Autism

Wanting to use Lemmy (or knowing about it at all) is pretty much a symptom of us thinking about the platforms we use, not just their content, which we tend to do much more because we usually dive deeper into subjects than the average neurotypical person. Plus, a lot of autistic people tend to have stronger moral principles since we tend to see things more black and white.

There’s also the fact that in smaller communities, minorities tend to feel safer. The chances of seeing people being openly ableist here is almost none compared to Reddit for example

Generally yes. I don't presume to know that the threadiverse is an example of that, but it seems to be, and it would make sense if it was.

Basically, Reddit is the school cafeteria and Lemmy is the steps outside the door in the corner by the art room.

I think there are a ton of comorbidities in this area that I don't fully understand. When you go into techy/hacker/FLOSS spaces you start seeing a lot of LGBTQ+/neurodivergent/furry/left-leaning/etc people. Many people will even be all of those at once. I have no idea why and most of my experience is starting from the furry angle where 80%+ of furries are LGBTQ+, neurodivergence is much higher than average, computer fluency is almost a given, and leaning left is often a matter of survival.

If someone knows why I'm dying to know. My best guess is that some of those attributes have small portions that link hard to other attributes, and it all comes along like a chain.

Got sick of people saying "oh, you're not weird!" and still having people act like I definitely was. I accepted that I am strange compared to typical people, and I explored spaces where people give less of a fuck about what I do.

I like people who can acknowledge that "yes, this is / you are a bit strange, but that's fine. We get it. You don't have to mask it here."

Social norms exhaust me. I like spaces where that is not expected of me and folks can simply be like "yeah, I see you and I get it, have a nice day" instead of being seen as being socially disruptive and grilled/silently judged for it by people who don't actually care to really understand it.

It gets tiring trying to politely explain "I look like this because I enjoy it and like expressing myself through clothes/makeup/whatever. I'm not going to a party/play/dressed up for an event/this is not a dare/I'm not a dangerous or scary person because I look different from you."

Alt spaces are more open to that kind of thing. "Hey, love the look, man." "Thanks."

EDIT: specifically referring to Lemmy, since it's more of a chore to navigate, I think only people with more dedication will thrive & stay here.

Not to mention..... a lot of furries. Lots. Lotta tech folk are furries, and furry communities have a higher population of ND folks, and they have a higher population because the furry community are generally more accepting of the less typical/outcasted folks and they're like "yeah,we get it! Come on in, fellow oddball!"

I think that's part of it.

Autism/neurodivergentcy requires a kind of radical open-mindedness to adapt to society, and I'd imagine that that lends itself towards being more open to alternative platforms.

I do feel a bit like a moth to the flame since learning about Lemmy. Definitely feel more attracted to alternatives to mainstream solutions and products. I don't know if that's a strictly neurodivergent behavior or not though.

Hmmm... An interesting question. I have a few thoughts.

Firstly, the fediverse generally leans towards an open accepting atmosphere, where people are more open about this sort of thing (hell, I recently put a pretentious nd symbol in my mastodon name recently). Could be that people just talk about it more here and it's confirmation bias.

Secondly, I've heard heard that autistic people tend to have a strong feeling of social justice and are more willing to break social norms for what's "right". Considering that most companies now don't really act ethically or in the interests of their customers, it makes sense that autistic people would look elsewhere.

Looking at Reddit specifically, I and many other people want to be able to access the site in any way we choose. Reddit have basically said that they don't care about that, nor about accessibility. They just want to shove ads down our throats and sell our data to AI companies.

It's honestly quite frustrating how many people seem to lie down and take it, or decide that the solution is to go to worse walled gardens like Discord.

i'm generally attracted to FOSS, so a social media network entirely based around it is just perfect.

Yes. I'm part of a local computer nerd/hacker group and probably at least 50% of people there are neurodivergent

Since Reddit went to shit and started protecting Nazis and pushing us out, definitely.

Generally speaking, I am attracted to things that are non-conforming/taboo

I know I certainly am. I like odd things. I also agree with a lot of what people said about smaller groups and a sense of personal safety. It's downright refreshing to read threads in Lemmy, compared to the dumpster fire that was reddit.

Mainstream social platforms tend to lean in to presenting a curated self-image, and chasing after popularity metrics. Both of which I find off-putting and difficult to navigate. First thing I did on Lemmy was hide all the avatars and the vote counts and it makes it a lot more approachable for me.

Fediverse and alternate spaces attract people who are outside the norm, which includes a lot of different people. Knowing about the site and joining it requires some sort of niche knowledge.

I think an interesting factor to consider is our perspectives on power and control. Autistics tend to not believe in the social hierarchy and believe decisions should be made with objective information. Therefore, autistics will tend to avoid conforming and tolerating environments that disagree with their values, especially when presented with a more aligned alternative. Facebook and Instagram are basically social hierarchy competitions. Reddit also has that issue with the karma system, but the recent API fiasco was clearly a violation of generally accepted values for hypocrisy and control. When we found Lemmy, we had the opportunity to engage in a community with horizontal organization structure that also valued the things we were upset with Reddit over. It worked out pretty nice for us.

I'm a bit concerned with what may happen if this place ever becomes popular like Reddit. I've noticed that I tend to stay away from the main anything. The culture becomes almost formulaic, predictable, and critical...ultimately boring and unattractive to me. A good example of this is /r/funny, which is a place with a large membership and I never thought was funny. Hopefully, that wont be the case for us here. Maybe we can keep it awesome like it's been up to now 🙂