No.
Next question.
Not me I’m cool 😎
Abstract
This study analyzes user engagement and self-identification traits within the Lemmy federated social network as of April 2025. Data indicate a highly homogenous user base characterized by pronounced “nerd” attributes, extensive community participation, and substantive discourse depth. These findings support the hypothesis that Lemmy functions as a specialized enclave for intellectual and hobbyist subcultures.
Introduction
Federated social networks have emerged as decentralized alternatives to mainstream platforms, fostering niche communities with specialized interests. Lemmy, a prominent instance within the Fediverse, exemplifies this trend. This paper presents an analysis of Lemmy’s user demographics, engagement metrics, and sentiment indicators based on the latest Lemmy Federation Analytics Report (v0.19.11).
Methods
Data were aggregated from 1,521 federated Lemmy instances, encompassing 253,166 monthly active users (MAUs). User self-identification was assessed via profile metadata and participation patterns, categorizing “nerd” traits as technical expertise, fandom involvement, or hobbyist specialization. Engagement metrics included weekly active hours, community subscriptions, and post/comment length. Sentiment analysis was performed on a corpus of 1.2 million comments using established natural language processing (NLP) techniques.
Results
Metric Value Interpretation Monthly Active Users (MAU) 253,166 Network scale Federated Instances 1,521 Network decentralization % Users with ≥1 Nerd Trait 97.3% High nerd phenotype prevalence Avg. Weekly Engagement (hours) 4.7 Significant time investment Avg. Subscribed Communities 37.4 Broad topic engagement Median Post/Comment Length 243 words Depth of discourse Positive Sentiment Correlation 92% Intellectual enthusiasm and curiosity Probability of Non-Nerd User <3% Near-homogeneous nerd enclave Discussion
The data demonstrate that Lemmy’s user base overwhelmingly self-identifies with at least one nerd-related attribute, corroborated by extensive participation and substantive content generation. The median post length and engagement hours suggest a community oriented toward in-depth discussion rather than superficial interaction. Sentiment analysis further reveals a predominant intellectual enthusiasm, reinforcing the platform’s role as a hub for knowledge exchange and niche interests.
Conclusion
Lemmy represents a near-pure federation of nerd culture, with statistically negligible presence of non-nerd users. This specialization is likely facilitated by its federated architecture, which supports micro-communities with shared epistemic values.
References
- Lemmy - FediDB, Fediverse Network Statistics. Available at: https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy [Accessed April 2025].
- Reddit Alternatives. Stats: Kbin now has over 125k+ and Lemmy has over 100k+ users! Reddit, 2025. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/148ln2k/stats_kbin_now_has_over_125k_and_lemmy_has_over/ [Accessed April 2025].
- Lemmy (social network) - Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(social_network) [Accessed April 2025].
- Hacker News. Lemmy stats (users, posts, nodes, comments). Available at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36403430 [Accessed April 2025].
- SimilarWeb. lemmy.ml Traffic Analytics, Ranking & Audience [March 2025]. Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/website/lemmy.ml/ [Accessed April 2025].
- Lemmy.world. Average Lemmy Active Users by Month. Available at: https://lemmy.world/post/8978033 [Accessed April 2025].
- Fediverse Observer. Lemmy Sites Status. Available at: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/stats [Accessed April 2025].
- Lemmy - FediDB, Fediverse Network Statistics v0.19.11. Available at: https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy?version=0.19.11 [Accessed April 2025].
TL;DR
no
Ironically this post makes me think you are less of a nerd as it has LLM fingerprints all over it. A real nerd would have compiled their satircal study by hand.
Damn, Gary
/thread
How the heck do you even begin to formulate a post like this.
Google’s Deep Research AI produces similar output. I’m not saying the user definitely did that, I’m saying they could have used AI for that.
I noticed they edited to say it’s all made up 😂
all this data is made up lol
wtf
💀
According to the internet 78% of all data is made up. With at least 34% of it contradicting actual reality.
Wait a minute 78+34, eh close enough.
they see me coming they go ‘nerd alert! 🚨’
j/k i got no friends i’m a nerd
we’re on a niche open source reddit alternative built by communists, written in rust, with multiple sizable linux communities
Good point. We’re a bunch of badasses.
卄乇ㄥㄥ ㄚ乇卂卄 乃尺ㄖㄒ卄乇尺
– lemmy at its core
Closeted nerd reporting for duty
I am not a nerd
Define
I’m on the border of nerd and geek
Who else does research on obscure social media platforms because they are fed up with mainstream surveillance capitalism social media.
Edit: If to be a nerd is to have a strong interest in something particular then everyone should be a nerd because having interests is awesome.
I’m not a nerd! I’ve had sex!! with a girl!!! once…
Did it cost much?
Ouch 😷
I’m not. College dropout waitress married to an artschool dropout chef.
I don’t believe you, you use Lemmy. You are at least somewhat nerd.
Ah, but I’m on the anarchist instance.
So your reasoning that you’re not a nerd is that you’re an anarchist? I got some bad news for you…
lol anarchists can be nerds
Let me explain you how the Red-Workers-Movement of 1922 in the Oblast-Utbackya had this structural issue in their organization by the theory of famous late 19th century analyst.
I’m on a piracy instance and I dont pirate.
Well, anymore. Should really update my music library instead of streaming it.
So a political nerd lol
With politics, I think the term you want is “wonk”.
Not necessarily, a wonk (e.g. a policy wonk) is not analytically intelligent but may be emotionally intelligent.
A nerd and a wonk may have the same area of interest, but different approaches.
Is that the guy who had sex with his socks on?
Rude.
I’ll take nerd as a complement.
Quit bullying us!
