Hope a two part question is allowed but after mostly lurking a lot, I'm noticing that there do seem to be quite a lot of Xennials. But on the other hand, also plenty of rebellious youth.

In my mind I'm thinking that Lemmy userbase is (very broadly generalizing) dividing into people who saw internet's early days and as such, aren't scared of the slight technical hurdles to enter. They tend to be a bit worldweary but Lemmy does feel a bit more like OG internet, which they like (this is me). But also, there's younger people who are techy enough to deal with the hurdles too but see using Lemmy as a sort of an act of rebellion against the mainstream internet (which I appreciate).

That said I feel like the two clash a lot since the former tends to have fewer shits to give than the latter. As often is the case in the whole history of humanity.

Obviously there's plenty of people who don't fall into either camps, which is why I'm curious. Lemmy is small enough to have a sense that there are actual, real, individual people here, as opposed to Reddit's amorphous blob of a massive userbase most of whom seem like bots.

I am 41. I found out about Lemmy because of Reddit's API bullshit, and ended up staying here ever since the actual API shutdown that killed all the 3rd party apps which were the only usable way to browse the site on mobile. Was already getting sick of the place, since it was becoming more and more obvious that the admin staff had a nazi problem, and probably would have come sooner if I was aware of it 4 or 5 years ago. Or maybe I would have only seen Lemmy.ML and got turned off by the tankies. IDK...

Older Gen Z, Reddit API issues.

The community I was most interested in Reddit become more and more proto-facist controlled and when I called them on it they ban me for one week. It was a revelation. I’ve heard of Lemmy and decide to look it out from there. A month later of using Lemmy and Reddit I realized that I was more engaged into Lemmy and with the monetization of Reddit I decided to delete it

Mid 30s. Got here the same way as everyone else - evacuated from reddit.

Peak Gen X, same

This is one of the questions we asked on our census this year. We are still working on cleaning the data, and we may exclude additional responses if we identify more duplicates / errors, but here is a preview of those results:

mid 40s. Xennial. I'm here because i didn't care when reddit's automod:

Lemmy is small enough to have a sense that there are actual, real, individual people here, as opposed to Reddit’s amorphous blob of a massive userbase most of whom seem like bots.

that is why i like it here. i see the same names often enough to remember people, like whats Their face with the capitalized pronouns

This is me

Gen X but I came to use (and host) lemmy as an act of rebellion against corporate controlled internet

Mid-50's.

Was looking for an alternative to Reddit, probably like a lot of other people, and Lemmy popped up as the first choice. It's really as simple as that.

Late 30s. Looked for Reddit alternatives after they tried to kill 3rd party apps. Landed on Beehaw first, then found Lemmy through Jerboa since you can use both of them through that app.

Nearly 50. The Reddit API move was the final straw that made me realise I also wanted to be around a better class of idiot :)

39, left reddit like most here because of the API bullshit.

Now its looking like I'm going to have to leave everything because of the crap my state is trying to pull with device level age verification... Yeah... No. I'll just draw memes for myself at that point lol

how old are you

Nearing my 60s.

and how did you come to be on Lemmy?

Left Reddit because of their bullshit policy changes. Knew what the Fediverse was, tried Lemmy (then moved to Piefed) and decided I may as well stay for a little while ;)

Late 40s, reason was I don’t like when social media agrees to work with fascists, so I looked for an alternative and was happy to find this place where it feels a lot more like earlier days internet.

1. This one has been around.

Lemmy is the spirit of the UBB board continued, many of us are the remnants of the old web, just following the endless chain to whatever the next big exodus will be, seeing how many come with us, and the names that fade with each hop.

I have treated Lemmy differently. I was pseudo anonymous on Reddit. I treat Lemmy the same way I treat a darkweb overlay network. (no this isn't my first account)

This has more to do with the times than community trust, but I've been an anon for a while before too, it's nothing new.

In my 70s. In response to the U.S. aggression, I switched to Lemmy.ca, a Canadian owned media. Not many other Canadian owned social media sites out there.

Late 60s. Came here on the heels of the death of Apollo and the Reddit API fiasco.

Same.

I'm 29, I joined the fediverse during the Reddit API protests.

Not using Lemmy though, I'm an Mbin user.

less than 20, reddit pissed me off by killing the API so i could no longer use Infinity for Reddit.

RIP Nexopia

Me too

29 moved from Reddit more as a consequence of moving from twitter to mastadon two years ago and learning about lemmy then.

Mid 30s, 3rd party Reddit app migration ~3y ago

Stuck around because it reminded me of a lot of the good parts of Reddit that increasingly seem to be gone from the actual site. Though not that I'd really know because I probably only go to Reddit once every few months now via a search for something, and every time I do, it seems even worse than the last time.

I'm just hoping the growth continues such that the less busy communities start to pick up a bit, we're getting close to the point where there's a community to cover most interests I've thought looked for, but many of them are ghost towns. But we're making progress, month on month it does feel like there are more people knocking around

24 (approximately)

Doesn't take much knowledge to find Lemmy, I like a topic-based forum, not some influencer-follower twitter like shit... I don't like "following" "people"... I want to talk about stuff not people... was on Reddit... and just have a burning hatered for authoritiarians and bullshit like: "AUTOMODERATOR: OPPSIES YOUR KARMA ISN'T ENOUGH.." or "YOUR POST HAVE BEEN AUTOMATICALLY REMOVED"... and a desire for freedom.

Techical Knowledge? Idek how to do coding lmao...

Never knew what internet was like in the "Good Ol' Days" or whatever y'all are talking about, my first glance at the internet was in 2010

Interesting that it seems like most people here are around 30 or are 50+.

I'm in my 40's. Reddit being an increasingly bigger piece of shit led me here. Mostly the api changes but also they literally banned me for something that isn't even against rules, I think a bot banned me actually. I appealed it and they unbanned me but I was already pissed, as they were forcing everyone into a worse experience and also idly watching Nazis slither around, increasing in number every day. But if you said mean words as a leftist you would get banned-- I also got temp bans for things like that.

I think I saw reddit posts about Lemmy, I forget, but I was actively thinking of leaving already, however I found it.

1. Old
2. LONG time redditor that got fed up during the original API bullshit. Ive been here for a bit. Feels like home.
   2.a. I feel like I am in both camps. I don't mind the technical hurdles (it really wasn't THAT bad, folks). I also do it for rebellious purposes.

Late 20s. If you count lurking, just when the Reddit 3rd party API thing happened; if not, a bit over a year ago

I've been using Mastodon for a few months and even transitioned to selfhosting a -key instance for a while back then. So when the Reddit fiasco happened it was pretty natural for me to be drawn to Lemmy lol. I've only been a lurker even on Reddit though, so it took me some time to actually participate. Fun fact, but I first became aware of Lemmy a few months before the API thing, when the top posts only had a bit over 100 upvotes and almost every other person knew it for the devs' questionable political ideologies... I'm still a bit positively surprised that Lemmy has become as self-sustaining as it is today

I think I'd fall more into the latter camp but both descriptions somewhat apply to me TBH. I've daily driven Gentoo for a year and a half for good measures (don't do that anymore out of practicality), and I generally have a distaste for anything too mainstream so

Yeah, I'd say us Xennials are out here looking for the early web, wherever it might spring up.

This part of the Fediverse definitely has that early web feel to it. Loosely moderated, no "algorithm" and little to no corporate interference or ens**ttification. Just like Usenet used to be. (And maybe still is. Still waiting on a smart person to build a bridge to whatever's left of Usenet from the Fediverse. Were I 25 years younger, I might have even tried to be that person.)

Left Reddit with the API exodus. But I'm not on Lemmy. Most of the traffic and discussion does seem to have ended up on Lemmy groups like this one, so that's where my participation ends up, but I'll be on kbin/mbin for as long as I can be.

Not yet 30, and I got banned from reddit after 13 years for saying nazis deserve to be dead. Hit too close to home for the admins with that one, evidently. I have alts that they can't find, but I mainly hang here now.

Ayo fuck nazis

Fuck pedos

Fuck fanatics of any kind

Fuck the zios

Fuck the billionares

And fuck my girlfriend, lovingly (if I had one)

FREEDOM, BITCHES 🦅🦅🦅🦅

Age: 9.6 - 10

I created an account at lemmy.ml, because I was interested in seeing real-world examples of Rust in production. Shortly after that, due to the death of Reddit 3rd party API, I began to spend more time in Lemmy.

24 (I think?)

I wanted to have somem actual freedom of speech and not see AI generated posts and botting.

1. I joined Reddit when I was like 14, then when I heard about the API stuff and saw Lemmy mentioned as like Reddit but with more freedom of speech, I switched. (I guess I was wrong about that, here can have it's overzealous moderators too...) I was about 15/16 I think? I've been here over two years over various accounts.

40s

Reddit's API BS was part of it, but the bigger issue is the increasing number of suspensions and bans for completely innocent stuff, just because it pisses off Nazis. Recently I got a 3 day account ban because I said that ICE is racist. Before that I got my post deleted and an official warning because I said something about the Trump admin firing missiles at fishing boats being a bad thing (I don't remember what I said exactly, and they deleted the post so I can't check).

Same. Tried to go back late last year and it was a sloppy disappointment. Partner kept talking about Lemmy and after checking it out I joined. It sorta reminds me of old Reddit (joined in 2013) yet very different.

Mid 30s. Noticed that a lot of posts reaching my country's front page started spreading right wing talking points. This was a concerning development, because previously my impression of Reddit was that it leaned left. Made me wonder, whether it was hijacked for Propaganda reasons.

A lot of people are way older than I thought. Interesting. Thank you!

40s. Saw Lemmy mentioned on Reddit around the time of the API debacle. It became clear to me that reddit would not be usable in the long run, as it is unusable without 3rd party clients.

Upon checking Lemmy out, it reminded me of the kind of internet I hadn't seen in ages, so I stayed.

I'm 26, used Reddit for a long time, but the primary way I came to find out about Lemmy was because I was already on Mastodon and a fediverse enthusiast. I was here before the API scandal.

Xennial here. I despise enshittification, so I wanted some kind of alternative to reddit. I still need to set it up a bit better, but whatever.

I still read reddit through a reddit viewer, but no longer participate.

Which instance and time of day you ask this is going to give different results I suspect. I'm a 500 year old antarctican. I came here after stopping on mastodon for a bit after leaving reddit.

Same!

Turned 20 last week. I found lemmy through reddit about 2 years ago.

Backstory :

My parents had flat refused home internet until 2020 when online classes made it a requirement.

Since I am 14, at home, and just got introduced to the wide world of web, I looked up tutorials on becoming a hacker like in the movies and got into linux.

General social media was still too overwhelming for me but I did like reddit for the linux content. I later saw the "about" page of r/unixsocks explaining they are on c/unixsocks now.

I checked lemmy and community was better here, also reddit had and alt-right problem so I decided to migrate.

Almost 40. The official reddit app would not run on my dogshit phone. I went through a few apps, settled on connect. It eats space still but I can clear the cache.

I am sad a lot of the little subs (communities here I suppose) don't exist but not quite enough to make them. I'll stick to being a main contributor to the canning one lol.

I’ll just draw memes for myself

Hide them in the pages of a bible. Smuggle them out of state to a place with more freedom. Have someone scan them and post them on the internet.

You know this is a chart of the ages most likely to participate in a survey not necessarily a representation of the avg age of users, right? Especially depending on how many days the survey ran for because Lemmy is far less likely to see daily user activity than a facebook/reddit/twitter. Its just not big enough to generate enough content to fill daily use needs. Not talking shit just reflecting on what ive seen thru daily active user reports and content volume.

Early 40s.

The API thing almost did it for me. The only reason it didn't is because Reddit kept working through RedReader (still does). It was the bot banning that finally did it for me. Repeated bans and new accounts because some bot autobanned me for things I really don't think I should have been banned for. Started noticing the bot banning was targeting comments that mentioned the 2nd amendment. That's when I noped out. I had already been subbed to /r/RedditAlternatives for a while and Lemmy seemed to be what most people were posting about, so that's what I went with.

Also found out that subs could autoban you for posting in other subs they don't like. So you'd comment in a sub and immediately get an automated message from another sub saying you're permanently banned from their sub for posting in that sub.

I don't need that shit. I don't need that shit even if I was getting paid for it. And I wasn't. Bye, Felicia!!!