It pains me when certain groups claim that the Fediverse belongs to them and that their culture IS fedi culture.
Most of you don't even know the history of the fediverse. The Fediverse has been around since 2008 with indenti.ca, using the Laconica protocol. It was pre-culture war, so it was mostly FOSS and general tech enthusiasts. So no, the fediverse was never "Twitter without the Nazis" nor was it "Twitter for Nazis". It wasn't until Mastodon came along in 2016 and brought fediblock culture to the network and the whole thing was splintered. Then, Gab decided to join only to be bullied by anime posters on more laid-back instances. Some Gabbers decided to stay on the Fediverse, and eventually Poast brought more of the far-right/third-position types here, which caused even more division, and the rest is history.
So no, there is no single fedi culture, and if it weren't for the culture war, I'd argue that the fediverse would've stuck to it's more laid-back roots. Granted, there would be less of a reason to join, unless you are a FOSS/decentralization/privacy advocate/enthusiast or just want some cozy alternative to Twitter (the latter was actually the original reason I joined before COVID turned me schizo), but it doesn't change the fact that you don't have the right to claim this place as your own, no matter how big your instance is or how much your sub-culture dominates the network.
@lina @tomie The first person I saw posting frequently on this instance, when I signed up here was Casey Rollins, a black conservative. I was actually surprised that someone like him would be the most frequent poster here. I was also surprised to see a huge chunk of trannies on "freeze peach" instances or instances that would federate with us.
I'd say that I attracted mostly NAS and Liberdon users because COVID and The Great Reset were hot topics around 2020-2021 and we just wanted the shitshow to end. Many of them left when Poast came along because they wouldn't talk about the JQ or they just couldn't find anything to talk about after COVID fell off of most people's radar.
@tomie Fair point, but pre-2021 fedi was such a breath of fresh air. It seemed like there were people of so many different hobbies, political views, etc coexisting. It seemed like what united all of us was the value of decentralization. Of course, the "Mastodon Network" side would block anyone who used "casual ableist language", but I had so many people following me. But I guess it wasn't meant to last.