The impact is already noticeable, especially on subs where the mods remain in conflict with the admins. Regardless of how that pans out, I’m thankful to have discovered Lemmy along the way.

consider: transmasculine clumsy soldier femboy twink Mulan

I grew up in a rural area where most lawns had lots of clover, wildflowers, stuff like that. Never realized that’s considered “unusual” until I left the area and realized, “wow, most suburbs don’t have that!”

I unironically like my receding hairline cuz it helps me look less babyfaced 😂

I used to feel that way on Mastodon myself! Being immersed in mundane content felt more like Facebook w/strangers (kind strangers, at least!) instead of what I’d want from a Twitter alternative (fluid breaking news discussions, humour, even “viral” content). What helped me is aggressively following hashtags and users who post stuff I care about, cuz the Mastodon experience relies heavily on follows compared to Twitter — now my feeds are much more active and focused on stuff I care about.

It isn’t perfect though, and there’s much I miss about Twitter’s content/follow recommendation system. Like obviously we shouldn’t repeat the ultra-unethical aspects of that system (privileging “angertainment,” conflict, false information, hate content, etc). But I wish its good aspects (ease of finding other users who discuss what you like, democratizing who gets a “voice” in public discourse, allowing users to directly confront public figures/institutions when needed, etc) could be replicated on Mastodon somehow.

I feel like much of Reddit has the same problem to varying degrees depending on the sub (saw it all the time on r/Android and r/Apple, but didn’t see it at all on smaller/chiller subs like r/Tamagotchi). I don’t like seeing it on Lemmy either though, it’s not something the community or platform should positively reinforce

Someone on Reddit said “years of muscle memory gone,” which hit me hard. Apollo was Reddit for me for years, so depressing watching this play out.