I know the real answer is reddit but I really don’t want to go back now that I’ve already grown used to life without it. I was hoping for Lemmy to be a viable substitute but it isn’t. I can see how this place is wonderful for the certain type of person but that person is not me. My experience during the past 6+ months has been a net negative and I’m pretty much ready to move on. I just don’t know where else to go.
I can understand what you mean. The prevailing narratives tend to be America bad, cars bad, capitalism bad, Linux good, on and on. But in the vein of how you assert that you don’t want people to assume what you believe, going into a community painting users with a broad brush is going to fill the gap with your pre-conceived biases, and that isn’t conducive to good discussion. I say give it a chance, even someone that writes along the lines of what you expect may still have a tiny sliver of something that surprises you. I look at some of the more notorious users like FlyingSquid, PugJesus, PP_BOY etc. and I’ve agreed with them and disagreed with them on various topics, even if they were in line with ‘the narrative’. Other users I attempt to converse and sometimes it works out while other times I have to stop at the 3rd reply.
I’m making an effort to be better, trying to curb the ratio of responses I do that have only memes and add more original thoughts or detailed opinions to my newer comments.