I am myself a newcomer, did a full switch straight from reddit.
However, I did it just a few weeks before mods and admins started to crack down hard on certain opinions. Guess I had seen the sign on the wall.
I believe reddit’s clear change of direction has pushed many more people into the lemmyverse, many of them just like me, straight from reddit.
I sense that recently the tone around many subs has shifted towards more agressive and more divisive, and other patterns I recognize all too well from my years on reddit.
Do other people sense this too? Am I on the right track or completely off?
Generally, yes, though time on Lemmy tends to shift people’s perspective to “fit in” more. Then the users coming in self-sort into whatever instance aligns best with what they want, and then these servers get reinforced.
That sounds good; maybe my post sounded a bit pessimistic.
Each shapes the other, but instances are generally resiliant in views at an individual level.