Is Lemmy your "main social media app"? If not, which one is it?
I have fully transitioned to using Lemmy and Mastodon right when third party apps weren't allowed on Spez's place anymore, so I don't know how it is over there anymore.
What do you use? Are you still switching between the two, essentially dualbooting?
What other social media do you use? How do you feel about Fediverse social media platforms in general?
(I'm sorry if I'm the 100th person to ask this on here...)
BlueSky’s mobile app is such a clone of twitter, transitioning is nearly seamless for the average user. I tried mastodon at first, but it felt pretty rocky and different (and I’m rather techy).
Between BlueSky and Voyager for Lemmy (I was an Apollo user on Reddit), my user experience hasn’t changed at all – except for the pleasant lack of bots and Nazis on both platforms.
It's my only social media. I have Voyager, and it's all I need. I never used FB or Twitter, or anything other than Reddit. And I'm done with that cesspool.
I made a new account recently, I used to be on Lemmy.world, but as I start to learned more about how the fediverse works, I wanted to get away from the giant main instance, help spread the users out.
Perhaps there is a way to transfer some account history? I didn't find any, so now I'm a Fediverse baby again.
Been trying lemmy for a few months, and I have mixed feelings. Not going back to reddit even if hell freezes but if only I could strip the orange turd and the jumping dipshit (and all of us politics) from my feed I’d enjoy it way more. This is most certainly user error, so if anyone has any recommendations I would welcome them. Being on .world is the problem?
The instance could be a problem if you scroll through the 'local' feed often and thats where you see a lot of things you don't wish to see. A European or special interest instance might suit your context, (Portuguese?), better.
I spend more time on my 'local' (aussie zone) feed than 'subscribed' or 'all' and its definitely nicer, so a move like this can work.
But you could also optimise your own 'subscriber' feed as another option.
Well thanks I’ll try your suggestions. I tried a portuguese instance but it was really slow going, maybe I should check again. Truth is I haven’t entirely figured how this works and to be truthful staying out of social media as whole has been refreshing. But I find the lack of users and memes from 10 years ago kinda charming, being a decades old reddit user, lemmy holds some of the niceness of reddit in the old years so I’ll stick around.
Would mastodon be any better? Have no interest on xitter clones like bluesky
yeah i basically only use lemmy and watch youtube videos, or i pirate media, play games with friends, or do stupid stuff with my computer that i shouldnt be allowed to do
Ok that is fair. I commented on someone elses comment here that they should try out PeerTube, as that is a decentralized option with all the benefits of the fediverse.
Started on lemmy today after reddit perma banned my 14 year old account for breaking the first rule of reddit. I may have told some to kill themselves. I'm definitely in the wrong but I don't care I'm taking the ban personally and never using it again.
They banned me for giving my opinion on how child molesters should be punished and then permabanned me for doing it again when I got back. Funny thing is people say the exact same kind of shit about all kinds of other people and those comments are fine... weird how they only care to protect people who molest children.
I lost my 10+ yr old account because I got auto banned from a mess of subs for leaving a comment on an anti vax sub CRITICAL of them. You have to love lazy mods who ban without any consideration of context. Now I just glance at the posts and comments and avoid the urge to participate.
Besides this place, I also use Imgur and YouTube to help fill in the void after leaving reddit. I'm considering joining Bluesky and Mastodon as well but I've never used a Twitter-like interface before so it's intimidating.
Unfortunately I still haven't found a suitable replacement for niche communities. There's always forums, but I got too used to points-based communities, and because comments are sorted chronologically, it's hard to know what's crap and what's actual useful information. Which can suck if you need a good opinion on something. 20-30 years ago that wouldn't have even bothered me, cause forums were the only social media I knew then. But times have changed.
Same for me. Mostly using Lemmy and Mastodon since they’re filling two different roles. I also reluctantly still use Instagram since all my friends are on it.
Some people seem to see it as a negative that
Mastodon with its linear feed doesn’t get them nearly as addicted as corporate social media but for me that’s a huge plus.
Mostly on Lemmy. I'm on Mastadon too. I don't know if YouTube counts but I'm on there as well and is the only corporate social media I use consistently.
I find myself using Instagram more but only following a handful of creators, I don't post or check on my feed. I deleted my Twitter and LinkedIn but can't get myself to delete my Meta accounts because of the people that I have contact with on there. I hardly contact ppl but the sentimentally of the connections is something
Lemmy is the only one I'll log onto and the only one I have as an app.
Sometimes though, I'll miss a super specific community from the place spez ruined, and scroll through it in DuckDuckGo browser.
Anything that has an intransparent, engagement driving, ad laden algorithm that determines what you do and don't see is thoroughly unappealing to me. At least now that I'm a little more tech savvy and anti-corporate.
I guess I do technically have a Facebook account still because I don't remember the password of either that account or the associated email address. I used that for local flea market and food sharing groups up until maybe 6 years ago.
Anything that has an intransparent, engagement driving, ad laden algorithm that determines what you do and don't see is thoroughly unappealing to me. At least now that I'm a little more tech savvy and anti-corporate.
Hear hear. Under the guise of Engagement, corporations have weaponized algorithms to maximize the time you spend on their platforms, and it's absolutely been a race to the bottom, prioritizing Outrage above all else. Hard pass, thanks.
Corporate goals don't align with that of users like they used to.
It feels super weird having used Lemmy for a while, and to then come back to something like Youtube, which does have it's proprietary algorithm thingy. So weird seeing content I didn't explicitely agree to seeing.
Facebook appears to be a common ground for many replies on this post, which I find very interesting.
Ikr? I have to use YouTube a specific way. I'll go to a channel and go to the tab that just lists the videos chronologically. I'll go back there if I want a second video. The only way I find new creators I enjoy watching is through recommendation/someone sending a link to a group chat. Shame really, I bet there's plenty of content out there that I'd enjoy, but I can't handle the algorithm.
I think the Facebook thing is because it was more or less the first social media that pretty much everyone was on. Everything before was a little more niche. But back in, like, 2010, it felt like you were missing out if you weren't on FB. At least that's my experience/guess (I'm 27 and in middle Europe).
Imgur if you want memes, cats, and politics, but keep in mind that they're not much better than reddit. No 3rd party apps, and the official app has ads & sells your data to Facebook. You can block it by using the DDG app and enabling App Tracking Protection, however. Also setting your phone's DNS server to dns.adguard-dns.com. You should be doing those two things anyway, regardless of what apps you do or don't use.
I primarily use Lemmy. It's the only place to really find intelligent conversation. I hop over to reddit on occasion for topics that just aren't here yet. But almost every comment thread is either full of bots or those with little reading comprehension.
Lemmy and Mastodon for me. I don’t get a lot of engagement on Mastodon but I never did on twitter either. So Lemmy is probably 90% of my interaction and mastodon is basically an reader for certain hashtags and people on the fedi
Almost the same way I used to use Twitter innthe early days:
Find a client that I’m comfortable with (IceCubes for me)
follow people that post interesting stuff
engage in conversations
Works really well for me and even though I only have half the amount of followers I had on Twitter, I have more high quality conversations and less trolls.
Yeah, you subscribe to hashtags to start, find people you agree with/find interesting, follow them, and then as they boost stuff you'll find more and more people to follow.
For me its startet for some years ago with Mastodon,then I grew into the fediverse (I didn't know anything about it) and now I use loops.video (stil its made for doomscroling) mastodon, Lemmy and pixelfed. Loops I think I'm to old to use that much, (to fast for me) but else I'm really happy with the social media. I haven't been on a mainstream SOME for 3 years.
I use rdx.overdevs.com to read reddit still as it has a lot more fashion, art and vegan content than here, but the only places I interact online in that way anymore are the Fediverse and Fragrantica, but the latter only really for perfume related stuff.
Had a Facebook account I completely ignored (set it up for my first girlfriend and we exclusively used Yahoo Messenger) then turned into a music dump, then deleted. I honestly never saw the point of Facebook, not with apps like WhatsApp or even standard SMS evolving as they have, even back then (talking about the 2010s).
Had an Instagram account for about 3 months - surprisingly decent source of grotesque/morbid art! Again, saw no point in this, and Reddit felt superior in all ways.
Mainlined Reddit for a good couple of years, mostly during the Pandemic. By the time I got into it, one could feel its bulk, so to speak. Sure 99.7% of Reddit were the users, but even so, it felt as though subreddit quirks and in-jokes had ossiffied into tennets by that point. Loved it, but it felt constraining here and there.
Switched to Lemmy a couple of months after deleting my Reddit account when shit went down, and it's all I've been using and plan on using. Unless one counts news aggregators as social platforms.
I love this scroungy, spit-and-duct tape feel of the fediverse, to be very honest. Feels like the days when we used to group chat on local network sharing apps, like it's just the neighbourhood kids around. And it seems to not be dissipating even with the huge increase in users, which is a good sign. Plus the obvious lack of curation other than baseline moderation and/or personal grudges is always nice!
The way that the fediverse is split up like this, with many instance working with different rulesets really does make it feel like some neighbourhood people coming together to chat.
I especially like the way how, why you chose an instance, you can either stay within the bounds of your own local group, or interact with all the people by switching over to the "subscribed" tab (at least this is the case here on blahaj zone).
Yes, that's my favourite aspect about it, the interactivity between the various instances and how distinctly unique each instance seems to have become in terms of ethos. It's wonderful to see so many different 'tribes' and be able to interact with all of them!
I was never much of a social media guy, especially after moonlighting one summer as a social media marketer on Twitter and Instagram (really, really kills it for ya), but I was a redditor for a while.
I swapped over to Lemmy exclusively during the API fees, but to be fair I was already getting frustrated by the service. The karma farming was just too much, so many stupid reposts of the same stupid made up wholesome stories and crap. I think I only miss r/comics and r/idiotsincars, the later requiring a critical mass of people to actually be worthwhile.
Be local. A voice at a local meeting has the potential to have more impact in your life than your side being president. This is why my feed will start in 2-weeks, vs 4-years, no matter how much I want to keep that filter on 😀
In an ever-evolving digital landscape, I am thrilled to immerse myself in the liberating experience of using decentralized platforms like Mastodon, Lemmy, and Pixelfed. Freed from the constraints of centralized social media, I have embarked on a transformative journey. Recognizing the excessive time once consumed by my phone—nearly ten hours a day—I have successfully halved this to around five hours daily, allowing for a healthier balance, with a slight indulgence during weekends.
My commitment to this shift is further evidenced by my conscious decision over the past two years to bid farewell to major platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr. More recently, I have cut ties with Instagram, Facebook, BlueSky, Reddit, and even Snapchat.
In an effort to further champion these alternative platforms and their communities, I am proud to contribute by donating to Mastodon. This initiative not only represents a personal commitment but also an investment in the growth and resilience of decentralized social networks, encouraging more people to explore the boundless opportunities they offer.
I have never really considered Lemmy or Reddit to be "social media." They're entirely anonymous, and you're not being exposed to posts where a apecific person is talking about themselves (at least for the most part). I think a modern equivalent to a PhpBB forum or (if you're old) a BBS is more accurate.
Lemmy. For more niche communities that don't exist on Lemmy I use RSS feeds on specific subreddits. Discord for chatting with friend and other niche communities. LinkedIn because I'm in academia.
Lemmy is my main social media account. I also switched from Reddit when Spez killed third party apps, and I won't go back. I use Sync for Lemmy on my phone and tablet. I paid for the lifetime Ultra account, because that's how much of a "fuck you" I wanted to give Spez. I'll gladly pay the $100 for an alternative ad-free app than use Reddit's free app.
I also use Imgur, although it's been suffering from enshittification ever since Sarah and the team sold it. I can't even save a post without getting a pop-up asking to subscribe to the user or follow similar content tags. Or downvote without being asked if I want to block the user or related tags. Just let me do the thing and move on! Stop trying to customize my experience! I'm still able to block their ads, thanks to my VPN service, but they built a dedicated ad space at the bottom of the app that I can't make go away. So a section of the bottom of my Imgur screen is unusable black space. I miss being able to use my full screen to browse images.
I still have Facebook, but only because everyone I know from my childhood until now is there and it's my main way of staying in touch with people. If I dump Facebook, I'll have practically no one left in my life, except for my sister, wife, and maybe two friends. If I need social engagement concerning something going on in my life, I'll post it there. But I don't use it much.
I have LinkedIn and spent years keeping my profile up to date and super detailed, expecting to need some good references and a solid history of experience and accomplishments. But then I retired at 38 years old and found out I don't need to work anymore, so it's just been collecting dust for the last 2 years now. I still get the occasional request to connect from someone offering to help me find a job (I'm a veteran), but I don't need their assistance. I'm quite happy being retired young.
I have a Discord server I built for my closest friends to stay in touch, but only 2 people regularly interact on it. I subscribed to maybe 30+ other random servers, but I mute pretty much all of them so I'm not inundated with Discord notifications all the time.
I have Twitch, but mostly used it to stream the games I'm playing when I'm bored. I'm happy if I get 1 or 2 views. I do it just for the fun of it, not to build a following or anything.
I have NextDoor, but there are thousands of people in my town who use it regularly, so it's hard to stay in touch with my "neighbors." I mostly ignore it unless I'm trying to find suggestions for something local.
I made a Bluesky account last year; got an invite from a friend before it opened up to everyone. But I hardly ever used Twitter in the past. I always felt like it was pointless unless you were a celebrity with tons of followers. So I'm having trouble thinking of ways to use Bluesky now.
I have Instagram, but only because Facebook merged my account with Instagram when they bought it. I've never used it, not even to browse others' content there.
I made a Snapchat account in high school, but never used it. That was over 20 years ago. Back then, Snapchat was just used to share selfies, and I didn't like taking selfies so I had no use for it. Is Snapchat still a thing?
I had a MySpace account when I was a teenager, but I guess the site got sold sometime in the past decade or two. I kinda forgot about it, and the last time I went to check it out, it was a totally different site and didn't recognize my login anymore.
I made an account on Pixelfed last year to share pictures, but I don't really have anything to share right now. I only remembered I had the account because I just now found their app in my phone.
I use Patreon, mostly just to follow a few people I know and support them.
I worked as an IT guy in the military, and we were explicitly banned from using TikTok when it became popular, because it was a Chinese spyware program and they didn't want it stealing data on US military members. When you installed it, we found that it embedded itself in your phone in a way that was extremely difficult to fully remove, then granted itself full access to your phone and started trickling your data to Chinese servers. It was a massive security vulnerability, which is why President Biden pushed to block TikTok from the US. But the app was so popular, he got a lot of pushback and it never got blocked. It's still wildly popular, but I'll never touch that program.
My only use for Reddit now is reading r/hfy stories, though I'm doing that through a local Redlib instance, hoping that those glitter sniffers don't lock website content behind accounts like almost every other social medium does (but we all know that if something can get worse to make more money, it WILL get worse to make more money).
I completely switched to Mastodon and here, I'd rather not use platforms that are locked down by corporations and will inevitably enshittify without leaving me a simple way to migrate
Nothing has replaced what Reddit was. I use Lemmy for the nostalgic feeling but it does not compare.
I followed news, politics and science, mostly. The community on Reddit used every tool available to create credibility. Then profiteering tore it asunder.
The only other social media app I ever use is Facebook. But it's purely for connections to friends, family and local hobby groups.
Mastodon doesn't do it for me, most of what I find interesting isn't really... there yet.
So my mains are Instagram > Discord > Lemmy > Reddit
In that order I'd say.
Instagram is just the most "personal" social network. I watch my friends' stories, share some of my own here and there.. It's close to how we used facebook back when it wasn't a cesspit of ads and "pages".
Discord is where I keep in direct contact with most of my friends, besides like messengers. Reddit is for specific problem solving and random hobby content.
Lemmy is filling the same niche but I just scroll it more than I do reddit for news, articles, hobby stuff...
While Lemmy is slowly making a dent in my reddit participation, it doesn't do much for other things. I'm involved in IRL politics, food, and the clubbing scene, all stuff that is almost completely absent on the fediverse, especially the American-dominated side of it.
I'm on Lemmy essentially 99% of the time. When I'm on Reddit it's because of niche hobbies that have more presence there. It's very rare. (Or search index results.)
I never use Mastodon. I was only on Twitter for very niche and interactive hobbies that do not have enough people to engage with on Mastodon. I mostly use BlueSky now but still use Twitter on occasion. It's like 50/50 at the moment, but that's a lot considering my BlueSky account is only like two weeks old.
Lemmy has enough content to keep me entertained for general browsing and most of my hobbies.
I use Lemmy almost exclusively. Mastodon and Twitter never appealed to me, as I simply don’t see the point. Unless you use it for receiving info from local authorities and such.
I do still use Facebook for all the local and niche communities, which you can’t find anywhere else. I wish Mobilizon was more equal to Facebook Groups and had an actual mobile app.
Do you use other social media? If yes, which services? What are your screennames and handles? What street did you grow up on? What was your Elementary School's maiden name?
I have been Lemmy only since the 3rd party app thing also. I also stopped using Twitter when Musk bought it, and have Mastadon on my to-do list but I'm not sure if I want to spin up my own instance or make an account elsewhere. Other than that I have no other social media accounts and never have.
As for other Fediverse platforms, I'm strongly opposed to the for profit ones, but happy to see all the open source ones.
I see it very similarly, it feels good having the users of the platforms actually create the platforms themselves.
The way how Facebook is trying to get into this with their Threads or whatever it's called feels very unnatural. Thankfully I haven't seen any people from there over here.
The way how people can create their own instances is super fun. It feels like what people call the Reddit hivemind, but actually realized by the people from within it.
I feel like Threads was dead on arrival. I never hear about it anymore since it's launch. Never tried it though so I can't really say first hand how active it is.
My main social media app is Mastodon (technically Firefish which I will soon migrate to Iceshrimp... but those details are less relevant)
I consider Lemmy less so of a "social media" and more of a link aggregator/discussion forum... but yeah otherwise I try to use Lemmy a bit too. I still browse Reddit quite a lot, but only for individual communities that don't have equivalents on Lemmy, and I no longer post there
I never used much social media to begin with tbh... I feel pretty decent about the Fediverse. Despite all the drawbacks (blocklists, fedi drama, etc), I think people collectively managed to make an objectively better social media platforms compared to the previous corporation-dominated ones (at least by my personal metrics)
no, not really. i kinda quit social media in the sense that i no longer use reddit, instagram, twitter or snap. they were all just too addicting.
i log into lemmy once in a while, to see what's new, since there are some nice niche linux related communities, but apart from that i'm only on youtube (when i'm eating) or on discord (few small-ish servers).
i don't really care much for news or polictics, and if i really need to know what's going on, i check the front page of wikipedia or ask my friends.
i'm still struggling with using my phone more that i'd like, but this week i took a break from discord and youtube, with mixed results so far (see: i'm on lemmy), but overall it's been really freeing to not be on them and have a bunch more free time.
I stopped using Reddit a few years before the whole stupidity, because the culture was fucking with my head.
Then I did the Mastodons for two years or so, with Lemmy eventually entering the mix. And then as Lemmy got more users and content, it took over as my preferred platform.
Lemmy is my main one, yes. I browse Pinterest every now and then, though I'm not sure how many would consider it social media in the traditional sense.
I feel like that would compare two very different types of social media:
Consumption oriented: Platforms which mainly tailor to consumers, like Tiktok, Pinterest, Instagram and Youtube.
Collaboration oriented: Platforms where engagement with the content and discussions are encouraged, like Lemmy and Mostodon and their proprietary equivalents.
i also use youtube and discord, but I am looking for an alternative platform. Because to be honest, they kinda suck. I'm only there because other people are there.
Other than that, Lemmy is the main thing I use. I love it because it just does as I tell it to. Can't be much more simple.
Yeah that's a fair point. The I use it because others do argument is very strong, and I'm assuming that is also why most people are still using Facebook and Twitter.
I have also seen some German Youtubers say, that they'd like to join Mastodon, but that the whole "instance" thing is too confusing to get behind, not understand that you just pick one with your interests, and off you go.
It wins by default but only because I never liked the Twitter/Mastodon/Bluesky-like infinitely scrolling threads and only use Discord to follow some artists.
I'm pretty much using TikTok and Lemmy. Lemmy because of ability to have filters and accessibility options. TikTok for the same reason plus much more likely to get videos of creators who are not all about money grabbing and care about LGBTQIA and nerodivergent people genuinely. Haven't found any other app that does that.
Hm, what an interesting combo. Using both the open and community-empowered Lemmy and the china-controlled ad-driven Tiktok. A combination I haven't seen yet!
Hosting video material is pretty expensive I guess...
Do you find that Tiktok attracts more neurodivergent and queer people than Lemmy? Perhaps consider switching instances? I do understand the convenience of video content though.
I have seen all kinds of people use Tiktok for many different purposes.
My brother uses it like the average zoomer, for the funi fortnite dances, omg rofl he said the thing posts and honiposts. (he's 13)
My father uses it for tips and tricks on stuff. Most posts he gets recommended don't seem bad at all. Of course it's the people who make the platform great, not the owners.
China ad driven as apposed to American ad driven. Same thing different countries so honestly regardless of which one I choose I get a ad riddled country made product. Lemmy and instances only have so much people And usually centered around america. I like TikTok because I get people who are not just American but other demographics and I get to learn about there life's and culture first hand through them without the annoyance of America giga corporation silencing them. Yes TikTok does to a degree but from my experience it's easier to find genuine people on TikTok then any other platforms.
That's why it attracts more nerodivergent people and LGBTQIA people in my own opinion is because you can be yourself and would get insta banned for certain subjects which I won't say here.
I'm not going blindly into TikTok. I know there's a lot of problems with it, idk why "China" always have to come up though, besides racism and propaganda.
Lemmy and mastodon had always seems to always be so. Just. Not accepting as much and lots of propaganda seems to be on here which is really fucking annoying andy instance ban list and lust of banned words is extensive here because of it. Feels like old reddit where there wasn't corporate bullshit just a lot of assholes and lots of good people but hard to tell which is which.
Also for assholes who will want to argue with me, belittle be or whatever. I'll just ban your username on my end so I never have to see you again.
Similar situation. I quickly glance between Lemmy and Mastodon and only use old.reddit when I'm on my PC (just realised I hadn't really used it since I've been making an effort to engage with the manga communities on lemmy) . All my friends and favourite artists seem to use Instagram so I only use it out of necessity for messaging and quick inspirations (I tried using Cara but I found the app somewhat slow and disliked that it wasn't federated, so I could see it having a very low lifespan. I saw it as a poor move for artists to move to it solely on the promise of being "anti-AI" without any redundancies that a de-federated option would have)
I only use Lemmy. Never had accounts on any of the other social media platforms apart from Facebook more than a decade ago. I've been checking reddit, reluctantly, here and there recently to have something to post to my communities. Apart from that, it's been Lemmy only since the exodus
Very interesting. I do still see many posts originating from Reddit around here, presumably exactly because of that reason.
But I must tell you, making your own funis and ideas and putting them onto Lemmy feels really great.
It feels like an invitation to discuss the topic with others and come up with new ideas, instead of feeding other peoples algorithms and keep them hooked on the site.
It feels much more like interacting with real actual people, even if there are less on here.
I hear you. The thing is, the communities I mod are quite niche (in relation to Lemmy's population, that is) and apart from the corresponding subreddits I used to lurk on for years, I'm not really exposed to anything new that would prompt me to make new discussion posts and memes. I've watched all video essays there are about the games, I played through all of them repeatedly, new content is not on the horizon for any one of them. The best thing about them is the discussion in the community which has been missing ever since I created the communities in the first place.
Believe me: I've tried. But keeping three separate communities alive all on your own without community members ever feeling the need to contribute gets exhausting and doesn't feel worthwhile. So making my own content, which I do when I have a cool idea, feels like more of a loss when the engagement is just as high, sometimes lower, as with content off reddit.
It is for me, I use an account on Lemmy.ml for general browsing (and correcting misconceptions about Marxism, if I'm being honest), and a Hexbear.net account I pretty much only browse locally if I just want to relax and not have to worry about getting into an argument.