Lemmy seems active, but niche and difficult to navigate. Mastodon may be good, but it seems like another favorites-picking drama-enabling platform, or at least that’s how it is on certain instances. X has been pretty bad, but with some good moments, and Bluesky has been the absolute worst next to Truth Social. I’m almost tempted to use Facebook, but perhaps Discord or Reddit could be better, as I’ve had mild success with them before, but always found myself led astray by toxic groups or “friend finder” communities on Discord or bored by Reddit. I don’t think any large social media is going to be broadly good, as freedom means freedom to be a jerk. Curated sites tend to be a bit better, but curation styles rarely meet my standards (including being consistent). Lemmy and certain Matrix rooms might be the best answers, but I just wanted to make sure. IDK if I’m even worthy of a good community, as I can be toxic, but I digress. May as well start the conversation and not overthink it.
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The ones where I have filterable control over what I see and who I interact with and who aren’t pushing ragebait at me or tracking me. So, fediverse services basically.
Social media was a mistake, even group chats on messaging apps turn into shit pretty fast.
And yet here we are… :(
Indeed :(
I honestly prefer Lemmy over Mastodon. My experience with Mastodon has been one of screaming into the void with very little actual engagement with anyone. Also, it just seems like everyone is trying to sell their product or advertise their blog. It probably depends on which tags one chooses to follow, but I grew tired of it very quickly. I haven’t had the same experience with Lemmy for whatever reason, which is why I prefer it.
Same here. Lemmy is kinda like reddit when it wasn’t shit. Mastodon is just really awkward to use.
I kinda like Sharkey as well but the federation doesn’t work with Lemmy.
I definitely prefer Lemmy’s topic driven approach to Mastodon’s personality driven approach.
But that could come down to how I use Mastodon (and Twitter before it with a third party algorithm free app) which is to follow people that share good/interesting content and post with hashtags for visibility.
ETA: …and I refuse to use X, Reddit, or Facebook (or any of its alter egos)…
You mention Lemmy and Facebook and Bluesky and Discord all in the same breath, but they all serve different purposes. The topic premise isn’t quite wrong to lump them all in as ‘social media’ or ‘communities’, but I think those strokes are too broad.
It really depends on what your goals and interests are. All have their problems, from dark patterns to limited user count.
Good point.
Facebook and Discord:
1.) Local marketplace; a second opinion to Craigslist, perhaps for older people who don’t want to deal with Craigslist making messaging people over mobile inconvenient.
2.) Local events; a place to join groups and meet real, new people, maybe even as an alternative to dating platforms.
3.) The oldest platform (FB); in theory, posts from before even X may exist.
4.) Older demographic (FB); political drama tends to supersede sybau Skibidi toilet flavor proshippers DNI drama: it’s easier to ignore old person propaganda than organized hatred.
5.) College groups (Discord); you can find college groups. [https://www.facebook.com/community/whats-new/college-community-connect-facebook-campus/](This suggest possibility on Facebook, but it’s old, so IDK if it works anymore.)
X or Mastodon:
1.) Sexual freedom* if I need it. *Your sexual freedom may be substantially limited, as taboo themes like CNC and BDSM may get you filtered, sex workers will flood most hashtags you were hoping to promote yourself with (including “quitting porn” and “abstinence” type ones surprisingly enough), and despite being unable to promote certain themes, zoophiles get to go wild. Tumblr and DeviantArt:
1.) Long text*. *The formatting on both is shit. I have to press space 5 or 6 times instead of using tab or I’m unable to use Times New Roman 12 pt font or something.
2.) Historic user bases; many gems to unearth.
3.) Active with relatively less toxicity and porn (at least Tumblr has less toxicity and porn, though DeviantArt is dead enough for mostly only enthusiasts to have stayed post-Eclipse).
I don’t use social media. I use antisocial media (like Lemmy) 🫠
I use Sharkey for microblogging, PieFed for reddit-alternative, and PixelFed for Instagram-alternative. I also still use Reddit itself but am more of a lurker there and for specific communities.
Lemmy, Bluesky, Catodon, which is an adorable Mastodon clone which is way better than the Mastodon app. Pixelfed is nice too.
An aside, I haven’t used my Twitter account in 11 years, and I would read it now and then, but when Space Karen bought it I logged out and deleted it (didn’t deactivate so nobody took my name), and randomly a few weeks ago got notified my account has been banned for “inauthentic behaviour”. It was super weird, but who cares. Dumpster fire.
so lemmy and mbin and piefed seem to be all the same combo. I like them. kbin/mbin had this thing to incorporate mastadon but I kinda wish they all were setup where all accounts had a personal community that is private by default and people could open them and admin them so that I could subscribe to people if they wanted to use those like that.
Bathroom stall walls and unhinged irreverent rants in public spaces.
