On big commercial social media, people think the websites they are on are a big deal: opinions you share there, people you interact with, engagement you receive. It must matter SO MUCH to them - especially to influencers who earn some money from it.

Well, commercial Web is an obvious fodder to the Fedi but what about other alternative social spaces? These small, timy websites with barely any activity on them... there's no place for such delusions. They aren't changing the world and they know it.

Fediverse, in comparison... oof. You see, it is the Future. If We succeed, the Evil will be defeated. The whole world depends on the few people who ended up on here. It is a quiet place now but it will inevitably become the most popular thing. The Year of ~~Linux~~ Fediverse is any day now!

This feel of self-importance and superiority leads to the level of drama almost on-par with the corporate socials which is highly unusual in such small online spaces, at least in my experience.

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[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

What do you mean by "I don’t see it anywhere else where I’ve been."? The Lemmyverse in contrast to other Fediverse platforms? Or the Fediverse versus other social platforms? Commercial (with algorithms) or free? I mean I sometimes see some destructive tendencies on Mastodon as well. And there's a lot of shenanigans going on in YouTube comments, on Reddit or underneath half the newspaper articles. But I'd also say a lot of platforms come with a unique atmosphere. Either due to the userbase or because of how they're set up and what kind of behaviour gets reinforced due to platform design.

[–] retractedfangs@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lemmy in comparison to all other online social media including the rest of Fediverse. I mean, the times are tough and people are angry for a reason, there's rage and despair everywhere but no other place is so entrenched in negativity as Lemmy.

Big socials also have lots of negativity but they are BIG: you can find so much stuff that you can completely ignore what is probably 50+% of the content on the platform.

Small socials, on the other hand, manage it surprisingly well. I don't know why Lemmy can't manage the negativity under control, to be honest. No other small social media I visit has a problem with not drowning in doom. My one theory is that the other small socials have a focus: creativity, technology, some kind of media, etc. Maybe having a common interest in such a tight knit community is a remedy to doomscrolling?

It would also explain why pre-APIcalypse Lemmy wasn't nearly as toxic - the flagship instance was focused on technology.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Thanks for explaining. I'd agree with the reasoning. And it's a mix of several factors, I think. Basically our history. We grew and that means you can get away with more (bad) things in a large group of people than in a smaller, more tightly coupled group. We attracted a wider audience, so now it's not just a few privacy nerds, Linux users and a buch of tankies coexisting, but all ideological factions of society. We also got a few Reddit refugees who got banned over there for good reasons.

But in my opinion it's an entire thing: The political landscape got way more extremist in recent years in general. And we do lots of talking about politics here. So with being a link aggregator and sharing news articles we get all the polarizing stuff and due to psychology, people share negative news articles because that gets you riled up and want to talk. Or fight. We also copied some social media design elements which reinforce some specific kinds of negative behaviour. Subscribing to groups does compartmentalization. And the entire philosophy of the Fediverse adds yet another layer of compartmentalization, which doesn't always work in our favor. I think it also awakens some tribal instincts in some people. Which might not even be bad(?) unless they start to disunite and fight each other. Which some do. I don't think that's an issue on Reddit for example, because that's just one central place, plus they keep a tighter leash on their mods. And Mastodon would be yet different because you can't split up into groups/communities, there's just people to be followed and global hashtags. And once there's any level of normalization of drama and negativity, the internet will add more on top 😅

[–] retractedfangs@mander.xyz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I never thought about Lemmy's communities as one of the reasons for the combative attitude that's so common here. Although, I disagree that Mastodon and Reddit are less affected by it: Reddit definitely had serious fights between subreddits and they stopped being so prominent primarily because of Reddit's heavy-handed moderation. Mastodon, on the other hand, is defined by defederations (which are worse than on Lemmy) and since visibility depends almost entirely on the amount of followers (tags are rather unpopular on Masto), groups form naturally around popular users whose boosts are the main way to be seen.

I can totally confirm that Lemmy users are susceptible to tribalism - just for the amount of times I heard that someone being called a fascist/tankie/lib because they are from a certain Lemmy instance. And I know I think this way too sometimes.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You're probably right. I don't spend a lot of time on Mastodon. I likely missed drama and defederation. Other than the occasional shitstorms. But I think that's just "a thing" on microblogging platforms. And the German privacy nerds I follow on Mastodon do way less of it anyway.

And regarding language... That seems to be a factor as well. The German speaking community here on Lemmy established a different atmosphere. From my perspective, there's way less yelling at each other amongst the Germans than in the broad English speaking Threadiverse. There's trolls and a lot of memelords, but seems to me some people still remember the "Netiquette". And those ideology- or identity wars aren't as loud. I heard from other people, it's similar (also a noticeably different atmosphere) in the French speaking corner.

[–] retractedfangs@mander.xyz 2 points 9 hours ago

I wish my experience with Masto&Co could be as peaceful. Back when I joined it there was a devastating drama between multiple trans instances that led to a mass defederation from one particular instance. One of my mutuals was on it, they didn't know about the drama and I was too busy with IRL stuff to warn them about incoming defederation. Being cut-off like this wasn't pleasant at all.

From my perspective, there’s way less yelling at each other amongst the Germans than in the broad English speaking Threadiverse.

That's interesting. My only experiences are with English internet as well as my native language with the latter being so awful that I learned English just to escape that circus. I suppose English internet is in hell right now because of the US primarily. Maybe I should consider learning a new language :D