I created my own lemmy instance a while back so I could browse lemmygrad + other instances because libs automatically defederate from lemmygrad.
I remember when Hexbear started as a wee fork of lemmy and there were plans to federate in the future, and look at us now! Makes me happy to see people on lemmy dunking on libs and even changing a few bystander's minds. 
Shoutout to the devs here, y'all rock. I love the qol updates like pronouns and emojis that we've had for years that beat out stock standard lemmy.
Anyway, love y'all.
p.s. But now I'm thinking maybe I should just nuke my instance and use hexbear exclusively? 
it's kinda useless now lol