There have been several times I’ve wanted to post on here and haven’t because I’m worried about how people are going to treat me for a single post. It’s hard to come out of that thinking on here and actually participate.

I think the lack of global/account karma will help this in a way. Reddit was practically full of performers, doing tricks for treats. Jokes were easy tricks. There's no real value in posting garbage posts/comments when there's no long-term benefit for the user. I think we'll see a lot less cruft here, especially as people deprogram themselves from that habit.

I don't think people debated primarily for karma, but maybe with the rest of the performative aspects gone, people will stop feeling pressured to show off to others - publicly dunking on someone is another way to perform for an audience and receive validation points.

I just wanted to bring up something I hated about reddit that no one mentioned, just to get it out of my system; ask a reasonable question? Prepare to be mass downvoted. Like why? Who is downvoting this? How did that offend you? I'd understand if they were framed weirdly or completely unrelated to the issue, but a reasonable on topic question shouldn't get that treatment.

I find myself less guarded on beehaw in some ways, and more guarded in others.

Firstly, I feel I can be more authentic. Discussions always seem to be in good faith, and I often come away learning something, reconsidering something, or just being more aware of other viewpoints. Whether I participate in the discussion or just read it.
It's just more enjoyable overall.

Which leads me onto how I am being more guarded. I am really trying to consider other viewpoints before even engaging with posts or discussions.
And I dislike that this is an effort for me.
But I like that I have realised it, and I now get to make an effort to be better.

I liked the “You hate capitalism yet you exist in it” ... BS. Whoever said capitalism should decide policy, run the government, or our lives is nuts. It is up to us to define the rules under which capitalism runs not the other way around. Besides when essentially there is only 1 Reddit... we are talking about a monopoly not a competitive business anyway and a century ago this was decided to be bad. You do not have a true competitive market unless you have say 7 or so mostly identical players anyway... but of course we let everyone consolidate down to 3.

You hate capitalism yet you exist in it

Yeah i hear that

...people came in expecting me to either agree with them or refute a point they made. And if I didn’t make “a point,” I wasn’t contributing.

Exactly this; towards the end, I was writing a comment every couple of weeks on Reddit, and most of the reason why is that I felt I didn't have "enough" of a contribution to make.

There is another aspect that you didn't get into; I am on a lot of subreddits where I attempt to help people with questions. r/zfs, r/ceph, r/homelab and r/datahoarder are ones I frequent among others where if people have questions I and others attempt to help them. This is neither a debate nor humour, and is one area where Lemmy still has a lot of catching up to do... not least of which because the specialized communities don't yet exist.

I haven't left Reddit yet... I'm still watching and waiting but it IS nice to have Lemmy and Tildes as alternatives (though I'm more digging Lemmy so far).

This is not terribly different from my experience. I was getting pretty worn down by the hive mind effect that some subs developed and how badly you could get downvoted or yelled at if you went against the grain. I think Reddit had become perhaps TOO big. There was just so many people on it that it felt like competing mobs.

I think that sites like Lemmy will start to take off, we just have to give them time. And I will need to figure out mobile with this site, cuz I’m on my phone right now and I can’t read any comments under a post 😂 I’ll get therr

I agree with most everything you said. My personal take: all the Karma upvoting/downvoting stuff shaped community behavior to a sort of drastic degree - you either say something pleasing/sarcastic to the community and get upvoted or you got buried with downvotes for injecting an alternative viewpoint. After a while, I found myself going along with something just because a post had a massive number of upvotes… not realizing that the majority of readers very rarely go past the top 3-5 comments on a thread. So whatever was on top was usually the highest voted, and it was most often a sarcastic response to a legitimate question someone posted.

I fart in your general direction, your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

Really though, I was part of two private subs that were invite only. The smaller community and how users were "recruited" made a huge difference. I could post things there that I wouldn't on public forums, mostly because of the increased anonymity, but also because there wouldn't be any nastiness.

If lemmy gets big enough, it will be just like that. Your problem is not a Reddit problem but an Internet forum with nested threads problem. It's much harder to hyperfocus on a comment in a flat comment structure.

I've been commenting on here tons that I feel like reddit has morphed into every thread being an argument or a meme-off. I used to love just shooting the shit in the comments of a funny/cool post. It's been gone for years and so far it's what I like most about Lemmy. Way fewer comments sure, but like I'll go back and forth just talking with way more people.

My experience on reddit is very similar to yours. The more niche subreddits you could get away from it a bit but.... yeah. the video you shared captures it perfectly.

As for beehaw, I'm not on there so idk. I joined kbin/fedia but my experience on the fediverse sounds similar to your own. Lots of people just chatting and talking about how it feels like "the old internet" and not really any of that reddit snark/heated debate.

Have you ever visited the comments section of Hacker News?

I was constantly dragged into multi comment long debates on reddit where people would insult and attack me and my opinions. Like you said, Lemmy is much nicer.

i didn't notice the lack of swearing until you mentioned it, that's so bizarre lol. i didnt even think about it but it's pretty cool :p

Jokes and debates ey? Sounds like Facebook 😵😵

You wrote about this in your application? What application? Do some instances require an essay to join?

I was also surprised by how rude and mean people can be on reddit. I guess it's mostly teenagers or people living in their moms basement.

I love Lemmy so much.

In wise words of Commander Data: "I realized, it is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are, Lal. It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort "

You now understand the importance of free software just like you already knew the importance of free knowledge. You don't need to force yourself into shapes you don't fit, but you can help move us all into a better future for everybody.

I couldn't just go "Yeah I like Metal Gear Solid V, too,"

I would like to say to please DO post these kinds of things if you indeed like a product or service or whatever.

When I am deciding on a purchase I also liked to look at reddit threads at what the experiences are from the people who already purchased the service/product.

I would scan the threads and also look at how many people just agree with a point that is being made.

It is moronic to say that things like that isn't "contributing", it actually also helps me as a consumer decide on the purchases I make and not all the comments have to be eloquent about it.

I know it's not the point of your post (which I did read and also agree with) but just in case nobody else has mentioned it..

In your summary you said you'd signed up for "other instances of Lemmy" and I just want to make sure you know you don't need to do that to join communities in other places! :)

Another "I know this isn't the point of your post" comment, but that specific "Average Redditor" video rubbed me very much the wrong way.

I was partially raised by a physically and emotionally abusive grandmother, and that level of sarcasm the Redditor character shows is honestly far better than what that woman deserved. I hate how any backtalk to a grandparent is just framed as flagrant disrespect and ungratefulness, without any sort of contextualization. Calling Grandma a simple woman is fair play for Grandma calling you a worthless criminal waste of space, threatening you with knives, and breaking multiple kitchen utensils over your head at the age of six. Money can't buy off past abuse, and lord knows my grandma tried that shit too once I was too old for her to physically abuse.

Sure, Redditors are mean, but that example is extremely mean to survivors of familial abuse as well. The YT comments are even more of a triggering hellscape, it's sad because it's turned me off of checking out the rest of the series, which by raw description I probably would've enjoyed.

On a more topical note, I'm grateful for the welcoming nature of this community, and I'm hoping that keeps going as it keeps growing.

come check out https://lemmy.world/c/metalgearsolid if you want

Re: The Average Redditor on YouTube--Wow, it must take quite a bit of energy to be that sarcastic all the time. Think what wonderful things could be accomplished if all that energy was redirected towards gardening or nuclear disarmament. Makes me think of the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons.