I’m really curious where else everyone here hangs out on the internet besides Lemmy.

I myself am frequently on discord with my wife and friends playing games. I’ve also found myself in and around smaller blogs spaces like Kev Quirk and related people. Reddit used to be a place for me to hang out but I never found a community that I felt connected to. I don’t know if YouTube would be considered a place to hang out, but I frequently spend way more time there than I should. IRC used to be a great place for me.

So, where are your favorite places?

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    48·
    1 year ago

    I like Mastodon, but I gotta say, Lemmy has basically taken over as my go to boredom relief app. When I’m not on Lemmy, I’m probably on YouTube.

    Then there’s work: GitHub and email.

    And play: Steam.

    • amitten@normalcity.lifeOPEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      I don’t get the whole twitter-like microblogging thing. Mastodon feels kind of strange to me because it’s similar to that. I try to find a cool place to hang out there, but it always feels like a waste. But YouTube… the amount of time I give YouTube… lol

  • MrGG@lemmy.ca
    36·
    1 year ago

    I’m still on IRC! There’s a raw simplicity to it that I appreciate. You don’t have to use a bloated Electron app to connect to a proprietary service, you can just go straight text on the protocol-level in terminal (if you’re nuts), and the protocol is open and simple enough to understand that you can easily make your own client even if you’re a lazy or mediocre dev.

    So IRC, Lemmy, and I guess Instagram (if that counts)

    • 1984@lemmy.today
      3·
      1 year ago

      Yeah it’s feels really nice. I’m not on it now but I remember loving the feeling of it because it’s not fucking big tech shit.

  • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
    251·
    1 year ago

    98% YouTube and 2% Lemmy

    If rest of the internet dissapeared it would take a while for me to notice.

    • Feidry@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 year ago

      I’m like 90% YouTube, 2% Lemmy and 8% just googling random stuff. Celebrity facts, historical events, programming problems, stuff I want to buy. YouTube is king though. Kinda hate that I waste so much time on it.

      • zzzz@lemm.ee
        2·
        1 year ago

        What do y’all do on YouTube? I have a couple of subscriptions, but after I watch those, YouTube only recommends garbage to me…

        • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I have a couple of subscriptions

          That is why, you need to ‘tune up’ the algorithm 😂

          Many of us have been using YT a lot since its conception, that is why the big devil knows us even better than ourselves… Most of the time.

        • Feidry@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          I have almost 600 subscriptions. I’ve been on YouTube since the beginning, pretty much.

        • Chriswild@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          Educational stuff mostly. I will learn about mostly anything even it’s not applicable in my life or a topic of fancy.

          I avoid every bit of pop culture and drama that fills the site but I will watch a three hour video on the varieties of algae.

          • zzzz@lemm.ee
            1·
            1 year ago

            That sounds right up my alley. Do you have any good educators you could plug?

      • haruki@programming.dev
        2·
        1 year ago

        Kinda hate that I waste so much time on it.

        You watched some learning materials—programming problems, historical events, etc. That’s educative. At least you learned something.

        Also, time you enjoy is not wasted.

        • amitten@normalcity.lifeOP
          3·
          1 year ago

          The problem with YouTube is that is so easy to just default to letting it feed your brain. Frequently it’s not even enjoyable, it’s just straight distraction from anything meaningful. On the flip side, YouTube can be the absolute best place to learn anything.

          • haruki@programming.dev
            2·
            1 year ago

            The problem with YouTube is that is so easy to just default to letting it feed your brain.

            True, a typical example is YouTube Shorts. I hate that 15-second trend.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
    21·
    1 year ago

    I think some of us are intentionally avoiding big tech now and try to find places online that doesn’t feel completely dead soul wise.

    Lemmy feels good for me, but I’m also looking for web sites where I feel connected to people.

    • amitten@normalcity.lifeOPEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      I’ve found that small blogs are excellent for this. I started my own and reached out to a few smaller blogs from some really interesting people. I instantly felt at home in the community.

      • 1984@lemmy.today
        6·
        1 year ago

        Thanks, yes, I guess it’s time to go back to following blogs and interacting with real people again on the web. Before big tech, that’s what the entire internet was. Just lots of original web sites from individuals wanting to show their web design skills or talking about random topics.

        It just feels like it’s harder to find those now, and also a bit inconvenient to remember to go to each site every now and then. We got lazy with centralized services, with everything under one centralized controlled roof owned by an insane billionaire with mommy issues.

        • amitten@normalcity.lifeOPEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          An RSS reader is the ideal tool for that. No need to remember to go to every site when all of them are in one place. And most blogs have an RSS feed as well.

        • amitten@normalcity.lifeOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I use a service called Inoreader. It’s an RSS reader that can be used on the browser, iOS and android. The free version allows you like 150 feeds or something like that with a lot of functionality. There’s really no reason to buy the service.

          You just either search the blog in the inoreader search bar. Or, in the case of smaller blogs (which is where I like to spend most of my time), you just look for a link to their RSS feed somewhere on the website. Below is a screenshot of what an example RSS feed link looks like.

          • Illiterate Domine@infosec.pubEnglish
            3·
            1 year ago

            Often, if an rss link isn’t on the page, there’s still a feed available. /rss and /feed are the most common places to find it.

  • Saigonauticon@voltage.vnEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    Hacker News, mainly.

    Sometimes I log on to Reddit to help travelers to my country or hobbyists trying to learn engineering. I try to avoid discussion on Reddit as the quality is often not high, e.g. lots of tourists asking how to commit crimes in my country – better to just not answer.

    For discussion I go here, it’s much more interesting.

    IRC has always been pretty cool. I might go back to that one day. For now this is just the part of my life where I try to make money and don’t have much time to socialize.

      • Saigonauticon@voltage.vnEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Oh that’s ancient history. I don’t think they are around anymore. Used to be on the one for the local hackerspace before they moved to Mattermost.

        Then a few for technical assistance with various tools.

  • davefischer@beehaw.orgEnglish
    142·
    1 year ago

    Primarily mastodon. Really enjoying that.

    Facebook for relatives & friends from the real world.

      • eezeebee@lemmy.caEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        I’m in dozens, but frequent about 6 as well. I find it’s pretty good for finding communities about niche subjects which helps replace reddit. It also feels less like yelling into the void since there is that “live chat” feeling, and yet I never feel pressured to answer immediately.

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    10·
    1 year ago

    XMPP MUCs, IRC, some Matrix Spaces. Lobsters, Mastodon.

    I refuse Discord. I really wish I could refuse Microsoft GitHub—source code doesn’t need to be a proprietary social media plaform.

      • toastal@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        I mean federating is nice, but honestly a lot of the social features need to go

    • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      1 year ago

      if it isn’t for work related stuff, there are some self hosted github alternatives like gitlab, gitea and gogs

      they might have less features tho

      • toastal@lemmy.ml
        2·
        1 year ago

        Oh I don’t use Microsoft GitHub for almost anything personal, but some language ecosystems only allow packages on the platform …& the issues, discussions, pull request model has lock-in to where you can’t submit a bug, propose a new idea, or even submit a patch unless the maintainer set up something third-party. Due to so many projects with lock-in, to generally participate in free software you must have an account.

        Those alternatives are good, and they are more than feature complete. I sometimes choose alternative DVCS for non-work stuff as well. Can’t be forced or forked to Microsoft GitHub if you are not using Git. 🫡

    • chagall@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      Do you just look at pictures on Imgur? Are there actual communities? I’ve only used it as a place to upload pictures to link on Lemmy or Reddit.

      • jecht360@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        You can look at images/posts sorted by tags, but there’s generally not a huge community there.

  • Purple@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    YouTube has kicked the wasp nest by blocking Adblockers. Lots of drama over there

  • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    If it counts, I know a lot of people hang out on VR chat. It’s a very common misnomer that you need a VR to run the platform, most of my friends don’t even bother being in VR they just use it in desktop mode. I expect you probably meant more text-based, but I wanted to throw that on the board as well

  • i_am_hungry@meganice.onlineEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    I only hang out here, been spending way less time browsing online, which I’d say is a good thing. Been playing more video games, and even reading.

    Also I’m curious about Discord, when people say they hang out there, do they just find a channel they like and keep up with the chat all day?

    • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
      4·
      1 year ago

      as someone who was heavily addicted to discord: yes, morning routine was basically reading messages from the night, mostly fear of missing out

    • yads@lemmy.ca
      3·
      1 year ago

      Also I’m curious about Discord, when people say they hang out there, do they just find a channel they like and keep up with the chat all day?

      I think so. I’m in a few discords, but don’t really keep up with it. However, people seem to be active in them.

    • TeaHands@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t say I hang out there a ton. But most of my servers are actual personal ones. RL friend groups, my fantasy football league, that sort of thing. Only really active in one big public server and that one I just check in on now and again.

    • amitten@normalcity.lifeOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      My wife and I run a very active discord server. I created it for the friends that we have made playing video games, and so we just all play games together and chat on there. It wasn’t a server that I’ve really advertised to random people; it’s just for people that we end up playing with.