You can see it if you check https://fedidb.org/. Monthly active users have gone from just a hair under one million to somewhere around 1.4 million and still growing. How do we think this will go? How do we feel about this influx of new users? Has PixelFed done something different that Mastodon hasn’t?
I feel like I didn’t really recognize having different “platforms” like Mastodon, PixelFed, etc would give multiple opportunities for the fediverse to make a “first” impression with people.
It’s quite good, in my opinion. If we had some bridge to lemmy’s posts, it would be even better. Also I’ve checked and if you like or comment a mastodon post from Pixelfed you’ll receive the notification, so, it’s something🤷♂️.
You can post from PixelFed into Lemmy but you won’t see replies and that’s too bad.
So far so good! Some very unscientific observations from spending an absurd amount of time scrolling local on pixelfed.social:
The people coming from Instagram and TikTok seem way less grumpy than the microbloggers. People are having a lot of fun and not complaining about much. It’s kind of a trip seeing happy, joyful people on the Fediverse to be honest. Everything in the world suuuuuuuucks right now, so it’s felt like a bit of a refuge. Sometimes I’ll accidentally bounce over to the global feed and oh man is the change in tone jarring.
People don’t seem to have a problem with servers like the Twitter migrants did. Folks are still talking about it a lot on Mastodon though. I’ve literally not seen a single post about Pixelfed being “too complicated” to succeed, whereas it was (and is) pretty common to see “this place is great and all, but…” posts in the microblogging neighbourhood. Not sure why this is but it might be because the people coming to Pixelfed are generally younger than Mastodon users. This is just a guess, but I’d estimate the average age of Mastodon users is maybe mid-40s. Most of the people pouring into Pixelfed appear to be in their mid-to-late-20s. Perhaps those folks are just more accustomed to servers through Discord and gaming? Though people are generally captioning photos and not writing out lists of things they’re unhappy about and they could also just be unaware of servers altogether…
Pixelfed is easily the most diverse “corner” of the Fediverse now. Fedi is very white but a large number coming over now aren’t. Pixelfed.social has probably gone from being 75% men to 75% women in the last few weeks. Diversity is the best possible thing for the social web.
I’ve seen a bunch of people on Instagram promoting Feb 1st as “Global Switch Day” so hopefully it’ll keep blowing up.
Pixelfed is easily the most diverse “corner” of the Fediverse now. Fedi is very white but a large number coming over now aren’t. Pixelfed.social has probably gone from being 75% men to 75% women in the last few weeks. Diversity is the best possible thing for the social web.
This was a huge part of why I now spend more time over on pixelfed as opposed to here – I have a few accounts I’ve used here, and every single time I’m in a thread about a woman who’s been sexually assaulted, or about a woman’s shelter, etc, the ‘not all guys’/‘men suffer too’ bros come flooding in. I’ve logged out of accounts for weeks, switched to another one, just to let them scream into the void of my inbox for awhile, and it happens every time. I befriended a woman here when I responded to one of the most sad-to-read replies in one of those threads, that read like: “Women are often abused by men–not all men, just some, and I want to reiterate that this is about those specific men…” and it just went on and on trying to placate the inevitable furious white men in the comments section. As someone who lived as a white man for over forty years, I know just how whiny, sad, and ridiculous they look, and they they still get their way.
Over on pixelfed I haven’t once had an interaction even close to that. It’s extremely pleasant, people helping each other learn the platform, people asking for help in bad home situations, and it’s a community. People have messaged me when I made mistakes linking things in extremely pleasant ways, and two people debated alt-text (is it helpful to those who use audio captions, or is it training AI?) without once insulting each other. Lemmy was very briefly that, yet there’s a lot of tribalism that is not only unnecessary, and frankly, childish. I’m quite often embarrassed of my fellow men here.
(Well, non-binary now, yet I still feel the experiences of 40+ years of being a man are helpful.)
So anyway, I agree pixelfed is a lot more inviting, and a lot more diverse.
and it just went on and on trying to placate the inevitable furious white men in the comments section.
I think that’s, usually, not necessary. The “going on at length” part, that is. People want to know you’re not literally Andrea Dworkin, trying to actively reinforce the toxic AF “women are always victims, men are always perpetrators” narrative etc, but it takes like five words to make that clear.
Complications might arise when you’re trying to simultaneously assuage hurt men and misandrists. I fear it’s either “‘kill all men’ is toxic” or “‘kill all men’ is a valid expression of your anger, let it all out”, there’s no real space for compromise, there.
That all said your post and this reply probably wouldn’t have happened on pixelfed so your point stands. Disengagement is perfectly valid.
People want to know you’re not literally … trying to actively reinforce the toxic AF “women are always victims, men are always perpetrators” narrative etc, but it takes like five words to make that clear.
…
/face in hands
Okay I took a minute and I have to go through this with you.
People want to know you’re not literally Andrea Dworkin, trying to actively reinforce the toxic AF “women are always victims, men are always perpetrators” narrative etc, but it takes like five words to make that clear.
So just so I’m clear, all women have to make clear they don’t think what Andrea Dworkin does (sigh), because all men aren’t responsible for men as a group being, statistically, the perpetrators of rape, partner violence, etc?
If you start a sentence with “all men” then you should take a step back and say “fucked-up men” or suchlike, is all I’m saying. That was even three words, not five. You can also say something like “men should speak up more often”, that’s a general call to action, and not a blanket verdict on individuals who might be reading it. The “yes all men” of this song (total banger btw).
This is a general norm I apply to everyone regarding every topic: Don’t paint groups with broad, antagonistic, brushes. It never does any good, no matter who does it to whom or whatever the excuses are one might be able to come up with to justify it. The means are vile, the ends at best neutral, there’s no benefit to be had.
Also side note at least according to the statistics over here in Germany partner violence, if psychological violence is taken into account, is almost exactly even among hetero couples and, in the overwhelming number of cases, mutual: Assholes hook up with assholes they just, statistically, express it differently. Things might very well look differently where you’re from, another reason to not generalise.
If you start a sentence with “all men” then you should take a step back and say “fucked-up men” or suchlike, is all I’m saying.
No. Also in no example was that how anything started. I said women can talk about being victims of violence and men always do what you’re doing right now.
Also side note at least according to the statistics over here in Germany partner violence, if psychological violence is taken into account, is almost exactly even among hetero couples and, in the overwhelming number of cases, mutual: Assholes hook up with assholes they just, statistically, express it differently. Things might very well look differently where you’re from, another reason to not generalise.
The current crime statistics analysis on intimate partner violence by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA, 2024) shows that a total of 167.865 people were victims of intimate partner violence in 2023. This is an increase of 9.1% compared to 2022. 132.966 (79,2%) victims were female and 34.899 (20,8%) male.
The statistics recorded the following attempted or completed crimes:
- 59.1% intentional simple assault
- 24.6% threats, stalking, coercion
- 11.4% aggravated assault
- 2.6% rape, sexual coercion, sexual assaults
- 0.2% murder and manslaughter
- 2.1% other offences
The European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) published the study “Violence against women. An EU-wide survey” in 2014. For this study, around 42,000 women between the ages of 18 and 74 were interviewed about their experiences with violence in the 28 member states. In Germany there were 1,534 women. Around one in three women said they had experienced physical and/or sexual violence at least once since they were 16 years old.
Before they become women 1/3 of German girls had experienced physical and/or sexual violence.
Stop trying to make this something that’s even between men and women. It isn’t. You’re giving these guys in my inbox furious about exactly the reason for my original fucking comment a green light to do this shit by hand-waving the reality women face.
If this is how Lemmy is going to be, I’m so thankful pixelfed is exploding in size because women deserve the goddamn break.
I said women can talk about being victims of violence and men always do what you’re doing right now.
When men talk about being victims of psychological violence, what happens then? That they have been driven into depression, even into being violent, by an intimate parter, parent, or such?
How do people react? How did you react?
When men talk about being victims of psychological violence, what happens then?
They are reminded that if they wanted to talk about that, they were more than welcome, but a thread about a woman who was talking about her sexual assault isn’t the place to ‘what about us.’
Also cool dodge of having your entire argument torn apart only to abandon it and switch to a different one.
I was a young man who was sexually assaulted, and by a woman, and I still know that doesn’t mean that it’s equal. It’s people like you who de-legitimize what I went through by making it seem like a game of Brinkmanship with women, when in reality it was the women I spoke to who got me through it, and the men who asked if it was possible for me, as a man, to be raped, and then mocked me for it.
Tbh I feel a little queasy about the change of tone but thats how it goes with influx of people. I‘ll keep my strict anti tech bro stance and will rapidly block any bigots as I always have. People can of course say and do what they please here and I‘m not gonna stop them. But i also am not forced to listen to it. Thats very incompatible to the outside world so clash is inevitable imho.
Don’t wanna throw cold water on what should be a celebration, but are these all distinct active users? I have separate accounts on Lemmy, PixelFed, Mastodon, and Loops–do I still count as one active user, or am I four? If the latter, I think it’s plenty likely that others like me have simply gotten used to the first fedi platform they chose and are branching out as they learn about more. Maybe doesn’t account for all the growth, but would explain away some of the meteoric rise.
This is a good point. I’m pretty sure that if you’re active on Lemmy, PixelFed, Mastodon, or even have multiple active accounts on multiple instances of each of those (like a lot of people do), each single one of those would count as a separate active user. I really can’t think of any way that this wouldn’t be the case, because how would the statistics servers know that your the same person?
Nothing works on pixelfee for me. Half the photos are just black. It shows an account has a lot of posts, but I don’t see anything. Searches being up results but selecting one of those results produces zero results.
How are y’all getting pixelfed to work?
I could see posts and follow users and tags, but couldn’t make any posts myself and have pretty much given up now.
What instance are you using? How are you accessing it (browser, app, etc.)?
Pixelfed.social
Using the app. It doesn’t even load for me on browser. I am assuming it doesn’t work on browser because of something I got in unblock because it loads on mobile browser but it’s very unresponsive on mobile browser for me.
I joined an instance, I discovered some people who posted some cool pictures and so I added them to my feed.
Maybe try dropping the instance you started with?
I gotta say I am rather meh about it, but that isn’t pixelfeeds fault. I just dont really care to see people posting random shit online.
But I gotta try so I can explain it to people who do because so many businesses (usually small artists) feel they can’t leave Instagram because they don’t know where else to market, and their followers won’t leave because the business is there.
I can’t recommend change without experiencing it so I can help support it.
I feel like it’s people who want to make money adding another platform to advertise on other platforms.
Pixelfed is really easy to engage with and get a feed started. I think that’s let to its popularity growth. I’ve added mastedon and peertube and neither has made it as easy to onboard.
I still remember the curve with Lemmy. Pixelfed is clearly the easiest to get started with, and then it’s just pictures!
Gonna check this out. Looks interesting thanks.
It’s nice to see. I’d compare it to back when Lemmy was in the same situation and tens of thousands of users came from Reddit to Lemmy over night.
I know I can Kagi or duckduckgo it or whatever you people are using these days, but what is PixelFed and what’s it an alternative to? News aggregators aside, I don’t social media so I’m not sure if it’s a tiktok or instagram or whatsapp or faceplace.
I believe it’s supposed to be a fediverse version of Instagram. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong
I am here to not correct you. 😆
Thank you Santa
Its’ pretty great.
As with the time I joined Mastodon, it takes a couple of weeks to find what you like and build up a good feed, but once you do that, it’s useful and fun. I wish it had more curation tools, but I enjoy it.
I created a mastodon account a few years ago and I log in every once in a while but I really have no idea how to use it haha, it just keeps updating a bunch of posts and I don’t know how to make it stop
That’s probably the global feed, which yes, moves super-fast. I found that annoying at first too.
There’s a checkbox to turn off auto-scroll in settings, and it’s got an appropriate name: Slow Mode.
First time i have posted on anything resembling insta in 111 weeks
Same. It’s been fun! Just posting some of my film photography here and there, checking out other people’s 35mm work. 5-10min a day tops. It’s perfect
Lemmy can’t federate with pixelfed yet can it? I know we have some integration with mastodon, but I’m guessing we can’t connect to pixelfed directly yet?
It can but you can’t follow users from Lemmy, same issue as mastodon
Great
I wonder how many of those users are the same person with multiple accounts on different platforms.
Probably 99% of them.
Just trying to get in early so they can become “influencers.”
Make no mistake, this is all about money.
It’s strange to me how quickly I get +/- feedback on lemmy compared to actual comments and the replies that I get are almost always zero effort compared to what I get on reddit.
I get the feeling its normal for lemmy users to create multiple accounts and use them to sort of multiply their votes. What’s worse is mods can see who is voting and so should be able to do something about it… so are they as guilty?
I mean, there’s limited content, and Lemmy hasn’t attracted the same kind of personality as modern Reddit. It makes total sense that things would be upvoted quickly, but comments would be sparse or short.
People patted themselves on the back when they showed up for being “old reddit” and “power users”, but most of us were just cranky phone users who didn’t want to use the official app. Lemmy users are not the boistrous, verbose philosophers people wanted to believe they were.
We’re scrollers, sitting on the toilet.