Remember when memes didn't have watermarks and didn't require attribution? They were just out there for lols with no concern for building followers or engagement. It really wasn't that long ago.

I get it, but it still feels weird to me that literally everything on the internet has monetary motivation

Edit: I more or less agree with your other points

I’m pretty left wing myself, and British, so I feel reasonably sure I’m not pushing any right wing agenda. Discussion of the topics posted is completely fine as long as everyone follows the community, instance and site-wide rules. It’s perfectly acceptable for people to have different opinions from me or you, as long as they are respectful in discussing them.

They’re not memes, they’re screenshots. Have you heard of content aggregators? It’s a pretty standard thing - and it probably accounts for at least 50% of what you see online.

2.5k subscribers suggest people they’re enjoying this community and content. There was remarkably little content on lemmy a month ago that wasn’t tech related or actual memes. If we want lemmy to succeed we need light hearted communities as well as the serious stuff. I want lemmy to succeed, I don’t want to go back to Reddit, so I’m doing my part. Why are you here if you don’t like the content? Why don’t you post your own content if you like the community but not the content? Why don’t you volunteer to mod if you don’t like the way I’m running this community?

As to your questions;

1. I feel confident that a squad leader of specialist army division will have had a weapons safety lesson or two in their time. This meets the posting guidelines I wrote, imo.

2. I don’t know what a chud is. But assuming it’s something bad, I think it’s important to talk about contentious issues as long as everyone follows the rules. Avoiding topics completely just because chuds (?) also talk about the topic is silly. Bigots, rule/aggressive people, and people arguing in bad faith are not tolerated here. Report rule breaking comments and they will be deleted. Violators of the rules get one warning before being banned.

3. This community didn’t exist a month ago. The shooting was not discussed here. This community is primarily for entertainment purposes - although discussion is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged. It is possible to discuss something without getting too serious about it.

You aren’t everyone. You aren’t the discussion police. If you’d like to dictate what people can or can’t post and talk about, create your own community.

4. Once again, not a meme. Content aggregation. I’d prefer it if you didn’t liken me to Elon musk or call my efforts bullshit. As a reminder; insults and name calling is not allowed. That’s not my rule, it’s lemmys.

Thank you for your input.