Memes

It's a system for social interaction. I participate in these discussions to relate to other people and with the possibility of building connections with others. I'm in general the kind of person who don't think activities are worthwhile unless they sort of "move something forward", i.e. leaves some sort of imprint on the world or myself. I'm uninterested in sports or games like Overwatch because I feel like when a match/season is done it just starts over again, so nothing has really substantially changed.

With a history, I build an online identity over time. What I do today affects how people perceive me tomorrow. If everything would be one-shot and I just started over with a new profile every day, it wouldn't feel like it mattered. There are other reasons like nostalgia or being able to answer in "necrothreads" (I actually received a reply on a 12-year-old comment on Reddit last week!).

Also, it's a way for people to reach you. People stick by their email account for the longest time even if they don't like the provider anymore, because telling everybody about an address change is such a hassle. When I got out of GMail I set up my own domain and run my email on there. That way I can move to another provider without anyone noticing. Perhaps I could set up my own Lemmy server with just myself on it so I can keep my identity stable, but I have a feeling that solution won't scale well.