I posted a few weeks ago about how I didn’t feel like quitting reddit just yet. and, honestly, I still have a hard time not opening my phone every five minutes to check it.
but I decided to quit because I realized how much of a negative echo chamber it was. I couldn’t even mute certain words on the reddit app so I had to keep seeing the same shit over and over again in the popular feed.
it’ll be a long road moving from one platform to another, but I’m pretty satisfied not being strangled by reddit’s overwhelming snark and negativity.
dunno if anyone here feels a similar way, but felt like sharing my thoughts.
I’ve been so disappointed with reddit over the last couple months. I put a decent amount of effort in to curate my feed so it was all low stakes stuff - hobby content, casual chats, local events, a couple help forums related to my profession. It was nice to log on for 5-10 minutes here and there and see someone’s garden or read about someone documenting their pet’s weight loss journey or whatever.
I can’t get ragebait out of my feed any more. I block a subreddit and five more with identical depressing and/or rage-inducing content take its place. It’s boring and it’s bad for my brain. I won’t participate.
New here too. Welcome :)
I can’t get ragebait out of my feed any more. I block a subreddit and five more with identical depressing and/or rage-inducing content take its place.
The way to optimize is to make a multireddit of only your preferred subreddits and check that over and over again. For example, for me, https://old.reddit.com/r/AutoHotkey+FreeGameFindings+news plus a bunch of other ones, whatever you’re comfortable with and enjoy. Be highly selective about what you add to this multireddit and then Reddit becomes heaven because of your awesome filtering.
Because of my ultra-curated multi, Reddit was mostly fine, if not even excellent; I’m just wanting to leave because of its centralization and to support FOSS endeavors.
still doesn’t change the annoying culture reddit has which is ultimately why I left.
“r/allthatisintresting” on popular posts be like:
“THE ULTIMATE CHILD MURDERER. Is sentenced to only one day in prison, judge says it’s fine enough punishment for murdering 900 kids”
“local man burned alive by the cartel dies in hospital”
I feel like I’ll be deleting my reddit account soon. 90% of the feed is anxiety inducing
The initial move feels a bit like you’re giving up on an old friend imo. Many of us hoped reddit would change course or stop sliding towards what they’ve become but it’s obvious now that there will be no turn around. The enshitification will continue until nothing recognizable is left.
With Lemmy and the fediverse you have the chance to make it your own and help shape it as it grows, hopefully avoiding the missteps of reddit.
Welcome to Lemmy mate. Have fun settling in to your new home.
Any suggestions? I haven’t deleted yet (1) because I already have stupid gold and (2) because I want to find replacements for some important to me subs I’m on. Fora forums are close but I’m not all the way there yet. Cheers mate.
The honest answer usually isn’t what people want to hear.
Many people come to Lemmy thinking they can maintain whatever their habits were on reddit. For most people that means lurking and voting, not much else. Lemmy isn’t really big enough yet for that to work unless you’re only interested in the dominant topics here like linux and star trek, so people quickly get discouraged because Lemmy is “empty.” As if every social media site hasn’t started the same way…
For many/most of us the communities we were used to loitering in on reddit don’t exsist or aren’t active enough to lurk in without getting bored. That means we need to shift towards content generation/creation/sharing rather than just consumption. Not everyone is going to be comfortable doing that. It also isn’t going to happen over night.
The only way Lemmy will grow and become what you/we want it to be is by sticking around and participating. For many of us that means doing different things than we were used to on reddit. Lemmy is still very much in the early stages of it’s development and culture and it’s up to the users to decide what kind of place it’s going to be. It takes time and effort, and understanding that Lemmy is not and will never be reddit.
If people want reddit, it’s still there for them. Lemmy is still forming an identity and we’re all a part of it.
I kinda like the chiller vibes of the early stages of new communities. I just joined today, seems cool. I don’t think I’ll be missing Reddit.
Be the change you seek. I get it.
Like everyone else, I miss what it was. Now i can’t connect with anyone there. The tone is so toxic. I largely stopped signing in last fall. It was feeling so gross. But I would still check in from time to time. With yesterday’s messages about censorship, I will not be signing in again. I don’t think it’s a coincidence this is happening at the same time as the take it down policy and changes in approach to cyber security
What helped me and my phone habits was the loss of Apollo during the API fiasco, and the immediate emergence of voyager, allowing me to simply replace the “check reddit feed” habit with “check lemmy feed”.
Plus, since lemmy is less algorithms (and users) there isn’t much urge to doomscroll.
Me irl too! Voyager replacement is the real deal, and I only search reddit for historical information (although less often than I used to)
I’m in the same boat from Reddit Is Fun, and I went with Sync, which in hindsight was a bad idea. Sync’s creator abandoned it after getting an influx of donations. I’ll have to find a new Lemmy browser soon as many of the year old formatting templates are outdated.
My personal favorite is Boost but it hasn’t seen an update in quite awhile. Thunder is the leading contender to replace Boost if it doesn’t update soon. Thunder is seeing very active development and has a ton of customization options to suit your needs. There are several options out there now though. Probably worth trying them all.
The switch isn’t too difficult imo. I only lurk on reddit for certain communities, but much of the news/memes here are the same or better. The comment sections seem more sincere here too.
Most importantly, no ads and the ability to block users/communities/domains that you don’t want to see/hear
The keyword filter also works just fine!
Welcome!
It’s a weird feeling in the beginning. For me I was the same, I realized how addicted I had become to it, almost withdrawal from it. But after a while I realized what toll the constant firehose had taken on me.
You’ll notice we have less here, I view it as a good thing. Less content, but it’s higher quality. I check my phone less but when I do it’s less mindless scrolling. There are actual good articles.
Plus as you see I can actually chat with people here, instead the insta-hate I got on Reddit.
So overall, welcome! Let us know if you need directions :)
I’m deleting my account right now after 8 years and its kinda scary. Its good to know other people are doing it too
If you want positive space you might also check tildes.net (it is actually run by old Reddit admin and it tries to reassemble Reddit from 10+ years ago)
I’m having a hard time giving up Reddit yet. I mostly follow smaller subreddits with very niche interests and I really enjoy the community banter. Lemmy is not quite here yet, because you need a critical mass of people to make even the smaller communities feel alive. I’m really hoping Lemmy will take off so I can eventually get rid of Reddit altogether.
I had this as a mindset too until recently. I think what helped me move was realizing that interacting with Reddit was incredibly low stakes and I was only going there for hobby and community reasons.
until I sort of realized that the negative outways the positive. it sort of happened recently where I was a mod of a subreddit and people kept acting like idiots after I took a break from the role, and I realized “realistically, nobody will ever actually give a shit about my efforts here.” and I took one look and left. I don’t really think I lost anything by leaving besides my year old account and 20k karma but, it’s superficial at the end of the day.
Hey, congratulations! This place has its flaws, no doubt, but it’s a much improved community over what Reddit has become - especially in the past 2-3 years.
Can you elaborate?
I feel like using old.reddit and subreddits that I was following since long ago, shielded me from those changes.
I used old.reddit as well, but I noticed a marked decline in the already-not-stellar quality of comment sections and an increase in karma bots posting.
That still depends on which subreddits you visit. If you only go to a specific set of 20-or-so subs and never anywhere else, it’s fantastic.
I see, I’m right now mostly check news and worldnews on Lemmy it is a bit more spread out. I wish Lemmy had an option to maybe logically combine multiple communities into one.
Isn’t this part a bit ironic? “I realized how much of a negative echo chamber it was. I couldn’t even mute certain words”
I would guess that being able to mute entire thesis would lead to more echo chambering. Maybe I’m wrong. I also don’t know Reddit very well
Wanting to not see people debating if minorities should or shouldn’t be killed isn’t creating a echo chamber
Well of course, you’re right on this point. It it was your entire use case then no echo chamber issue, just muting fasc speech
What you say is right if you care about discussing political opinions online. If you only care about memes and general discussions, you don’t create echo chambers
