I actually joined Lemmy three times:

The first time, I became a Linux user and quickly dove into FOSS and all that stuff. But using proprietary and centralized Reddit felt like a hypocrisy for me so I started looking for alternatives. That’s how I found Lemmy, a year before it will be found by fleeing redditors.

Early Lemmy was very quiet. Many instances you are used to now didn’t exist (no .world, shitjustworks, blahaj zone, dbzero, etc.) The three biggest instances were lemmy ml (the more generic, tech-focused), lemmygrad (you know that one) and wolfballs (some awful alt-right bully instance, will be later known as explodingheads). Beehaw literally just appeared when I was looking into Lemmy.

Overall, it wasn’t really enough to make me want to stay. I had no confidence in my English and social anxiety wasn’t helping too. So I quickly lost interest and moved on.

Despite all my searches, I couldn’t find a fitting replacement for Reddit. Then, my friend came out as trans and I started lurking trans-related subreddits like r/traaaaaaans and r/egg_irl and thus got back to the platform. This time I was using libreddit (still maintained by the name of redlib) and Infinity for Reddit (a fork called Eternity for Lemmy adopts it for, well, Lemmy) because the FOSS world had spoiled me and I wanted actually usable UI.

And then, the APIcalypse. I was naive enough to think that people will actually resist greedy corporats and force them to change their mind or sink their platform. Of course not. Like it or not (personally, I don’t), Reddit is still alive and well, and likely very, very profitable. But there was one beautiful consequence of the enshitifaction - this place!

Unlike my first visit to Fedi, the second time I entered not as a FOSS fangirl - posts about Linux and Firefox aren’t gonna cut it. And thus, once again I found myself on a platform with not much content that I wanted to actually see. I was still very much a lurker although it was the time I tried to break through my lurking habits and to start contributing something.

Long story short, most of my time on Lemmy was spent reading and talking about Fediverse. When Meta announced its plans to connect its Xitter-alternative to Fedi, I started spending way too much time arguing with strangers about it. Until I realized just how useless all that was. I deleted my account and took a break from all social media for months.

I decided to return at some point. I was already more comfortable with posting and more aware of just how much I hate arguing with strangers. So I made a resolution: my Lemmy time should be spent on discussing stuff that actually matters to me. While it took me quite a while to figure out how to chase interesting interactions here it brought me the best online experience since my group chat broke up.

So, I hope y’all enjoy my presence as well!