I feel like things on Lemmy were pretty chill several months ago, and that’s started to change.
People used to talk each other like they would talk to a neighbor. Now I get the sense that people have become quick to be negative, attack, and not be constructive.
Am I crazy in feeling like the vibe has changed?
Yes! I’ve been seeing a lot of toxic comments and posts lately. It’s kinda turning into a niche hyper toxic reddit.
many, if not most of the popular/highly-trafficked communities are basically echo chambers now, anyone who disagrees with whatever the cookie-cutter general consensus of the day is becomes a hate magnet.
Disagree with an admin and you’re a pariah.
I find comments like this a bit weird. I first got into lemmy about 2 years ago, and back then lemmy.ml was full of toxic leftism. It still is, but at least now there is more federation so it’s easier to ignore all that without losing all comments.
Overall, toxicity rises with popularity. It’s just impossible to gain a lot of users without some of them disagreeing with you. And social media is designed to increase friction, so things get toxic. Even if Lemmy isn’t making money from that friction like something like Reddit is, it’s still using the exact same design.