this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
383 points (89.5% liked)

Showerthoughts

34385 readers
492 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Its rhe only thing I wish could change about my experience using Lemmy, for more active users in the communities like NFL or NHL and the affiliated team pages of those sports. I haven't had any social media in decades, my main source for sporting news breaks up until 1-2 years ago was Reddit.

I love the small community that makes up Lemmy. As someone just posted, it feels like a small town community. I like the absence of corporate shills and ads and bots.

Back when I switched from Reddit to Lemmmy, I made an effort to upvote and comment on the NFL and Buffalo Bills communities. I eventually gave up because it was like months of posting, voting and commenting but when I would go back to check the communities, everything would still be sitting at like 2 up votes and 0 comment replies or if it was my own post, 1 upvote and 0 comments. For a majority of cases. Every once in a blue moon I would come accross a post where another user voted or commented but it was never more than me and one other user.

I know there is a certain demographic that uses Lemmy that is mostly driven by the required IT prowess needed to set up, use and even understand the federated concept. I also recognize that this demographic is traditionally disinterested in sports. Im not complaining about this or the users who are on Lemmy. Im also not wishing for any changes be made to aggressively expand Lemmy's user base. Its just an impractical wish I have so I could get my sports news from the same source I get all my other news.

I will prolly spend more time this coming year settling on a 2ndary source for sports news from sources similar to sleeper app but it would be so nice if the Lemmy sporting communities blew up so I could keep everything aggregated to one source.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 112 points 4 days ago (5 children)

You know, Lemmy is powered by the users. The sports community will never grow if no one is here to grow it. Most people that jumped ship to build and grow Lemmy are techies, and likely not interested in sports all that much.

You just planted the seed, will you also be a watering can?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Reddit was relatively niche, Lemmy even more so. Who the fuck do you think is gonna be here!?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not sure if agreeing with me, but yea that's pretty much what I was getting at.

Reddit was niche, but I don't think so anymore. Fidelity bank, Logitech, Microsoft, and many many more have official accounts and support subs on there, and have for many years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's fair. I think Lemmy will continue to remain niche for the foreseeable future...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Considering Mastodon has been around for a while, but people still flocked to another corporate-structured platform after Twitter, yea. It probably will never not be niche.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You just planted the seed, will you also be a watering can?

Im not implying there is a lack of content just a lack of active users to fuel discussions. I leave a comment on every NFL post that I have some input or opinion on. Like I said to another comment in this thread there seems to either be a bot or a dedicated mod who is periodically supplying content in batches of posts. So maybe once a week or so (maybe once a month in the off seadon) the same user name will make a bunch of posts for all the news for that week.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Dude make an NHL community and I'm in

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Lol there already is one. Just search NFL.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Hahahaha I totally meant to say NHL but I might be wrong now that I think about, it might be called hockey. Ill have to double check and will edit my NFL comment to include a link to the hockey sub.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 days ago (3 children)

This is so dismissive.

I spent a full year posting to [email protected] and interaction there is still minimal to dead.

It's not really the starting of communities that needs help. We need more people to be the second and third person to join and help communities that someone else is trying to start.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

This is so dismissive

It's all the complaint deserves

We need more people to be the second and third person to join and help communities that someone else is trying to start

Sounds like you need to let your sports-liking associates elsewhere know about the platform to help with your problem, rather than whinge that the already existing userbase doesn't like what you do

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The problem there might be that people hate league of legends

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Eh, the community is huge on Reddit so clearly the fans exist (and I'm one but just took a big social media break for awhile so that didn't help). Lemmy just needs more people with more diverse interests.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 days ago

I didn't claim it would be easy or even a guaranteed success

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago

This 100%, it's even harder when someone puts a posting bot in a sub and expects people to show up. The best communities started by someone creating a sub and posting things they found interesting. Treating it like a personal link archive. Then people would add to the discussion after finding you. If you are posting for a few weeks and then just gives up. It just makes the problem worse. Since now people have to sift through a bunch of dead communities on multiple instances all named the same.

It has to be built organically it's like people with video channels on YouTube or peer tube. Making your first video and if it doesn't do well they quit. Most successful creators made tons of videos before they took off. They kept at it because they were making the videos for themselves for just the sake of self expression as their first priority and the views will come.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 days ago (4 children)

We are in at the ground level of Lemmy. A lot of people like OP are passive consumers, but now is the time to step up, get out of your comfort zone and start building the communities you want to see. You might have to hustle a little bit

If you do start up a community you can link it like this:

[email protected]

Here's a totally random community about strength and hypertrophy training for example

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Thanks for that link! I was almost gonna start one myself. Gonna try that one instead, at least for a while.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

A lot of people like OP are passive consumers

Passive consumers make up the largest number; the base of the pyramid. But you seem to be implying that there's nothing between that and the tip of the pyramid, who create their own communities and post their own content into them.

OP seems to be a user in the middle. Happy to contribute to ongoing conversations by commenting, replying, and voting, but not as comfortable starting conversations. Which, to be honest, is also where I'm at with sport threads. I used to love popping in to a live game discussion megathread to comment on a particularly outrageous call, or to see the community's response to something controversial. But it's not a subject area I'm invested in enough to start the community myself, or to make enough comments to help start a lively-looking megathread.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

We are in at the ground level of Lemmy. A lot of people like OP are passive consumers

For real? Im replying to almost every comment I get a notification, I made this post, I've commented on NFL posts among other comments in non-sports comms. How you guna just blindly call me a passive consumer lol? Not hating just couldn't believe you coulld draw that conclusion while I felt I was borderline spamming the thread with replies hahah 🍻cheers tho, to your commitment to motivating any and all users to be more active.🍻

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Gotta give props to active participation, upvotes, comments are helping too, you're right. I was just focussed on community building, it might not be as fun but it's important also

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Nah, I'm just gonna do what I'm doing. Commenting on stuff I like or am interested in and that's it. I'm way too anti-social to do something like building a community.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

you dont have to be social or even reply to commenters lol