wrong about that though. so far boost has been nice
Lemmy has an abnormally tech literate and FOSS “aware” (there’s got to be a better term but I’m blanking) user base. The community is small enough that recognizing people isn’t unheard of so we tend to be more polite overall - with a smaller community there’s less of a sense of anonymity and more social accountability. Oh, we tend to be rather left leaning but, to be honest, “The universe has a well known liberal bias”.
Other than those factors we’re a mix of folks.
Tech literate and Foss aware
Lawl. Speak for yourself: I’m a luddite - I just asked someone ‘what is a foss’
Is this is what happened to my parents when the internet came along and computers started being a thing? I swore to God that would never happen to me
You shouldn’t feel to bad gen x and millennials created the web and how most tech is today. The generation after these are damn near tech illiterate. If it’s not an app or buttons to click they’re lost.
Technically, every generation up until now contributed to modern tech.
But anyway, even if we consider just those who did directly, I am pretty sure you should still also include boomers and even the silent generation.
Check out the computer chronicles: https://archive.org/details/computerchronicles?sort=date
Seems modern enough already.
wowee is it really that bad for them? I wouldve thought since they grew up with tech that it would just be intuitive to them.
I’m curious, how did you find out about and start using Lemmy? Most folks on Reddit when the API fiasco was happening acted like you needed to be a tech god to even sign up, so I’m curious if you felt intimidated at all?
The median age seems to be much higher than other platforms if i had to guess its around 30-35. There are a good deal of tech people, Foss people and activists. There seems to be a balance of gender( based on nothing but vibes). Lots of lgbt people and communities.
There is a culture of creating art, technology and building spaces. There is a culture of inclusiveness and working together. Calling out bad behaviors in people, companies and governments.
Also cats and coffee.
I am only including the lemmy that is within my own federation. I am aware there is fringe communities of extremists and vile people but I’ve had very little interaction with them so I can’t say how much of an impact they have on lemmy as a whole.
You’re thinking of “floss”.
Foss is loose debris on an airfield or flight deck that can get sucked into an engine or blown into something important.
