May question ako, after the whole abandoning of this community… Is there any hope for any move outside of the main social medias?
Intro
I’ve thought about this, since I’ve been exploring Mastodon, Bluesky vs Twitter/X… Nostr. Any move outside of the main three, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Reddit… fizzles out like this one. While there still remains somewhat of a community, such as the more popular communities in this fediverse… I wonder what’s the hope of switching away from the dominant socmeds if there is no homegrown movement here. I mean, look at me, I very rarely post, and look at Lemmy since any important info is almost always in reddit due to search…
Reflection
Don’t get me wrong… We all have lives outside of social media, (especially me), it’s just… very hard to come back and look at the multiple of dead communities, knowing you don’t really have much to contribute. Like look at the many news posts, and random discussions… Somebody has to take charge, and it’s not going to be me… I have so many things to do. My point is, there is low hope for any alt socmeds to reliably grow, if either the people that moved just… move on from being chronically online or go back (to the big three), due to a multitude of reasons.
Conclusion
I think I’m just exhausted with my life, and that has permeated with my internet usage too. There’s too many negative videos/posts that I have viewed, but there is much regret and procrastination outside. In conclusion…? I rambled for three paragraphs about Lemmy and the Fediverse, The Big Tech Social Medias, and the Philippines / Internet Culture…
Hope ya got something out of it!
There are Filipinos in Lemmy, even those who didn’t participate in this community back when it was more alive. I suspect there were more Filipinos in Lemmy that didn’t participate in the community than those who did. Perhaps it is the usual 90% lurker, 9% commenter, 0.9% poster mix, with the remaining percentage being what I call “community leaders” who set the tone and the stage for the community.
The problem, as far as I see it, is with the very nature of non-mainstream social media: it’s non-mainstream. Sherlock-level take, I know, but the problem is that while there’s a lot of Filipinos using social media, and some of them use non-mainstream social media (such as Mastodon and Lemmy), I doubt it’s enough to sustain a community (at this early state, at least) without some unholy level of effort and commitment not just from the community leaders, but also from the members. I am guilty of this lack of commitment myself.
Personally, I stayed here on Lemmy, but I wasn’t really the type of person that can comment and make posts that are meaningful and relevant to this community. Unfortunately, I guess there’s more people like me here than otherwise.
Moreover, I don’t think it’s easy to spot a Filipino in those non-mainstream media unless they tell you. And as far as my sample size of less than a handful is concerned, they aren’t really coming out of the woodwork just as easily to form a Filipino community in those non-mainstream social media. This is perhaps a consequence of Filipinos (of my generation at least, the 90’s kids) getting used to a social media not of their own, they’ve managed to blend in and are fine with it. Unless there’s a big reason to come out of the shadows and participate in, or create, a Filipino community, they won’t.
Considering how old Facebook has already been when it gained traction here in the Philippines, how old Reddit was when /r/Philippines really got active, I think this community is just before its time. The only kinds of communities here on Lemmy that I can consider self-sustaining and mature enough are the Linux communities and other more geeky-pop-culture communities (LotR, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc). These communities really paint a picture of what appeals to the ordinary Lemmy user right now, and perhaps an indication of what kind of users tend to adopt non-mainstream social media.
Oh, I forgot to answer the question:
If what you mean by ‘move’ is something like moving /r/Philippines into !philippines@lemmy.world, then no. I don’t think there was any hope of that happening to begin with. What I think might be possible is to have enough people here in Lemmy such that there’s enough Filipinos (or other people interested in the Philippines) to organically grow this community.
EDIT:
I forgot to answer the OP’s question, my bad.
Oh, good insight. I guess I’m still getting used to the whole niche crowd I’ve put myself in. (Like Linux, FLOSS space, etc.)
I guess it is reasonable that people like me don’t out themselves much considering what I’ve been doing… Yeah, I think throughout the whole journey I’ve been in and throughout the ‘alt-media’ space (Mainly Lemmy and Mastodon/Bluesky). It’s always been more niche communities that have moved…
Oh, and I was also part of that ‘commenter’ crowd before decentrabel retired so I didn’t really expect that it would die out (though to be fair… I did unexpectedly quit around the last months due to personal reasons)
Yeah, I guess there’s just gotta be people interested and willing to post and comment to spread on the already non-mainstream crowd of lemmy users…
It’s a relief that r/philippines never committed to moving here after June 2023. We were spared from attempts by idiots u/sarcasticookie and u/choco-mallows to run this community.