Average Lemmy Active Users by Month

Guster@lemmy.world to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 922 points –
480

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First of all, rooting for decentralized net 100%. Watching Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, etc. all get screwed over from the top down sucks. I really appreciate the strong community here - having it smaller and more engaging encourages participation and makes it feel a little more human.

However, I'm considering leaving Lemmy just because somehow it's even more cynical than reddit, and I'm losing interest in opening the app if it's just 99% downers. I mean almost every article is just crushingly bad news. The world is in a rough state for sure, and staying informed is really important! But trying to live on and find the good is near impossible here.

(Yes, I'm subbed to upliftingnews. That's the 1%.)

Is this a demographics thing, or am I just subbed in all the wrong places? Maybe a bit of both?

I’ve been doing my best to add content. I’m currently working on a book review, a video game review, and a Battletech post. Unfortunately posts like that take time and are outpaced by the tempo of news articles and resulting arguments within.

If you want a more positive experience you should unsubscribe from all the news & politics stuff. Trust me, when you click on “frontpage all”, it will be there. No reason to also have it in your subscribe feed. Go into the creative communities and at the very least comment. Give some feedback, and ideally add something of your own. Lemmy is too small to simply expect content to exist without adding some of your own.

@setsneedtofeed this! We are building something here. Not sure where you post but I'm adding you to my follows so I'll see your OC.

You could just add cat memes instead

I’m also posting faster low effort stuff, but I really want posts with some meat to them.

Sub to a bunch of hobby communities and browse only those rather than the "all" content if you want to get rid of the doom. You're gonna have lesser content to consume, for sure, but that's just a bonus in my book.

the niche communities that i subbed to here after being a reddit refugee are mostly ghost towns... kind of a bummer.

I blocked all the news communities for this reason. Just go down your feed and look at the name of the community and if the post or community isnt what you want to see or interested in than block it. Ive been doing that and my feed has improved dramatically. Theres only so much depressing stuff im willing to expose myself to, some people get off on the emotional charge seeing that kind of news, not me though.

Spend so time on Risa. We're a big ball of love! And Star Trek memes!

The sort of people with the moral height to migrate to decentralized platforms are also, likely, the sort of people to be realists – the world is fucked, hiding from the truth doesn't make it go away.

And just reading about it doesn't either... being informed is important but letting negativity consume your world view isn't healthy or productive, it's just angsty.

Part of that truth is also that there is positive news out there, more than people are necessarily aware of, but OPs very valid point is you rarely find that discussed on Lemmy. And when it is brought up people take great delight in torpedoing it. That's not realistic, that's defeatist doomerism.

I dunno why people dislike your take - I think it's spot on.

Bit of both! I like the aquarium sub here. I also get really sick of the same bad news over and over again. Especially since a lot of the sources are....not reliable sources... I generally stick to stuff like conversation subs gardening, gaming, etc.

I think you're right. I spend way less time here than on reddit, because the content just sucks in comparison. And I don't need to waste my time explaining to someone from hexbear why they are completely lost

It's a capitalism thing. It's a race to the bottom, and the system is winning.

Probably both. I try not to sub to any news type communities since they mostly just bring you down.

I think more serious and organic discussion isn't necessarily going to be positive all the time.