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No, it's not a joke. I'm frustrated and I'm probably not choosing my words carefully.

This community has had steadily falling engagement - our last 3 weekly threads have had a grand total of 1 (excellent and well-articulated) response, and the number of topics not generated by myself (or the other mod) since the inception of the community has also been 1.

Very few people want to actually talk. From what I've seen, the masses want the same things that they wanted on Reddit:

1. Memes
2. Articles they don't read (but will bitch about endlessly) that reinforce their opinion
3. Angry responses to someone (who may be trolling) that reinforce the current politics of the reader (that they couldn't have given a fuck about a few years ago until it became heavily politicized)
4. Shitty easy jokes
5. Personal politics circlejerking

I hate that I can see a hundredth point-free meme post and view 200 replies on it.
I hate that it's just the same talking points being strawmanned over and over again in every thread.
I hate that any point outside common groupthink is downvoted to oblivion and buried instead of discussed.

The reason I'd like to back away from Lemmy seems to be the same reason I started this community: we need more people who can articulate points, and less downvoting, but it doesn't seem to be getting better.

Maybe one day, but today is not that day. Lemmy needs to mature in more ways than one.