Ask Lemmy

I feel like I recognise maybe 80% of the posters I see...

I generally don't recognize usernames and don't look at them too much

There's the guy who uses thorns (who I have tagged as Nigel þornberry)

There's maybe a half-dozen frequent posters who I'm genuinely not sure if they're masterful trolls, some kind of AI training bots, or just really need to go touch grass (preferably on their way to a therapist's office.)

There's one dude whose username just happened to stick out to me after having a random conversation or two with him and seeing him being a generally pretty decent dude around Lemmy, I tagged him "this guy seems cool" at some point, and at some point it occurred to me that he might appreciate knowing that, so I shot him a message, and sure enough he did. I now consider him to be a pretty good friend, which is a new experience for me, I've never really been one to have online friends, I (somehow) do pretty well at making friends in meatspace and have never really felt a need to seek out an online friendship.

There's a handful of people who have said some incredibly dumb shit that I've tagged (for example one dude who I tagged "Tankie, down vote and ignore" although the last few times I've seen him pop up it seems like he may have mellowed out a bit, so good for him)

I recognize kolanki (I doubt I'm spelling it correctly, but the person with the large blue name), pugjesus, the picard maneuver, violet08, that fucking cm0002 with the 5,000 alt accounts, and that's about it.

Ladybutterfly or something like that

I could recognise a violet or PugJesus post without nametags! I enjoy both posters' content although violet's is a bit concerning and less educational, lol. Oh, and the guy who only posts anti-Western narratives memes, he always gets downvoted but he keeps at it like Marx's strongest soldier 😅. There was also this maniac called Satan'sSomethingSomething I just had to block on two different accounts. Finally, there are several posters I have personally tagged cause I regularly see eye to eye with them, or at least I consider reasonable, prosocial and capable of having a normal conversation (flaxvert, Maeve, VikingHippie, among others). 👍

We used to see a MargotRobbie but they stopped. Dunno why. They committed to the bit, though.

What happened to flying squid? They had some health problems and then talked about moving and then disappeared.

I've been here for 2 years and I only recognize violet08 and the_Picard_maneuver. Oh and Nicole, the girl with glasses who wanted me

I tag folks based off interactions, so after a couple years on here there's a lot of names I recognize. Most of them are regular posters or admins (Pugjesus, Stametz, Violet08, Mrdown, Picard Manuver, Geneva Convenience, ada, db0, etc. who don't need to be bothered with tags) or people who I have a special friendship with like @AntiBullyRanger (I really hope you're doin' okay) or my legit bro @toynbee@piefed.social

Then theres various regular commentators on my NSFW posts like @StrangeBedfellow@lemmynsfw.com and @Keepthoseeyeslockedonmine@kinkycats.org who I appreciate a ton!

(Personally, I was once asked out of the blue by @WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today to give my opinion in a discussion about battery tech. I think at the end this will probably be where I consider my life to have peaked.)

If they comment/post a lot and use an avatar or have emojis in their display name, I probably recognize them.

Very few I recognize by name alone.

"He's just this guy, you know?"

When I start recognizing a username it's usually because that person is about to get blocked. Applies to quite many users mentioned here too.

I think the small size of the platform is a bit of an issue in this case. The only way to not get "famous" here is by constantly having to make new accounts.

Oh man, lots. Ada, Kolanki, WorldsDumbestMan, SatansMaggottyCumFart, Neidu, LadyButterfly, CaptainLezbian, CptAggravated, that one guy with the Chinese symbols whose mom is a piece of work, Stamets when he's posting, Sunshine, Blaze, DistantSounds, Sodalite - the list goes on and on.

I may spend too much time here, lol.

I thought I posted too much on my alt on another instance.

Glad I don't see the username here, cause at least that means I wasn't super annoying lmao

I think everyone here has already posted all the names I usually see.

There's also stamets, though I haven't seen them active in places I visit in awhile. Also a few users with custom names like Admiral Patrick or Riker Maneuver.

I don't really pay attention to user names when I read, but there are a few frequent posters that I've recognized

I recognize anon6789 from superbowl, deathbybigsad, and Picard maneuver I'm going to bed soon tho so that's all I've got for now

I recognise SharkFucker420 for some reason ...

I'm actually a bit surprised by the responses here. I know a lot of the names mentioned here, but there are more I don't recognize than I had expected. Sometimes it does feel a little small of a group here, but seeing both the number of names I do recall aaaand all the ones I don't both help me feel this place is about 50% bigger than I had felt.

It seems there are more of you I've yet to get to know. 😄

What I'm really curious of is how many people's block lists I'm on. I'm pretty rarely controversial, but I'm sure I've had to have annoyed someone by now or bored someone to tears with endless owl superbness.

I notice a couple of people :)

This is gonna sound really terrible, but... I generally don't recognize people by name so much... maybe something dyslexia related? I think there are a couple of rare exceptions, like the user with two letters and then four numbers in their name.

I recognize lots of avatars, as I scroll around, but I don't generally register the names or even descriptions of the images, just kind of like... my brain just remembers purplish-blob shape, red glowy circle, monochromatic goblet.

Oh, and dancing banana, and blue name furry. I actually remember his, it's Kolanki I think

All of you users with no avatar, go get one so I remember you all please! It's an accessability aid in a way :p

I try to keep in mind the names of those that I regularly interact with, and even try to pay attention to who my regular lurkers are. While I mainly just interact with people replying to my posts, I lurk a ton myself, but there I think I'm more familiar with the names of the people I am not the biggest fan of, since I don't usually block anyone.

So far in this thread, I feel familiar with:

ada, JetpackJackson, nemo, SnotFlickerman, and I've seen a number of things from my bearboiblake recently

I went on whatever that Fediverse stat tool page is today and was able to predict most of my top ten people I comment with.

I enjoy the relatively small size of the Fediverse, and I like that I get to become familiar with so many of you.

There are a few names I informally had good vibes for. I started using tagging to keep track of folks a bit. This especially helped with the opposite because blocking someone who is grossely bad is an easy decision but I like to give the benefit of the doubt. Now I can tag. It kinda gives me this this I wanted from trust cafe where you can rate verything but instead I tag it.

For me, one of the great things about this general style of "News Aggregation" social media is that it's community/topic focused rather than being focused on individual personalities/identities. So, in that respect, I really don't notice or pay attention to the usernames, aside from blocking/filtering out all the crumby people that make this place a much worse experience for me. Out of sight, out of mind, so I couldn't even tell you who those people are.

I don't recognize anyone, I don't focus on who says stuff but what is said. I ignore the user and the instance (like ignoring ads on websites) and read the content. Only when it's uncanny pro Russia I check if it's an ml user. I never block or tag, too much work.