I come on here every so often to see what’s going on, and every time I leave disappointed. This is my top 3 grievances at the moment:
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This place feels dead. It’s usually quite, but lately it really feels like a ghost town. Idk what the actual stats say, but I feel like the amount of comments, posts, and variety seem to have gone down quite a bit over the past few months.
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The amount of genuinely hateful content has gone up. I feel like Lemmy as a whole used to have better moderation even just last year compared to now. Every time I get on here, I’m seeing more and more gross content that’s either racist or bigoted or just downright gross. This content doesn’t get taken down even when reported. As horrid as Reddit’s moderation is, it’s still not this bad.
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Outside of the tech communities, there’s no information hygiene anywhere in sight. The news subs publish the most questionable of sources, sometimes outright misinformation… and nobody cares? People don’t criticize weak sources or call out false claims or even value accuracy. I’ve seen multiple instances of users saying something false and getting upvoted for it and a person correcting them getting downvoted for it. Like, what’s even happening?
I don’t know, I feel like when I joined a couple of years ago Lemmy was so much better. It felt more active, the community felt more down to earth, kind, and friendly, and the content was higher in quality. There was much optimism surrounding the Fediverse that’s not there anymore. Now it feels like a more left wing version of Voat than a genuine Reddit alternative. Am I the only one feeling this way or do other people feel the same?
Sad.
Feels dead.
Just like my will to live…
Might pick up ham radios as a hobby if I wasn’t so scared and introverted to talk to old white dudes in America… yea that’d feel weird… most ham radio people are right wing libertarians… not my cup of tea… also not white… which might be weird when they start asking what my favorite sports team is or what my favorite music is… not American enough to answer those questions lmfao…
if this can help: you and I we’ve been chatting around here, and I’m a old white dude (just from France) ;)
BTW, I’m also an introvert too, the thing that helped the most live with it is to… accept it (aka, to stop wishing I was not an introvert) and be ok with feeling awkward when I’m with people.
I think the worst part would be “What do you do for a living”…
Um… sweats profusely I’m a financial consultant and a paralegal for a relative’s bussiness? (not entirely false, my mom asks for a lot of help with her stuff)
Like what else am I supposed to say? I’m a loser who is dealing with depression, dropped out of college, unemployed, living with parents…
Might as well as just shoot myself the 'Murican style
(On the other hand tho… I could be very interesting and unique since I was born in a foreign country…)
Why are you looking for the approval of people you haven’t even met yet?
All those “where are you from, what do you do for a living, what do you do for fun” type questions are just to establish a common ground. You don’t have to take them so seriously.
And like, you’re already going to share at least one common hobby of being into HAM at the very least. Ask questions, engage in conversation and dont be super introspective about whether your conversation was optimal.
Depends what you want.
Do you think you should be the person they want you to be? Then, yes, their opinion matters. If no, why give a crap about their opinion?
Many, many years ago, I quit my dream job.
It was the job I dreamed of doing since I was a teen, a job I was quite good at with reasonable successes, earning decent money with even some ‘prestige’ associated to it… but it was also a job that was quickly killing me, literally. It was not just grinding my soul to dust, it was destroying my body to the point that, one morning, I died (I was dead and would have stayed so had my spouse not been there). We decided I had to quit, to let go of the ‘dream’, the money and the perks associated with it. We’ve watched the vast majority of our ‘friends’ turn their back on us the moment I stopped being useful or valuable to them. Had it not been so sad to witness it would have been hilarious, they left en masse (it was more useful for my spouse and I to realize how poorly we had made friends so far, real precious lesson). We’ve also heard a lot of talks, most being mean spirited. So what? I don’t give a crap what anyone can think: it’s not them I’m married with ;)
I’m now much older and still much poorer than I once was. But I also live a much happier life. My spouse and I, we’ve been through all the hardship together and we’re still holding fine after 25+ years together.
Take that for someone that was once dead : it’s probably not worth it. Your time on this planet is already very limited, it’s the most valuable gift you were ever given. Use all of it, don’t waste it.
If something is sour in your life, it’s probably worth fixing it, one way or the other. Even if it’s painful.
I’m in a similar boat re ham radio. It seems like a cool hobby, I’m into the idea of building and running radios. Even better if you add backpacking, DX-ing, “fox hunting” or other ham radio games. But the culture is a little off for my taste. People are generally polite and friendly enough on short contacts but you can hear some bad takes if you chat long enough. It would be cool to see younger, diverse, more left leaning new hams, it would get me more interested in going on air.