Why does the culture surrounding Lemmy seem to be inherently negative and hateful?
I have accounts on various Reddit alternatives and have also had accounts on now-defunct sites. However, none have exhibited the same level of negativity as Lemmy.
Your perception of lemmy has been tainted by the kind of communities you interact with. You and I have wildly different experiences on this app.
Part of the reason you feel this way may be caused by you being subscribed to unpopularopinion, an inherently contrarian community. If you'd like to be happy, stop following that community.
I also encourage you to avoid engaging in political conversations with non-rational people: It is extremely unlikely that they will change their minds, and even if you do reach an understanding, that conversation is really likely to leave you with a sour feeling.
In comparison, the communities I'm in are mostly about memes, IT, privacy and LGBT stuff. No news about the war, and no political arguments with random, possibly deranged, users.
The instance I'm in doesn't even have downvotes! Depending on how you use lemmy, you can have either really good or really bad experiences. I recommend u to try to avoid conflict, and maybe even switch to a downvote-less instance.
I would say that lemmy is just more realist then naive optimist, since more intellectual people probably use lemmy or even try to fund Reddit alternatives.
Looking at your post and comment history, it looks like you are, yourself, part of the problem. I see a number of pessimistic (or shit-stirring) posts, posts that appear to be in favor of "ancap", and commenting in piracy comms. Sorry to say it but, you may want to examine your own behavior before pointing at others.
I don't think Lemmy is all that negative. Pessimistic as another put it, sure. You are just having the classic experience of someone that's an asshole so see's assholes everywhere. Reflect on your own behaviour.
I think it just correlates with leftism in the US and Lemmy was leftist before the Reddit exodus increased the population. I say this as a US center-left liberal (and I get annoyed with it myself).
The leftist movement is very anti-establishment, very pessimistic about their future under capitalism, very pessimistic about the US political establishment, very pessimistic about climate change, very pessimistic about the Israel-Hamas situation, very pessimistic about police, very pessimistic about health care, very pessimistic about both Biden and Temp, very pessimistic about ... pretty much every major issue (except maybe weed).
Edit: I don't mean to "rage against the leftist" either, I think y'all have some good points from time to time and there are definitely things I agree with you on (e.g. the health care system needs major changes). Some of y'all give a real "you must be fun at parties" kind of vibe though and some are about as bad as the Trump supporters in terms of using personal attacks.
You being personally attacked for being an (evidently) leftist does not invalidate the numerous personal attacks that leftist have made against me on this platform and others.
If you opposed genocide you'd support Israel, who is fighting an explicitly genocidal opponent that did in fact commit acts of genocide against israel, as per international law.
If you want to join someone else's community, expect to have to abide by their rules. You wanna make the rules, put in the effort to make your own community. Nobody's forcing you to be here. Bye now, don't let my block hit you on the way out.
It's always a laugh to see users like this. Nothing like joining an established group and then whinging about how "toxic" it is when they get rebuffed for repeatedly breaking the given rules.
People on Lemmy have bailed from Reddit because they have principles. Stuff like Linux. The value of science/education. Lefty-ism (or whatever it's called in their region). FOSS. They are willing to cut themselves out from a larger community to foster one that is compatible with their principles.
From your comment history you seem to be posting stuff outside of Lemmy's core beliefs. That's great! But the people here really believe in those principles, so they react negatively to the comments.
I dunno what else to say. If we want Lemmy to be viable, we need to allow people with other views build communities here. We feel pretty close to a monoculture at the moment.
I hadn't really noticed that Lemmy is any more or less negative than Reddit used to be. I have noticed that most people on here are a lot more polite aside from the occasional trolls. Maybe the negativity is more of a trend in the specific communities you're visiting?
Huh. Maybe it's the communities/posts I've visited but I wouldn't agree with your assessment of an inherent negativity/hatefulness. Do you have examples we can discuss?
But... It's your post taking about negativity, so you're saying your post about negativity on Lemmy is evidence of negativity on Lemmy? Or the fact the current vote count is negative?
I've seen the same thing and I think it's a conversation we need to have.
I think it's because Lemmy is populated by people who did not like Reddits changes. We are malcontents by definition, and holy cow does it show. And of course all the people that have had their Reddit accounts banned too.
I think everyone needs to take their tone down quite a few notches.