41
Do we really want Lemmy's userbase to grow and assimilate "normies"? (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 hours ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
83 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I know the word normies may have weird connotations, but I just mean that, regular everyday people.

I've been enjoying Lemmy a lot and even recommended it to a few close friends who are working in tech. But I would like Lemmy to be way bigger, maybe have those makefriends communities like reddit has, be it gaming friends, just for chatting, for voicecalls, etc etc...

But I also wonder, could growing Lemmy indiscriminately be a bad thing? As you relax filters and barriers to entry, yes, more people can come in, but I have a feeling the quality of the people might go down aswell.

Is a clique-like platform what Lemmy is supposed to be like? Or is it supposed to try and absorb as much users as possible and be just a user-managed user-owned reddit alternative with no ads and less censorship?

I believe the answer may lie somewhere in the middle, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, as I'm a total newbie on here.

(Also I understand private dms on Lemmy are not secure, but you can keep the idea of the "r4r" community and just drop a matrix or session link in dms, not perfect as the admins can be what username you sent out, but at least it ends there)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 21 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (10 children)

Depends. I wish there were more normal people here myself. Because I'm not an extremist looking to live in a hugbox and I enjoy diversity. I genuinely take joy in learning other people's thoughts and perspectives on topics when they are expressed in a peaceful and thoughtful way. But I'm in a minority.

As for needing to 'grow userbase'. Not really, but if you want more content and more niches you need more users, plain and simple. Most folks here miss there niche communities from reddit.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 2 points 9 hours ago (9 children)

    Agree 100%, but when I mean normies I'm not only referring to people that like football over retro DOS game crt plugins discussion forums.

    I mean like people who don't really engage in that much critical thinking in general and just want to hang out without much thought, like yk, reddit people (ofc not all reddit users are like this, but if you ever tried to have any type of argument you know what I'm talking about, if you even need a refresher on your logical falacies for a class, reddit's always got your back)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 9 hours ago* (8 children)

    According to that definition, IMO, lemmy is already overwhelmingly normie.

    Whenever I see critical discussion here, it gets harassed, reported, and the thread is locked/removed. Because much of the userbase here is incapable of thinking and reacts with utterly hostility towards anything that isn't part of their far-left dogmatisms about capitalism evil, communism good, etc. Any arguement or evidence that doesn't support that belief is labeled 'fallacy' or 'propaganda'.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 32 minutes ago (1 child)

    Bluesky is quite a bit better on that bit. Often said over there that lemmy is painfully insular. For example, a person asked an honest question about transexuality yesterday and got both buried in downvotes and got a couple of great answers. This place has led me to believe trans people and their supporters are bastards constantly looking to fight over any imagined trans(heh)gression. I know that's not true, no one lecture me, but goddamn some these people are hard to get along with.

    OTOH, people on BS never read past the headline they're reacting to. It's fucking weird having went there from here where we're critical bastards who dig a bit into the post before spouting off. Critical thinking is an expectation (on some topics).

    Made this for lemmy last year:

    Dude today said using hours and minutes is a capitalist invention we never needed. Wasn't sure he was joking, yep, dead serious. Same dude also told me he's met some smart frogs. 🙄 Y'all, I've kept frogs and have a Pac Man right now. He's pretty much mindless, just waiting to ambush prey 24/7.

    Perhaps what's most bizarre is people living in an oligarchy calling it capitalism, stumping for socialism, yet none can agree on what any of those terms mean. (For the record, I want Bernie Sander's style democratic socialism. Bit of a misnomer for me, whatever, it's where countries and cities are finding success, and I don't argue with success.)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 30 minutes ago* (last edited 23 minutes ago)

    nah i am also pretty much a bernie type, but on lemmy that means you hate trans people. many folks on here are just looking to be offended by anyone who doesn't agree with whatever insane belief they have they think makes them special and smarter than other folks, even if it's totally delusional and dumb.

    the good news is the nutbags mostly live on a few instances and if you block them then you don't have to see their insanity. you will still get some of it, but you won't get blasted about how you hate trans people when you point out 99% of the population isn't trans or that catering to the trans extremists who think male/female is a 'social construction' that doesn't exist. I have had weirdos on here literally argue with me that the fact hermaphroditic worms exist means human beings are 'naturally hermaphroditic'. then when asked if we should reproduce asexually like bacteria they lost it on me and started telling me how I am just a hateful bigot.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 child)

    Real. Also: AI bad. If you think that AI is actually useful you'll be downvoted to hell and below.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 30 minutes ago

    Oh yeah that's another one! Dude made an amusing list of headlines today from a thread talking about "what headline do you most want to see?" He got beat up for outsourcing his thinking, as if anyone would have worked on that themselves, like he cheated on a book report. 🙄

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] [S] 2 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

    That sounds awful, I really hope it's not a "forever thing", Idk where I stand when it comes to politics, but I feel it would be stupid to dismiss an ENTIRE ideology and say "nothing inside of this box labeled capitalism/communism will ever be useful".

    I'd like for people to be civil and discuss the virtues of X or Y policies inside an ideology, kinda hate that if you are a leftie you can't be anti abortion.

    Like who decided that? I don't like the idea of happy-meal-ideologies where if you subscribe to a particular ideology you are opted in to all that's inside it and its frowned upon for you to deviate from it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 29 minutes ago

    happy-meal-ideologies

    I very much like that. Been told a dozen times, here and elsewhere that I can't be a leftist because I believe $X. Yeah, that's gonna bring people into the tent.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 8 hours ago* (1 child)

    people do. human nature is to be tribal and the tribe is formed based on inherited belief structures. it's feelings.

    university used to be about learning to think and challenging beliefs, but that's being flushed down the toilet because administrations now want to protect student's feelings above all else. so now a lot of university grads have gone through 4-6 years of academic training without ever thinking critically about themselves or their beliefs, and most of them seem to now come out with much more rigid belief structure than they went in with (radicalized).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •