When Lemmy got named did no one think that the "lemming" association might alienate people?
My guess is that the namer wanted the connotation to be: LET ME.
How exciting!
But honestly — I try to get people to join and inevitably they say…”Why, so I can follow all the other stupid lemmings?”
Lemmings don't jump off cliffs and they are not stupid. A sociopath employed by Disney threw a few dozen off a cliff for documentary in the 50s, for.. reasons..? The story stuck. They're just normal little rodents, tougher than most, as they can survive brutal winters on bleak landscapes.
https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=56
They can survive incredibly rough conditions.
If they feel you are threatening them, they won't run away; they'll stand up for themselves and try to scare you away by hissing at you. If this happens, you better fucking run.
Not because they make up any actual threat to you, but because the poor little fellas can get so worked up over this they have a heart attack and die right in front of you. They'll defend their nest until death.
So yeah, don't mess with lemmings. Please. They're too precious.
TIL, thank you.
I like it.
Lemmings are real ? I thought it was video-game characters
From wikipedia:
In a 2020 post, Lemmy's co-creator Dessalines wrote about the origin of the name Lemmy. "It was nameless for a long time, but I wanted to keep with the fediverse tradition of naming projects after animals. I was playing that old-school game Lemmings, and Lemmy (from Motorhead) had passed away that week, and we held a few polls for names, and I went with that."
So I would say no, they seemingly weren't worried that Lemmy users would be referred to as Lemmings and be turned away due to it, or they just weren't that bothered by the idea if it did occur to them.
Not only were they not bothered by it, they were inspired by a classic computer game, featuring lemmings falingl off cliffs.
Hmph… I chose to see it as: LET ME, and I shall persist in this.
Thanks everyone for the comments. I have been educated.
No. We all thought about the association to Lemmy, the guy from Motorhead.
This was the original name inspiration
Welcome to Lemmy dating where everyone can find their someone to love them like a reptile!
I'll show myself out.
Well, I'm sold!
When Lemmy got named, it was a safe haven for half a dozen communists.
No one thought about alienating normies.
And now do the same people see it as a vehicle that could possibly dismantle corporate social media hegemony?
Well, I mean...
It's considerably better than "Redditor".
Will never understand why "Redditor" became the name for users when "Reders" (readers) follows the message of the site name so much better
Should call them re-moveds
I always liked redditor because it sounded like editor. And reddit sounded like "read it" but looked like "re-edit". For all it became, it was a great name.
Being called "twits" never put people off Twitter.
That’s great!
Scare us away? Some of us are on instances that make the connection more obvious.
How many Gen Zers even know what a Lemmy is?
Anyways, I call people Lemmies
Ok Lemur
I (18yo) don't! I have no idea what ppl here are talking about and I sure didn't figure out.
That has never crossed my mind, I'm thinking heavy metal when I think about Lemmy Kilmister / Lemmy.
But I do think lemmings are cute, and that old video game was awesome, so it all sort of works for me :D
There are two truely hard problems in computer science; P=NP, naming things, and off by one safety
The name Lemmy grew on me lol. I thought Reddit sounded dumb af once upon a time too. In fact I still cringe at the thought of being called a "redditor."
A word for users of a website to self-identify as a group will rarely not be cringe. Like, come on, is this how you self-identify?
Doesn't work so well here as the content is platform neutral. We're all just "users", really.
Not all of us are using Lemmy, for one.
When Lemmy got named did no one think
I think that's true so far.
:)
I use mbin or kbin because that ugly rat and the name, lemmy are stupid. That's just my opinion.
I use Mbin, but as a mountain person I feel strongly for defending lemmings. They're adorable little hamsters who get really worked up about pretty much anything.
Honestly, lemmings are a good metaphor for the community here. We're tiny, but we stand up and fight against something must larger than ourselves and we refuse to back down. I just hope we don't work ourselves up to a heart attack over it.