I joined lemmy after reddit API changes, as many people did. At first, it was amazing. The community felt so alive, so friendly and welcoming. Obviously, the activity wasn’t exactly as large as it was on reddit, but I was patient, I knew more stuff was coming, and I was excited for it.
Unfortunately, this period would not last long. It would not last even a week until I got into my first argument with a tankie. I saw them and argued with them from time to time on reddit, but people there usually saw right through the bullshit and downvoted them to oblivion.
Here, it was so much different. They were all upvoted and supported by hordes more tankies. Constant genocide denial in China, support for Ruzzia, and somehow, for North Korea.
In retrospect, I should have left then, abandoned lemmy then and there, not really return to reddit, just leave both alone. I would have saved myself some sanity.
But I didn’t, which I regret. I wasted my time here, constantly seeing this bullshit, and sometimes, I didn’t even have the motivation or energy to argue with them.
The amount of genocide denial, dictatorship praising, and insane arguments I’ve seen in a month blew past the amount of this shit I’ve seen on reddit in a fucking decade.
I don’t see the future in this, none whatsoever. Lemmy will be here, but it will always stay a tankie hellhole unless you block thousands of people and whole instances. And if you do, the tankies will always just migrate to other instances to keep spreading hate.
You guys are awesome. Keep doing what you are doing, but I am tired of this bullshit and I am done.
I don’t recommend leaving. Just block the tankies.
I blocked ml and hexbear and rarely encounter them now. When I do, I block the user individually. It’s made lemmy delightful, frankly.
just subscribe and block man. in a buffet you don’t have to taste everything. grab what you want. I block magazines im even just not interested in like sports so that when I do all I don’t have to see them. there is a wierd view people have that subscribing is great and blocking is bad. if someone subscribes to stuff and never looks at all then its the same as if they blocked everything except what they subscribed to. Its all just filtering.
While I have my run ins with tankies sometimes, I actually don’t think it’s that bad. Join an instance that blocks lemmygrad and hexbear, ignore lemmy.ml or block it too and you’re golden.
That’s the power of fediverse, it’s flexibility.
Also tankies have a strong foothold on Lemmy, because they were here first. But they are not as numerous as you or they themself think. Watch them outside of their safespace communities and see them downvoted into oblivion.
The fact you can block an instance where communities reside that you have issues with is incredible!
It’s like if Reddit gave you a feature to block a subreddit and all the users that subscribed to it in one single action.
Edit: OP should try creating an account on different instances? For instance on the instance hosting the community that just posted this to…?
I have several accounts and sh.itjust.works has been doing a stellar job with managing the toxicity from leaking into this instance.
I would be more worried about ads, memes and the government propaganda you see on instances like lemmy.world and global feed
That for me is what is ruining lemmy experience more than anything else. There are many tankies but they are usually self limited to their own instances.
Lemmy seem to have inherited reddit mechanics which are shaped after marketing and mass media advertising. Home feed is predated by shitpost and news from mainstream media. Serious subs suitable for discussions have hard time surfacing and this creates a loop where shitty subs keep get more popular.
