As a CS dude who uses Linux and is around way too many people who seem like they genuinely are in need of some therapy on a daily basis, this entirely checks out, tbh.

I’m now mildly worried for my own mental state

Yeah, same boat here. Was a longtime Sync Pro user back on reddit, and saw LJ as a dev worth supporting, but I’m not entirely on board with the changes on the privacy end. Maybe if that stuff changes I’ll go back.

Yeah, it just doesn’t really exist yet. I’m not sure a really well-moderated community for news content can exist yet on Lemmy, due to the culture that’s slowly springing up, but if it did it’d have to be on a dedicated instance, I expect - one with a very, very dedicated set of moderators with relatively strict rules regarding what is sufficiently-well-sourced content, and all other communities on the instance being held up to the same bar in their specific niches in order to encourage that kind of posting culture.

Honestly, I don’t think Reddit ever achieved a really good result either - the news subreddits were all dumpster fires to varying degrees - but Lemmy’s immaturity worsens the issue here, I think. It’s pretty appallingly obvious. I’d look elsewhere for news opinion aggregation, for the time being.

Same boat here, though a couple years later. It feels really weird to be so out of the loop with my “fellow” Gen Z siblings who were born in the late 00s.

Very much this. The atmosphere here doesn’t feel any different than it did back on reddit, for better or worse. I feel like there was a time when reddit was less pessimistic, but there’s been at least a little of that vibe for a long time.

Well, that will set a lovely precedent for other “free” democracies… the people are angry at you? Just take their voice! What could go wrong…