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I have never once looked at a user’s instance.

There probably are some people who do, just like how there are people who will judge you based on what brand of pants you wear, but most people are just glad that you’re wearing pants.

If you’re on lemmygrad or hexbear I will immediately dismiss pretty much anything you say and assume you aren’t worth interacting with. Otherwise I don’t put a lot of stock into what instance a user belongs to. Sometimes your instance can indicate that you have certain interests (technology based instances, startrek.website) or how you identify (blahaj.zone, pawb.social, etc).

I have a lot of issues with the admins of lemmy.ml, but I don’t think the users are inherently problematic. The server itself is advertised as being for privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, so I think a lot of people join without realizing the admins enforce their explicitly communist viewpoints that sometimes border on being pretty tanky.

Yep. If I see someone from hexbear, anything they’re saying I immediately ignore. Lemmy.ml is full of assholes, but they don’t advertise it that way so a lot of decent people are on there too. You can’t really judge an individual just because they’re on lemmy.ml imo.

I don’t judge users for their instance. I’ll judge mods and admins for what they promote and allow, but not users. Unless they’re tankies from lemmygrad.

I don’t judge users like that unless they’re from some actually nasty instance. Lemmy.ml is somewhat politically aligned like you said, but it’s still generally a “normal” option, with lots of “normal” users.

You can create more accounts elsewhere to see if your experience changes, but I think ml should be okay.

Edit: And I don’t think carefully choosing an instance is that important. You can always go elsewhere. Just read the rules and if they seem ok, go for it.

Short answer: yes
Long answer: some of us even have entire instances blocked

The only instance that I’ll usually immediately give a side-eye to is Hexbear, and only them because a significant percentage of those folks have a certain… style and culture that gets on my nerves. But an individual can still be a cool person and it’s not like I’m about to come in the comments and dunk on you or preemptively block you based on your home instance. I block users because they’re assholes, or annoying, or argue in bad faith, not based on where their account is hosted. And I would expect that’s probably consistent across most lemmings. You won’t get a bad rap only for being affiliated with ml. Now if you say something stupid somebody might use it as a bludgeon to talk bad about ml as a whole, or vice versa, but that’s going to happen any time you have something approaching “team sports” like this.

In general, don’t stress this too much. In specific, keep up with what’s happening on your home instance and if they’re doing something you don’t like, pack up and move elsewhere. That’s a core function of the way the fediverse is constructed. If it sucks, hit the bricks. You can just leave, and set up shop in another instance, or host your own, and you aren’t beholden to anyone. But if you don’t care then you don’t have to.

People, myself included, aren’t fond of lemmy.ml because it pretends to be a privacy-centric instance but it’s actually run by people who defend any and every criticism of Russia and China under the guise of critiquing capitalism.

They commonly say that any bad news about China or Russia is western orphans while everything from their state-run “news” platforms in gospel.

They’re unable to say that two things are true at once, like capitalism is a pure shit system AND China and Russia are fucked for a million reasons specific to them.

People get banned from their server for saying that China is anything but a utopian dream.

And then, yes, people unfairly assume that you must be cool with all that because you’re using their instance. If you’re not married to the idea of staying there, I’d suggest deleting your account and using a different instance.

All else held equal, I’d guess that someone on a .ml instance – which is chosen to refer to “Marxism-Leninism” --is more likely to be far left, just as someone on pawb.social is a furry, lemmy.blahaj.zone to be trans, or aussie.zone to be Australian. Does that mean that everyone on all of those instances are any of those? No, of course not.

And lemmy.ml was the second-largest instance during the outflow from Reddit, so a lot of people just grabbed it.

Personally, in choosing an instance, it probably wouldn’t be the one I’d choose. I also wouldn’t pick it because it’s gonna be where the latest release gets put into production first and you’re liable to crash into any issues – lemmy.world admins, for example, are far more conservative, did minimal patching to fix critical bugs rather than jumping right on 0.19, and their userbase avoided crashing into the broken 0.19 releases. On the other hand, if you’ve established an identity on lemmy.ml and are otherwise happy with it…shrugs

Some instances, like hexbear.net or lemmygrad.ml, are far-out-there enough that some instances might defederate with the instance, which I think is probably a bigger concern. I don’t think that that’s nearly as much a risk with lemmy.ml.

On one side you’re expected to register to an instance that suits you; like, anime fans in ani.social, people interested in LGBT+ topics in blahaj.zone, so goes on. And there’s that common knowledge that, if you feel out-of-place in an instance, you can register to another.

On another, people know that plenty other people don’t know (or don’t care) about instances. And sometimes you get really clueless posters, specially recent redditfugees.

So yes, you’ll be judged by some people. Not by everyone. (Personally I use the user’s instance as a heuristic factor on the type of user that I’m dealing with. But on its own it’s simply too little info to conclude anything.)

Now, regarding specifically lemmy.ml: I was part of that instance for a few years, so be aware that you might run into problems later on because the admin team there is prone to enforce hidden rules. Still, I don’t expect you to be judged based on any “strong” stereotype regarding that instance, as it used to be the flagship instance, so you got plenty “random” users there.

If you’re concerned you should set up accounts on other instances. It’s easy.

In your settings you can export a file containing all the communities you have subscribed to. Import that file in the settings of your new account on a new instance and then carry on :)

I’ve had people guess that I’m probably Canadian since I use lemmy.ca, but for me, generally, I don’t judge people by their instance since I don’t default to looking for it and my default apps don’t display it, but when I’ve gotten into frustrating circular arguments with people I have often noticed that they’re from lemmy.ml.

Personally I think this is why Bluesky’s ATProtocol design of not tying identity to instance is a good thing, but since that’s not opened up yet that’s a little neither here nor there.

Here in the States politics is kinda important. Anyone not voting against the Republican party (meaning voting for the next popular guy, typically a Democrat) is consenting to the Republican push toward autocracy and a one-party state.

Most folk are either committed to preserving the democratic features of the US, or are devoted to ushering in the new order. Those in the latter case are aligned with the transnational white power movement or the Christian nationalist movement.

It’s a very contentious movement and lives by the millions are at stake with civil war and a mass purge operation both on the table.

If you’re in the US, you might want to get informed of what is going on. Those in the movement have little tolerance for centrists or those not loyal to Trump. And those resisting MAGA could use the help.