Lemmy seems active, but niche and difficult to navigate. Mastodon may be good, but it seems like another favorites-picking drama-enabling platform, or at least that’s how it is on certain instances. X has been pretty bad, but with some good moments, and Bluesky has been the absolute worst next to Truth Social. I’m almost tempted to use Facebook, but perhaps Discord or Reddit could be better, as I’ve had mild success with them before, but always found myself led astray by toxic groups or “friend finder” communities on Discord or bored by Reddit. I don’t think any large social media is going to be broadly good, as freedom means freedom to be a jerk. Curated sites tend to be a bit better, but curation styles rarely meet my standards (including being consistent). Lemmy and certain Matrix rooms might be the best answers, but I just wanted to make sure. IDK if I’m even worthy of a good community, as I can be toxic, but I digress. May as well start the conversation and not overthink it.
I honestly prefer Lemmy over Mastodon. My experience with Mastodon has been one of screaming into the void with very little actual engagement with anyone. Also, it just seems like everyone is trying to sell their product or advertise their blog. It probably depends on which tags one chooses to follow, but I grew tired of it very quickly. I haven’t had the same experience with Lemmy for whatever reason, which is why I prefer it.
Same here. Lemmy is kinda like reddit when it wasn’t shit. Mastodon is just really awkward to use.
I kinda like Sharkey as well but the federation doesn’t work with Lemmy.
I definitely prefer Lemmy’s topic driven approach to Mastodon’s personality driven approach.
But that could come down to how I use Mastodon (and Twitter before it with a third party algorithm free app) which is to follow people that share good/interesting content and post with hashtags for visibility.
ETA: …and I refuse to use X, Reddit, or Facebook (or any of its alter egos)…