I'm not sure yet which one I am ಠ_ಠ

cmon dont call me out like that :3

Which is interesting. On the early days of Digg it was the same demographic, although more politically center. Then in the early days of reddit the same thing happened. It was mostly Linux and tech. So having the same starting demo is not a bad thing, but the question is, will it grow to adopt others

Because Reddit was made for nerds, until more recently it didn't try to attract the mass with shiny interfaces and promises of social recognition like FB and Instagram.

The reason you don't get many "normal" people here is that the community is absurdly hostile to anyone on the "normal person" spectrum.

If you're not a software-pirating techbro obsessed with "privacy," a leftist, or a furry, this place generally shits on you.

I very frequently post incredibly lukewarm takes for any mainstream community, and literally get called a Nazi. I have stalkers lol.

I, personally, tend to have "normal" views but significantly more resilience to online communities than "normal" people - which is why I still come here. Most normal people left back before this place even defederated from Hexbear. They ain't coming back.

Until mods of what are essentially "default" communities get serious about growth instead of wanting "their" spaces, Lemmy is never going to grow. Most people don't find getting blasted with piss-takes by Marxists funny the way I do.

Case-in-point from this thread

https://lemmy.world/comment/6400270

Oh and one directed at me, right on schedule.

Posted the bigot using the device created and coded by nerds. Do you fail to realize that “nerd” is what idiots call the smart kids? Of course you do.

But if we had more subs on other topics it should bring in other types of people.

Is that actually desirable or just growth for growths sake? Rage comics and lolcats brought huge numbers of new users to reddit and the quality of content immediately began to decay.

Maybe a social media site that runs out of content is a good thing.

Eh, that is kinda the appeal of Reddit, and its alternatives. Finding smaller communities of likeminded individuals that you can group into a tailored feed.

I always say the magic of this model is that it's not just a firehose of every possible interest, it's more like a shower of dozens of tiny handpicked jets. It just happens that on Lemmy, the "All" feed is still reasonably tailored to the main demographic here. That being tech nerds who dislike Reddit's recent decisions enough to make a change.

People of different background have more chance to have a bigger diversity of point of view. You may not be able to guess the background of a single commenter, but you can spot things missing. Also, I wasn't actually thinking about race, but gender identities and sexual orientations as well.

Race is a social construct that impacts so many people in a very real way. The race that you're sorted into affects so much of where you can go, what you can do, and how the government treats you.

I agree. I am a techie, have been following Lemmy for quite a while before the Reddit exodus. When I made my account, first I had to understand that each instance manages its own accounts and there are many instances. My initial thought was to look for one of the higher population instances, but I read that this was not necessarily the best idea. Then I searched out why its better to pick an instance outside the high population ones and that whatever instance I picked, I could view/comment/vote on posts from other instances. I don't have a problem doing research, but I don't know anyone who is not a techie that would continue past my first question, and that is a serious problem for adoption.