The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

  • ~30 years old or older

  • tech enthusiasts/workers

  • linux users

There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?

Thoughts?

  • Yaztromo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I started back in the Wild West BBS days on the 80s; graduated to USENET in the 90s, website forums in the Web 1.0 days, /., Reddit, and now Lemmy. Yeah, I’ve been around. Been “Yaztromo” all that time too.

    I don’t mind that “Eternal September” hasn’t infected this space yet — that’s a feature, not a bug!

  • kool_newt@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    There’s always a group on the forefront, it makes sense that it’s tech interested people Fediverse being based on open source software and all about sharing means it’s right p Linux user’s alley.

    The 30+ demographic not sure, maybe just people a bit grown up and now under as much peer pressure to be on the more popular corporate platforms.

  • DigiWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I’m called out, although I’m not quite in my 30s yet.

    Also… Reddit started out in the same way, mostly as a forum for programmers and nerds

  • ScaNtuRd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Good. I don’t want to see some teenagers doing some dumb dance or whatever is on normie platforms.

  • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    Young people don’t even understand that the internet isn’t only the 5 websites that have existed since before they were born lol

    That’s probably a big part of it. We kind of designed the internet to become an information super oligarchy, even if it wasn’t intentional.

    I’m 33 for the record so I guess I’m an older tech nerd. Nice. 😎

  • AirZone@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Well… I’m 36 yo physician, an orthopedic surgeon resident. But I do LOVE tech&gaming. I want to switch from reddit because my favorite app boost stopped working and the creator is developing a boost app for lemmy. Oh and the official reddit app is just shit. I do hope lemmy will get bigger.

    • ruffletuss@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Oh wow, it’s great to hear from a fellow healthcare professional!

      I’m a 5th year med student who switched to using lemmy once my favourite app, sync for reddit stopped working :(

      I’m a huge tech nerd too and while I do love the culture here, I find myself occasionally wondering if there are any communities on lemmy focused on medicine and/or medical professionals.

      Would you happen to know any that you could recommend?

  • SisuAika@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I don’t want to stereotype anyone, but in my own social experience, younger groups don’t give a shit about corporate monopolies or privacy, they just want things to work fast and automatically (ex: TikTok). And those I know in older brackets are still on Facebook and complaining that they don’t want to deal with change because their family/business/workflow would be affected.

    I happen to be 38, a linux user, and a gamer. And I concur that my age-group has just always seemed to be more open to new technologies for some reason.

    • MercuryUprising@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I think younger people don’t give a shit about privacy because they grew up in a post 9/11 surveillance world. Facebook, Instagram and the internet at large became a giant surveillance machine and they’ve never known another possibility, so it’s normalized to them.

  • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I’m Gen Z, don’t use Linux, don’t know the first thing about programming (I know how to use file explorer though), and never intend to learn, and I’m here because I don’t wanna use the official Reddit app and because I’m convinced that the Fediverse is likely to become big in the future and I wanna be able to say I was here when it all began.

    • GreenCrush@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      This is me as well. gen z, hate that trillion dollar corporations run our social media. The fediverse is the future.

      • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Idk I just heard that apparently knowing how to use file explorer is considered impressive in modern CS classes

      • LogarithmicCamel@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        According to what I have heard, other elite hacker skills that are at risk of getting lost in the younger generations include searching on Google and using e-mail.

  • RagingRobot@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    2 years ago

    That’s what I’m here for lol. I mean this is how reddit was when I first started there. Same with digg

    • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      That’s what I’m here for lol. I mean this is how reddit was when I first started there. Same with digg

      This is what people always miss. Generally, sites become popular because niche subcultures form outside of the “big” websites as they no longer really serve their purpose of connecting to like minded individuals. They never “start big”, they generally snowball from small hardcore users to larger more generalized userbases over time.

    • metallic_substance@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      This place reminds me so much of early reddit. It’s been a strangely nostalgic experience so far. The part of that which I’m enjoying the most, is that commenters are more polite to each other as far as I’ve seen

      • time_example@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Everyone writes in clear, concise and grammatically correct sentences too lol. It’s slightly surreal.

  • Sparking@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I think older sysadmins are the only ones who understand the DNS knowledge required to grok federation.