I mostly browse all as well. But one thing to try, is blocking communities and users. Block US news communities and you'll find a lot less bad news. When you see people acting in bad faith in the comments, have a quick browse of their profile to see if they are usually like that, then block them if they are.

There aren't that many users on Lemmy, and there are even fewer users that actually post and comment. You may find it's the same ones over and over, and blocking them helps.

Now on to your more pressing problem. Presumably you're seeing content from !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone, sorting by top in the last day I can see three memes with cats: https://programming.dev/c/onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone?dataType=Post&sort=TopDay

But the real action is here: https://programming.dev/c/cat@lemmy.world?dataType=Post&sort=New

There are like 20 posts in the last few days, most of them with plenty of upvotes.

Pretty much only Lemmy. I use it because I believe centralized social media and the companies that run it are killing the internet, and want to put energy into something that might replace it instead of creating free content for Reddit as I did for years.

I started exploring Lemmy/Kbin during Reddit's API drama. I use Lemmy daily, mostly just lurking, but occasional participation. I probably participate here more than I did on Reddit. I post to & scroll through Pixelfed occasionally, definitely more than I ever used Instagram. My Mastodon account is essentially abandoned. I never had a Twitter account, so not exactly surprising. Oh, I also briefly tried Loops, never used TikTok. I'm not big on videos, so I haven't tried Peertube.

I'm tired of billionaires and big tech and want to support alternatives.

While peertube has no content you can follow the channels from here and interact with it, that is what I am doing and it does not feel as empty as doing it over there. (Also you do not have to create a new account!)
Does not solve the content problem but I think it good to use it for those creators that are !thelinuxexperiment_channel@tilvids.com
It actually works fairly well with lemmy (alot better than mastodon as the design and concept is not compatible), just that posts rarely get the same burst of interaction that things on lemmy get which is why it never shows up on your feed. Lemmy gets multicomms in 1.0 though so you can create one for peertube.

I only use Lemmy. I tried Mastodon but it was too similar (in its principle) to Twitter which I disliked.

I came on Lemmy because I was starting to get tired of looking at Reddit : always the same stories and content too much filitered. Then the API thing happened so it was over for me, since I only used third party clients.

I stayed because tech and discussions.

What was the word?

I'm trying out Piefed. Lemmy looks like relatively good software, but I don't like the political views of the developers behind Lemmy. Their whole shtick seems to be "non-western countries good, western countries bad".

Of course, western countries have done many bad things. But I think plenty of non-western countries have also done bad things. I just don't buy into a narrative which always tries to paint western countries as "the bad guys" and non-western countries as "the good guys".

Lemmy, Mastadon, and a bunch of old school forum sites. I tried piefed and the UI isn't quite the right fit that lemmy is for me.

I can't be bothered to care, or have the time to keep up with, whoever's weekly petty political nuance about who runs what instance and why they're each a faschio-socialist whatever. If I wanted social media run by 8th graders, I would be on Truth Social.

We were informed about Mastodon from folks on Twitter back in 2019 that were looking to migrate. (I forget what Twitter was up to at the time, but part of me wants to say some form of censorship was going on) Never looked back on that end as Twitter's vibes were always rancid, well before the buyout, and the Masto instance we were on felt so much more like an actual community.

As for Lemmy, kinda similar story but we never had a Reddit. Never felt it necessary to interact with that community whereas this one feels more real, joined a couple years ago now I think?

We're also looking at WAFRN to replace or at least bridge from Bluesky, we kinda begrudgingly joined that site only after learning that Dorsey was out of the picture but it's just been nothing but the admins shooting themselves in the collective foot for as long as we've been on Bsky.

I'm on mastodon, lemmy, pixelfed, and loops. Also on Bluesky until the ads start.

Here to avoid ads and dark patterns. Fediverse is where interaction is done with users in mind instead of being the product. No nasty algorithms here.

Hell yeah.

Interesting. It's prettier. Is there a way to view the list of hashtags I'm following?

Just Lemmy. I never had Twitter so Mastodon probably wouldn't appeal, I had that problem with Bluesky.

More than anything Reddit just got annoying to use. I had no social media at all for a bit until I signed up for Lemmy, and I haven't decided if I like it yet. I do enjoy that there isn't a ton of content to endlessly scroll, feels healthier I guess.

I want Peertube to be good but the content just isn't there for me yet.

Profile (bottom right), 3 dots (top right), there they are

I just recently joined Lemmy; never had a redditt account. Have been using Mastodon for quite a few years now; only ever dabbled in twitter. I like that the fedi stuff seems more organic and less manipulated by algorithms, although, that also makes it easy to miss stuff as well. Still getting a feel for Lemmy and discovering interesting communities. My ultimate social platform was Google Reader (still miss my sharebros/gals. My primary social media after the demise of GR was the comment section, BBS, of BoingBoing -- we had a mass departure after the publisher did some petty bans (started our own discourse instance)

so did you try peertube

Been on mastodon for awhile. I decided to make a lemmy account because trying to view lemmy from mastodon is annoying.

do you think peertube got the least of the migration waves that happened in i dont remember

Not really; only when somebody uses peertube to share a video

I tried Mastodon and just couldn't really find much I'm interested in on there.

I use the fediverse because reddit really pissed me off by taking away functional app options for a second fucking time

Only on Lemmy, ever since the APIpocalypse on Reddit.

I'm not sure what peertube is? So I guess so??

well peertube is like youtube but fedi

I only use mastodon and lemmy as far as I know

Been on Mastodon for like four years. Ironically, I joined when during a major Twitter exodus, but I’d already left Twitter like two years before. I came here because I started to get tired of my content being used to make money for Mark Zuckerberg and I also noticed that “the algorithm” was primed to make me both addicted and angry all the time.

Came to Lemmy because I find it has more memes and humor than Mastodon and scratches the reddit itch (I left that platform about two years ago). It’s also a pretty good place to see news from around the world.

I also use Pixelfed, but rarely. I like to look at it when I have downtime but don’t want to be inundated with political posts and commentary. It tends to just be pretty pictures of flowers and mosses.

I love the Fediverse for being influencer-free social media. I really want to start a PeerTube instance for my own content (I’m a priest at a small Episcopal parish and I use streaming for our Christian education stuff and I find a huge disconnect with using a predatory and exploitative platform like YouTube for any kind of actual Christian material).

Pretty much only Lemmy. I like and prefer the form of post which can be media or weblink with description or just text and text is unlimited, with threaded comments for discussions and comments, and thematic categorization (in communities).

Occasionally, I open https://loops.video/ or some other random platform. That's nothin regular, though.

I have accounts on multiple instances, which is another layer of thematic separation. Community spread and content duplication is a downside, but also a technical consequence of the design.

There they are! Thanks

Eradicated in relation to the Russian regime.

Just Lemmy and Discuit. Dont go on Reddit anymore.

Mastodon for my twitumblr fix

I didn't know that was still running

So, I jumped ship here to the old lemm(dot)ee instance because of the r€ddit API fiasco a few years back. I haven't looked back since. That led me to who knows how much longer down the line trying Mastodon. Still there, but I mostly just retoot things from the people I follow, who retooted another post... and follow The Internet Archive.

I've used Mastodon since soon after Twitter was sold. Then when Reddit started killing third party client access I came here too.

I still use Reddit since it's just got the user base, but I'm trying. I run !gamedev@lemmy.world for the fun of it. (Just don't judge me by the least few weeks of upkeep; life has been life-ing. I try to find a few worthwhile news stories to link a day, ideally practical, but sometimes just interesting industry news.)

Only lemmy. And lurking Reddit at work because stupid memes are entertaining enough. But I never upvote anything there. (I know just the browsing is engagement but idc enough)

Why I use Lemmy:
I can subscribe to the selfhosting/(F)OSS mindset and like the idea of it.

Mainly use lemmy with voyager. Don't know or care enough to join any others. I'm only here for the shitposting and vague sense of community/socialisation.

I used to use reddit for that, but the bots and getting banned for wrongthink really pushed me off. The non-stop-politicking happens here too, but I try and stay away, and at least its more aligned with my stances here when I do see it so it doesn't piss me off as much.

Still use reddit for NSFW communities, but once that account is banned I wont be back.