EDIT: omfg look at all those downvotes lol, see what I mean? A lot of y'all can't even comprehend somebody having a different experience then you other then seeing it as a personal attack on you somehow, your entire identity is just this and nothing else. No comments man, this is just sad, instead of being better you all go with the easier option of being cultist assholes and then wondering why there's not more content and people here, oh gee, I wonder why? Guess that shall remain a mystery...
(I know this is mindboggling to a lot of the people here but: not everyone in life is like you, thinks like you, acts like you, and has the same experiences as you, not everyone likes the same exact things as you do and aren't going to like it when you force, shame, harass, and pressure them into conforming, shocker, I know, crazy even, different people with different minds and interests exist everywhere, most sane people don't base their entire identities off of 2 topics and a niche little platform on the internet, there's more to life then that, woah, who knew?)
Personally I've had an awful experience here on lemmy, people here are very hostile and unwelcoming, a lot less reading comprehension I've noticed, a lot more downvote happy then reddit, only 2 topics dominate everything, barely anyone's or anything's around outside of those 2 topics, and people make politics/tech their whole identity and are worryingly proud of that, not being comfortable with that or daring to say that there's more to life then 2 things = an attack on them apparently and they get really defensive and hostile.
Post a question on a big community, you get swarmed with exclusively political responses, even if the question literally has nothing to do with politics. Post in a technical community as a casual, and you'll offend someone(s) and have them attack you for not being a technical geek like them or daring to give feedback on anything, it's fucking awful man, I just wanna use this place normally but there's nothing here, it's a toxic echo chamber, how is this place the most recommended reddit alternative?? I legitimately could never recommend this place to anyone for any reason solely because of its userbase, I've never experienced such open hostility so quickly before wtf.
Just trying to get away from reddit and find something nice but, it kinda doesn't look like that's gonna happen. Cool I guess. What do y'all think of this place as "normies"? (If any are even around) Is it treating you well or no?
More then noted my friend, thanks for mentioning that as an option.
Thing is, these jerks are everywhere on here, seriously, I keep getting jumpscared by them when I least expect it, anything that's vaguely populated here has them lurking around and waiting to pounce on anyone who dares not 100% act, think, and behave like them, regardless of the community, so do I literally have to block all of lemmy to avoid these guys? What do I block and don't block exactly? This place is desolate as it is, kinda don't see what's the point of sticking around if there's nothing outside of politics and tech, and the majority of the people here are cult minded assholes...
Legit, posted in one of the fediverse communities, said I was new and all, discussed some stuff with people (thankfully a lot of them were reasonable), but immediately someone got ticked off and lost their shit at me for daring to say "guess there's not enough creatives around for anyone to bother with making a pinterest alternative, bummer" at the end of a discussion with someone, and yeah, seriously, I kid you not, that's all it took for somebody to get mad and start harassing me. Told them to back off, and they didn't, reported them and nothing happened, nobody cared, so I deleted the post. Fun. I guess it's my fault for engaging back with them, thought this place would be less tolerant of toxicity but, nah, quite the opposite it seems (strangely enough I've never experienced this before on any other social media, none of them were this bad, seriously, this is so jarring for me)...
Like right now, I'm being downvoted into oblivion for having any opinions or experiences that isn't "lemmy good, everything else bad" smh, this is legitimately the same - if not worse - then reddit, can't say anything here at all without people losing their minds, I'm not even being rude to anyone or saying anything remotely unhinged but everyone still takes offense to it anyways? It's an echo chamber man, they act like you insulted their prophet if you say anything "wrong", this place will never improve or grow if nobody can take any fucking feedback other then "everything's perfect, hail the fediverse :)" no wonder why normal people aren't bothering if they get treated like that as their welcome, it being "hard to use" is the least of the problems with these niche platforms, don't care how "easy" it is if everyone's an asshole all the time...
I only know of one instance that has disabled downvotes, but it's even emptier then the rest of lemmy, and apparently as I've read it doesn't really matter, every other instance can still downvote you on their end, and as those are more populated it kinda ends up with the same result anyways, not sure what the point of it would be honestly. Also doesn't really stop somebody from casually commenting something super passive aggressive or hostile at you.
Anyways, sorry for the tangents, think it's best that I just quietly leave and keep trying with reddit again at this point, this place sucks and doesn't seem to wanna change, and because of that it scares off normal people, and so it only gets more echo chambery, don't see how that loops ever gonna get broken, at least reddit doesn't centre it's entire identity off of screaming at people who you don't like until they leave (putting the memes aside) lol.