Ones kind of like Twitter and the other is like Reddit. They can talk to each other a bit but generally you would want an account on either if your going to use it much
To add on
The format of Lemmy/Reddit is forums with threads, where you subscribe to a particular community and make posts / comments for that topic
The format of Mastodon/Twitter is microblogging, where you follow individual accounts and read their posts.
They both CAN communicate with each other, but the format won't always make sense. For example, you can follow a Lemmy community on Mastodon, but it will pretend that the community is a person, which makes it a weird experience. What DOES make sense is using your mastodon account to comment on Lemmy threads when you want to do that.
Ultimately I separate it like this
account with my real name on Mastodon, to follow friends/family/public figures
anonymous account for Lemmy content, so I can discuss freely
To add to that: On Lemmy and Reddit you care about specific topics such as Firefox@lemmy.ml or Science@beehaw.org. You don't really care who posts there as long as it's good stuff. People also vote the posts and comments so that trash sinks to the bottom while gold floats to the top.
On Mastodon (or Xitter) you care about specific people instead. You follow some people and hope they post good stuff. On Mastodon you can make list that collects together all the hashtags you care about. For instance, you could make a list about renewable energy, so you could throw in words like #solar and #wind. This way you could follow a specific topic. Either way, there's no voting, which means you'll just get a constant stream of anything and everything. People can boost posts, so if you trust someone enough to follow them, you'll also see whatever they boost.
Yea im going to create an account on mastodon rn
Wrote this awhile ago to handle basic questions like this. Should answer your questions. Hollar if it doesn't.
I loved to read that, it actually helped me tnxx!
Like Reddit, lemmy is based around communities and hierarchical comments (plus downvoting).
Mastodon, like Twitter, is a single timeline from people you follow (and sometimes people they follow and repost), as well as hashtag searching etc. It has no downvote option, but thanks to ActivityPub you can post to lemmy from mastodon and liking something is equivalent to an upvote.
Lemmy is a link aggregator where people post to communities of a given topic. The closest mainstream analog is reddit.
Mastodon is a microblogging platform where you post on your profile and boost other people's posts. The closest mainstream analog is X.
Mastodon is a band that released a couple of good albums, then they went all fancy proggy boring
Lemmy is where we scream into the void
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
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