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Hello everyone. I'm brand new to lemmy and I hope that I understand it soon. LOL I'm in central Illinois, there's a little blue in the sea of red around me. I have been lazy lately, between work and working OT, I've been watching TV. I knit, love to travel, enjoy cooking classes, going to flea markets among other things. I would love to figure out how to rehab some of my furniture, do some minor home repairs and garden.

Hello, I've been here for a few days now and getting the lay of the land. I live in Wisconsin, originally from Minnesota, so you betcha I'm a Midwesterner. I'm also a Reddit refugee (didn't get banned because I stopped contributing a while ago, but I still couldn't stop the doomscrolling. I definitely would have been banned. Go Luigi).

Although I live in a very liberal city, I don't feel like I'm on the same wavelength as a lot of people. You don't like the oligarchy taking over, but you simply cannot stop throwing your money at Amazon? Ok. Maybe the really radical ones will go stand in front of the Tesla chargers on Friday with signs, which is perfectly safe and I'm not sure accomplishes anything because everyone in this city agrees with you (although I am coming around to the idea that it builds a sense of community and a common cause, and maybe makes it ok to rebel just a little to start). I just feel like there has to be something else. I don't even know what to call myself anymore, I'm sure as hell not a Democrat, even though that's who I've always voted for, more and more while holding my nose. I know there are people out there who share my mindset and who can inspire me, and that's what I'm hoping to find.

In the meantime, I'm focusing on limiting my capitalism as much as possible (I am far from perfect; I like my stuff and have to really curb my desire for additional stuff) and donating what I can to those who are doing something (ACLU, NRDC because right now lawsuits seem to be the first step), trying to get myself to read more actual information and not Reddit memes, and trying to figure out what I can do about what's going on in this country, because I dont think I can live with just sitting around hoping it blows over.

I’m an Iowan academic sociologist working in private analytics trying to address homelessness. Been a Reddit user for a long time (digg before that) and now I am here.

From Chicago. I made the plunge to Mastodon (and here) after the Reddit shenanigans and just seeing the repeated bad-faith policies by Twitter. I have been using redirector and libredirect for the last month or two to actively decide who I give my data to just as a fun experiment into best practices.

I think it's slowly starting to be clear that this type of setup will be the way forward for the more tech-savvy, privacy-focused users, and hopefully/eventually it hits the mainstream as well, but otherwise, it's just self-selecting into the type of people I want to be around, which will probably be better for my mental health anyways.

I'm into cycling, trading, sci-fi and FOSS. Currently reading The Expanse and taking a sabbatical year from work

Edit: Just want to encourage people to engage w/ and create content over the next few weeks. Activity and friendly faces are probably the most determining factor in whether someone becomes an active user or just browses for a few minutes

Sup nerds. I'm Miah, I'm from Western Michigan. I'm a UNIX/Linux nerd, Right to Repair advocate, and transgender woman. I've been working on our cars by myself and would love to make some car nerd friends. My wife and I have 24 chickens, and a budding garden.

Hello! Quad Citizen reporting in, pretty active in the /r/Iowa and /r/QuadCities subreddits and poking around to see who's popped up in Lemmy.

MOST of our buildings are solid.

Yet another reddit refugee, but the only thing I will miss is the niche animal husbandry subreddits.

My main interests are critter genetics & habitat management, and a lot of husbandry n enrichment on the side. Always been a bit of a pain to be lefty & interested in livestock, most of the old forums such as they still exist are full of people that are pretty aggressive in their disapproval of my sort. But maybe I'll find a niche eventually!

I do other science n tech reading and cruise some of the hobby stuff (carpentry, mini terrain, jewelry making... I like a little bit of a lot of things) but don't usually post as much as lurk those areas.

Another former reddit user from the Twin Cities here. Enjoying learning about lemmy so far, still trying to figure out how it works! Big fan of disc golf, board games, books, and video games.

Howdy! I'm Evan, I'm from STL, and recently graduated from S&T with a BS in CS, going back for an MS. I'm a linguist, software engineer, musician, FOSS contributor, and Fediverse enthusiast. I build computers, run servers, write music, and get angry at the US/MO on the daily.

P.S.: call me scum, because I've only ever used Reddit via their official app, but at least I jumped ship!

Thanks for your work @seahorse. I'm pumped to talk regional sports again. Big Ten, NFC North, NBA Central. Adios Reddit.

Hey all! Lifelong Midwesterner and current Chicagoan. Refugee from r/Chicago and Reddit user of 11 years. I love baking, gardening, and currently engrossed in the new Zelda.

Minnesotan and architectural designer here. I'm giving lemmy a try after deciding to leave that other site, and I feel like this midwest instance has the right vibe for me. Looking forward to spending all my time here instead of helping a faceless company make more money on their IPO!

Hi, Chicago resident primarily occupied with left-wing politics, board games, biking/public transit, and functional programming :)

Love the regional community server

Ohioan and electrical engineer here. Not exactly a refugee from reddit, since mostly all I did there was lurk, but excited to be here and distributed anything makes an engineer happy. At least this engineer.

Chicago leftist here! I like to play games, do Mutual Aid when I can, and read a lot of theory. Came over here to find a new community and more opportunities to network with other lefties.

Hey all, I live in Wisconsin and am exploring moving over from Mastodon because I like the Reddit-style interface better than Twitter-style. Like probably most here, I'm a tech nerd who is forever trying to get people away from the centralized internet.

Hello from /r/iowa!

Hi, I'm in Central Illinois. Reddit doesn't let me make accounts anymore... they want email addresses and I want privacy.

From a Wisconsin Exurb of the Twin Cities. I am an astronomer and instrumentation physicist, most of my day job is debugging software and electronics. But sometimes it is looking at galaxies and exoplanets. I am getting back into running after an injury and am currently reading about political economics.

Hi there. Iowan leftist fleeing the mainstream platforms to help my mental health. Feeling disillusioned with national political action and wanting to focus my attention locally. I'm and avid gardener, war-gamer/mini painter, and forever D&D GM.

Good morning, midwestern Lemmites! Actually a Hexbear refugee, I got banned when they found out I organize with Trotskyists. Don't worry though, my IRL organizing work creates enough personal irritation that I don't need to harass people who disagree with me in order to get it. I'm just here cuz its a leftish space of localish people, who post memes and stories I can comment on. I like Music, art, videogames, tech, books (history, social theory, sci fi)...well I actually have too many hobbies and interests to list. Thanks for letting me in your little instance!

Hi from Topeka, KS! I'm a software engineer who loves games, cooking, and his friends. Thank you seahorse for starting this up!

Hi there from Madison, WI! I am the developer of Voyager :)

hello! I'm a non-binary Chicago-based cyclist, film photographer, 3d artist, and open source contributor when I get the time.

slowly getting my bearings out here in the fediverse; like many others I am yet another longtime Reddit refugee. stoked for Sync for Lemmy soon—that'll feel like I've officially switched over.

I joined a while back (after the rise of Mastodon following some edgelord's purchase of Twitter, although I had heard about both that and Lemmy long before), and I still probably won't be active on Lemmy until Reddit dies off; I joined this instance because it's the most relevant (nothing akin to Mathstodon, where I have the same username) and I was advised against just flocking to the main one.

I was most active on /r/learnmath and /r/Buttcoin and I might go to refugee communities related to both, and to things like /r/learnjavascript (where I was active until a few years ago, also as an answerer of questions) and /r/badmathematics.

Hey friends! Twin Cities chiming in. Classic story of jumping ship now that reddit has struck the iceberg. Hoping to find new communities here for scratching my artistic itches. I'm a drummer, DJ, designer, illustrator, who dabbles with music production. Let's get weird.

Hi!

Ohioan here... I too am a recent reddit refugee.... anyone else having digg deja vu?...

Likes: Nerdy things, Video Games, Animals, Ohio sports teams, Music, Traveling

Been on Mastodon for a few months (suck it twitter) and with Reddit's recent money grab figured I'd check out other parts of the fediverse.

My name's Tyler. I live in NE Kansas, about an hr from KCK-Proper.

I get really into things quickly and then forget about them just as fast; Usually just enough to break something, get frustrated, and grab something else. My home is a monument to my family's abandoned hobbies.

Hey y’all I’m Josh and I’m from Iowa but go to school for Music in SoDak. Getting booted off Reddit because I only use Apollo and this seems like a pretty solid alternative. Looking forward to building the communities with y’all!

Upon further investigation of this comment section I may be the only SoDakian in here lol. Surprised SoDakZack hasn’t jumped over from Reddit

Osiyo (Cherokee) Oy li'one (Tzotzil: I'm here)

SW Kansas here, and my brain has decided to take a back seat to life, so throw in chronic pains, I'm just hunting for a new way to exist. Don't know what I'm doing yet, but I know I'm doing it, heh heh heh...What? I don't know. Do you know? No I do not, but would you like to know? Of course I would. Well tough luck there, pal.

Anyway, before the 'ol thinker decided to call it quits, I used to be quite the nerd. I dabbled in C, assembly, bash (Slackware user, so I better know bash, heh), calc, pari/gp, mathematics (Began aiming for number theory just before the brain gave out), native american languages, sharks, carnivorous plants, ferns, cooking, just to name the easiest.

Hello from Northern MN! I like memes, gaming and tech stuff!

MI here!

Hoping for regional news and weekend mini-vacation discussion

Hello, Lemmy! Hikeandbike here. I'm an IT network administrator from Michigan.

I was never quite active on Reddit... So can't quite say I'm a refugee. But, heard about Lemmy on the Self Hosted podcast and thought I'd give it a try!

As my username says, I enjoy hiking, and more specifically, mountain biking. Just backpacked the Manistee River Trail and trying to find some time to backpack the trails along the Pictured Rocks.

Besides that, self hosting, rock climbing (mostly indoor,) and Linux & open source are how I spend my free time.

Hi y'all! I'm from Indiana. Nice to meet you all!

Hey everyone. I am yet another migrant from reddit hoping for c/kansascity to grow into a full, active community like we once were on reddit.

Hi everyone. I showed up here because I saw Seahorse at the Akron pride fest with his awesome flag, told some of my likeminded friends about it, and they found his post. I showed up to applaud him, and decided to just stick around.

I used to use Reddit, with a very carefully curated list of subreddits, which I used replace my Twitter constant stimulation requirement. I had to ditch Reddit the day they killed Apollo and won’t be returning unless they reverse that decision.

I’m happy to have found this place, it’s nice.

I’m from Akron Ohio, work (remotely) in tech (job based in San Francisco), and do not like cops, landlords, or the ruling class really.

I feel like I’d fit in here pretty well.

Hello from Waukesha WI! IT geek, amateur (HAM) radio operator, husband, father, and grandfather.

Another MN reddit transplant, loving it here so far. Been following the news sources of the evolving dumpster fire and am overjoyed at the solidarity of the community.

I have many hobbies I cycle through like a merry-go-round. I'm a sucker for stringed instruments, Minecraft, neurodivergence, and lately a lot of plants and Zelda.

Peace and love y'all! I'm excited to be here.

Hello! I've lived in the Midwest for most of my life (Michigan, Chicago), with a couple of stops elsewhere in between. I'm part of rexxit and like the idea of the fediverse.

Hello! Crushed by the Reddit/Apollo debacle and looking for something less…corporate. Glad I found Lemmy!

I live in central Iowa and am a techno nerd - I like self hosting, docker, home labbin’, home automation, and home AV.

Hello! I live in Kalamazoo, MI and grew up in Muskegon, MI. I'm a part of the mass exodus from reddit. So far I'm enjoying the fediverse and was glad to see an instance dedicated to midwesterners. I work in mental health and enjoy cooking/baking, crafting, painting, kayaking, gardening, gaming (DnD, Zelda, board games) and spending time with my loved ones. Excited to be here!

New to midwest.social and lemmy in general and I had a question - I made some posts/comments from lemmy.ml but I noticed they weren't getting any interaction and they weren't actually showing up when I visited midwest.social directly. Additionally, when subscribing to a community, the button turned to "subscribe pending." Does this mean lemmy.ml is blocked here? I noticed there is a Blocked Instances list (https://midwest.social/instances) but lemmy.ml is listed under Linked Instances

Hello! I am not midwestern myself, but I got roots there via both parents (dad was born and raised in Iowa, maternal grandmother born and raised in Kansas, etc.). And the California Central Valley is basically the Midwest of the West. I am also what some would call "left", though more traditional socialists might dispute my credentials (Geoist/Anarchist). Looking forward to some good conversation.

Let's start with this: anyone know why my UI here defaults to Japanese? Yeah, I'm a weeb, but I'm not sufficiently weebish for that.