this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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I'm wondering: do people just like memes or are they being forced to use them to talk about relevant topics?

Wouldn't it be better to have more serious threads and less memes that hint at political/news arguments?

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

Quick answer is that memes and shitposts get upvoted more than discussion, which is why it appears in your Hot/Top/Active sorted feed.

Look at my post history if you like. My top scoring ones are memes and the more discussion and text only posts tend to get only a bit of traction. I think the number of votes is also affected by how many people are subscribed, people cannot upvote it if they or their instance don't see it.

If you want a "mostly discussion" feed with less memes and shitposts, try looking around for discussion focused communities (my local one is !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca), subscribe to a bunch and then make your default page the "Subscribed" feed. That way you can switch between what's trending on Lemmy in general (All/Local) and what new posts are coming up with your realm of interest (Subscribed).