I don’t see much of that myself. Either it’s mostly from the few people I have blocked or it’s the communities I’m not in.

I’m also not sure why negative and rude is the same as dispassionate to you. Maybe that’s why we’re not seeing the same things. Or maybe that’s not what you meant to say, but that’s how this reads to me.

Redditfugees.

Cant say im seeing it. Maybe hang out in different communities?

You’re asking something that is extremely subjective, in a very combative way. You don’t seem like you have good intentions

Lemmy seems less like a space built around a shared passion for ideas or a vision of a better future, and more like a community bonded by mutual hatred of an outgroup. The sense of belonging often comes not from shared goals or values, but from shared enemies. That kind of dynamic tends to breed a negative, hostile culture where outrage and mockery are more common than curiosity or constructive discussion.

Do you have the problematic instances, communities, and users blocked? Most of the maligned content that I’ve seen has come from two instances that I’ve since blocked from my feed, although blocking their bananas users requires each user to make themselves known first. Lemmy requires a bit of custom pruning of federation to fit each user’s tastes, interests, and values.

Secondly, there is a lot of despair going on due to the current state of society. For-profit media will show things through one lens, and non-profit forums will show things through another. There are a lot of people passionate about making a better world and stopping malicious powers.

Thirdly, amassing fandom communities takes time. Everyone is affected by global superpowers and politics, but they’re not going to be happy about it; in contrast, not everyone is into the same specific pastimes. Attracting people to communities for XYZ fandoms/hobbies/passions requires these communities to stand out among the sea of posts and catch the users’ eye, or for the user to actively seek them out and find them.

Last and least likely, you don’t happen to be sorting by Controversial?

Got an example?

If you have only been here for a month it’s not enough time to judge if the culture is changing, no?

Also you’re saying two different things, that people are negative and rude and that they aren’t expressing any passion. I think some users are negative and rude, but they definitely still express passion even though it isn’t always positive. Lemmy users have always held strong and passionate beliefs, it’s part of why we decided to leave mainstream social media and use Lemmy instead.

Sometimes those beliefs clash, but I don’t think it’s gotten any more negative lately. Plus it varies so much from server to server and community to community. It’s pretty foolish to paint all of Lemmy with the same brush because really it’s a bunch of independent communities with different attitudes and behaviors that are also able to interact with each other.

Have you visited hobby communities? They can be quite pleasant.

Once I replied to a meme and got 10 people replying with hateful things, downvoting my replies, nobody had my back did’nt understand why. Turned out the meme I replied to was posted in a communist instance and the anti-us sentiment wasn’t really a joke. At some point a mod blocked me from replying so I blocked the instance and never looked back. If I see a user or community from specific instances I think twice before I reply. 99% of the time I feel free to say whatever I want, so I don’t really care about the parts of lemmy where I’m not. I’ve seen plenty of passionate and caring people in the 2-3 weeks since I registered, so don’t know how you’ve missed them so far. They’re here though.

I don’t see that much hate but plenty of anger

Won’t speculate as to why but will recommend the community push for keyword filtering at the account level (a la Bluesky) rather than relying on apps like Sync to help us sift through the garbage

Only been here a short while, and have had mainly positive experiences. I’ll usually give people benefit of the doubt as it can be hard for some to express themselves in text - so can come across as rude. Obvious trolling I just ignore.

As others have said, one’s view of Lemmy is highly dependent upon the instances and communities that one frequents. As someone who isn’t a habitué of politics, news, sport or meme communities, I’ve found my fellow lemmings to be pleasant, but I also believe that that is due to trying to be helpful and polite myself and being willing to apologize when warranted.

I’ve seen it here as long as I’ve been here, it’s the main reason why I’m not on here much anymore. First time I noticed it was when I went looking for Christian communities here and found nearly every post was getting more downvotes than upvotes. Kinda seems like there are a few on this platform who enjoy downvoting people just for being Christians - and those people outnumber those interested in actual conversation on those communities.

So why is Lemmy like this? I dunno, I can only speculate.

I get it too. People would rather start calling you names than have a discussion. I think it’s the “with us or against us” mentality as a whole that makes people very volatile.

You sound like a reasonable person though, so I hope you don’t depart.