this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2026

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Doomscrolling, much? When people love a certain place's content, and there's already a load of older content there, why don't they just go look back through it for their enjoyment? (notes in post) (media.piefed.social)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Am I making sense with that?

Example-- a very popular founder and content-creator upon multiple history subs recently retired. Now, I've tried to create at least a slow trickle of content with their departure (!historyart@piefed.social is one of the places), but a couple weeks ago someone made a comment that they missed the old days of ~10 new posts a day. Fair! Then I reminded them that there's 2,000+ posts already made in that community, and whenever they wanted to enjoy more content by the founder, well... it was just sitting there waiting for them.

*crickets*

TBH, that also seems to be the case with my own community. We're coming up on 700 posts now across 3+yrs, and I've put considerable work in to most of those posts, trying to make them mini-articles/editorials as often as possible, but it's the same thing... very few people want to look through the older content. It's like everything has to live and die on the stream, so to speak.

I mean-- is automated-posting and doomscrolling just the way it is, these days? And if so, does that have something to do with most people now browsing the Fediverse by mobile, instead of desktop?

Thanks for your opinions on this stuff. I'm honestly kinda baffled...

top 19 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I think the ppint has already been answered, but you come to places like this to join in discussions. If I just wanted to learn and not interact I'd click around on wikipedia

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I do do this. Whenever I discover a new community with interesting (unique) content, I'll scroll through the back catalogue. I just don't comment on it; there's no point in trying to comment on a year-old post. It's got to be a community with unique content or a specific theme, though. I'm not going to scroll through generic news posts from a year ago, but I will scroll through old memes or something like Not The Onion.

[–] aSaabD00d@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago

Upvoted bc you said, "do do" and I'll never fully grow up.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 4 points 2 days ago

I just don’t comment on it; there’s no point in trying to comment on a year-old post.

Truth, of a sort. But matey, I'm still here. No need to treat me like that. Obsolete, whatever.

Me? I like trying to talk about history, but I'm just an idiot.

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 days ago

I'm here for the interaction combined with the learning.

Comments on old posts don't get much interaction.

Maybe repost the oldies and get a convo going.

[–] papalonian@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

they missed the old days of ~10 new posts a day.

why don't they just go look back through it for their enjoyment?

I don't see how you've drawn the conclusion that people haven't already done this, and want new content to go through. The fediverse is small enough that you can usually comb through an entire community's backlog in a couple days, if not hours. When the backlog is empty, they're going to wish they had more content.

It's like recommending someone just go watch the older seasons of a long running show they liked that ended, sure there's probably a number of people that haven't seen the first season or two but a lot of people have already seen it and watching the same show on repeat is not the same as a new episode every week.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

EDIT
No, I'm the one who's wrong.

You seem to be drastically missing the point, if that's your current conclusion.

Let's see if I can figure out things?

[–] kindnesskills@literature.cafe 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I drew the same conclusion from what you wrote, so perhaps you can find a way to clarify the point of your post?

[–] papalonian@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Ok, thanks for clarifying I guess?

If I'm being honest my real conclusion was "OP seems real whiny about people wanting more content outside of what they've been posting", especially with the "I 'reminded' them about the 2000+ posts" remark, but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A lot of us do go browse and read older content — but there is a bit of stigma about commenting on older posts.

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was coming here to say this exact thing.

We've been conditioned for a very long time not not to necro posts. I know for many types of posts, they may be more in the moment type things (jokes, current events, etc) but things like all my animal stuff, that doesn't change, so I wouldn't care if someone would comment on an older post. If anything, I know more about the subject now than when I originally posted, but I know that probably isn't the majority of cases.

[–] kazerniel@piefed.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

On reddit I occasionally get replies years after my original post/comment, and it always throws me a bit, like sitting in a time machine, travelling back to a random old conversation, the state that the discussed game was in at the time, etc.

I'm of a mixed mind if keeping old comment threads open is a good idea. For advice-based communities definitely, but for random conversations not really. The context changes, the people's lives changes, dragging old conversations back to life just feels out of place.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

On the other hand some of the most legendary forum threads I've ever read were ones that got necro'd three times over ten years and are still running. SA has a few of those.

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Since so many communities here are run by one or maybe 2 people, maybe adding a message about necros welcome or not welcome could be a thing.

[–] ieightpi@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's easier to not doom scroll on Lemmy in general. Lots of real people who are just less angry.

[–] kazerniel@piefed.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's for different moods. When discovering a new community, I can spend a couple hours looking through several pages' worth of of All Time Top posts, but for daily quick visits I just look at 1-2 pages of the Hot feed of my subscribed communities. If something doesn't make it there, I'll likely miss it. (I occasionally venture over to the Scaled feed too.)

I don't think I ever looked through a community's entire back catalogue though. Though tbf I did most of my deep diving on reddit, where it just wasn't practical with the volume of posts (also like 10+ pages in it often started to feel like I was down to the dregs in quality). But it may be more practical on Lemmy/PieFed.

[–] MichaeleanDouglasse@thelemmy.club 2 points 2 days ago

I'm sure it's a processing issue or whatever, but I wish communities for let you sort by old-new.

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Old content? Wait til you hear about these things called books.

[–] Melobol@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

I think it is how our brains were trained.
These sites - do not help with older content. This is a perfect example to an other post about how Internet used to have spaces.
Lemmy isn't designed for long term - "let's go back" content. Not even WordPress is.
Tho over there you can have tags and groups for articles so you can read it more easily.
At this point probably a wikia-type site would work better for readingbolder posts, but obviously not good for engagement and convos.