One day, I was about to install RedReader through F-droid. For some reason I searched for “Reddit” in the search bar instead of “RedReader” and saw Voyager, Jerboa and some other Lemmy clients there.
I got curious and installed “Eternity for Lemmy”. I browsed around, then decided to created my first account on lemmy.ml. Instantly fell in love with how nice most people were, how quickly I got answers and replies and the closely-knit feeling of a small community where it’s not surprising to see the same user in many different places.
I found Lemmy and decentralized social media by sheer luck.
I know most of you came here after the reddit API changes to spite the corporate site, but I wonder if there are other stories.
P.S. I find it sort of weird how lemmy.ml censors the word for “female dog”. Cmon, that’s such a tame and common insult! Can’t even quote Jesse Pinkman properly.
I had heard of it way back when, and basically thought it was going to be another dead OSS project. Years later Reddit was enshittifying and to my surprise it came back as the main alternative. Now I’m here and not leaving.
I was banned from Reddit for the crime of using a different computer to login. Fun fact - there’s no appeal for that one. So I decided I had enough of that particular shit show, did some Googling for something similar to the older Reddit from years ago.
I found out about lemmy from the announcement for boost for lemmy(i had been using boost for reddit for about a week since then)
I was a r/196 user during the API change
I started using Lemmy because, after a previous Reddit blackout a few years, the CEO of Reddit (Steve Huffman, AKA Spez) released a statement that (while I’ve long sense forgotten exactly what he said) made it seem like he was disappointed in the Reddit community for not supporting pedophilia. I used alternativeto.net to find Reddit alternatives and, because Lemmy wasn’t at the top of the list at the time, I used a few other websites before using Lemmy. At first I used both simultaneously but I deleted my Reddit account after the API changes.
It’s a good thing it is now. Back when I checked it, for some reason, most of the websites listed were nothing like Reddit/Lemmy.
