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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.

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.

Hi, all! I signed up for Lemmy the other day using another instance, but thought this would be a better fit. I’m a 39 year old male who grew up in Ohio and currently resides in Michigan. By day, I'm a Technology & Strategic Project Manager at the University of Michigan. By night, I'm a technology-obsessed, music-loving vegan. I’ve been active on Reddit since 2010 and am disappointed to see the direction it’s going. I’m quite active on Mastodon, so feel free to connect with me there, as well!

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.

55/m from the Downriver Detroit area, Michigan. 17-year R*ddit user, been around forever (started with BBSes, moved on to Usenet). Black Guy on the Internet. a2.mi.social member.

Used to run a freeform streaming radio station. Apple user since the ][+, love music.

Are folks from other instances welcome here? Still figuring out etiquette or whatever. I got impatient over the weekend and jumped into Lemmy through sopuli.xyz due to a lower barrier to entry.

I'm a Minnesota person living in St. Paul. I coordinate graduate programs, which basically means I'm a nanny for graduate students. Movie nerd and sweet tooth haver. 1 dog and 3 cats. I used to be a forklift operator and a freight railroad conductor. Formerly UFCW, BLET, and AFSCME. Now I'm IWW IU620.

Hi, I'm Corwin! TL;DR: wordy nerd for MN; lotsa kids, cats, GNU vol.

I'm yet-another-new-user bc Reddit; glad for the mass troop move toward FOSS and federated things, social especially. Over the last few years, I've been weaning myself off mass-media social: forgive me, hacker, it's been (only) three days since my last reddit/twitter/FB post. RE FOSS, I volunteer with some projects like EmacsConf and GNU Savannah. If you are looking to get involved with FOSS volunteering but aren't sure where you can get started HMU :)

Ahem. Meanwhile, in the interest of full disclosure. About Emacs...

Passion for Emacs has been likened (variously derisively or with found amusement) to religious fervor.

I help with the annual conf, like I mentioned. I make official binaries for Emacs available from GNU FTP servers/mirrors. I help with ERC, one of the IRC clients that ships with Emacs. I'm making an RPG engine for Emacs called dungeon-mode. I feel that this post will be incomplete unless I tell you even more about Emacs right now:

Emacs is a text editor built around a lisp machine. Most of it is implemented in Emacs Lisp (elisp). It can be customized using menus, like a normal program. Or using code, programs full of code, auto-generated programs, self-modifying programs, and so on.. such nonsense for a text editor to be doing any of this, of course.

Hopefully, you can see where I occasionally get myself in trouble. Every once in a while I need someone to tell me "no". To say "Corwin. Oh, Corwin. The X forum doesn't want to hear about how you integrated X into Emacs." "STFU about Emacs please Corwin", And so forth.

TIA if that's you.

In conclusion, when you are ready to talk about Emacs, find me on IRC corwin@libera.chat#emacs.

MN; 48/wm/2 partners 17y/5y, 5kids, 5cats. emacs4evah

Hey all. Another Reddit refugee from SE Michigan. Looking forward to discovering how this works.

Hey everyone, started exploring Lemmy the other week and really jumped in after the Apollo news broke.

I’m gamer/podcaster/dad/wannabe bourbon enthusiast from Michigan.

I have a tech role in logistics and am just looking for a chill community to be a part of.

Currently consumed with exploring Hyrule.

Morning everyone. Chicago suburb native of 42 years who doesn't really feel like leaving. Working at one of the many data centers in the Chicago area, if you can call it work, because I enjoy technology in general. I joined because I've been migrating from legacy social media to the Fediverse; Reddit's API nonsense helped that process along.

Contrary to what my parents and sisters drilled into my head as I was growing up, I've been leaning more and more left as I age. At some point, someone decided that giving our children a better life meant making them suffer. Seems like teaching my kids to be grateful for the opportunities they have, respect others' beliefs, accept people from all walks of life, stand up for marginalized groups, foster positive mental health outcomes, not expect anything to be handed to them, and just be good people in general makes me a communist in the eyes of many, including my own parents. I'm gonna have to pass on whatever ideology came up with that and work toward dismantling it.

Beyond that ... I'm pretty low key most of the time. I like PC (Linux) gaming, physical computing, 3D printing, video editing, analog media preservation, listening to open source-related podcasts, road trips, dogs, glamping, grilling, beer, grilling while glamping and drinking beer and hanging out with my dogs, etc. I listen to metal but have been on a Sleep Token kick since the newest album was released.

I don't speak up often because someone else typically said what I want to say first, posting responses like "This" is annoying, and upvotes are silent. At any rate, nice to meet everyone, hope to be able to contribute something useful at some point.

Hey all, small town Illinoisan here. I've been in IT for over a decade, but I'm trying to transition to pretty much anything else at this point.

I'm also a game developer, solo in my free time. Anybody know of any good gamedev communities here?

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.

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!

Hey all. Twin Cities native here, enjoys android, books, fountain pens, and more. I've always meant to dig deeper into the fediverse but mastodon wasn't calling to me. I'm glad to have the reason (reddit) to explore this one now.

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!

Howdy y'all. Central Illinoisan, reddfugee, & night shift worker. They/she.

Currently glutting on various cyberpunk media in anticipation of DMing a tabletop rpg for a group of friends that I met at the local kink dungeon. Last night I watched a Japanese cyberpunk musical from 1982 called Burst City, which was beautifully chaotic, & then started rereading Neuromancer on audiobook (just finished rereading Altered Carbon.)

I'd give up a kidney for a sequel to the Return of the Obra Dinn. Just putting that energy into the universe.

Former Reddit user who is jumping ship after 13 years, I live in the Twin Cities I’ve been in IT for more than 10 years trying to jump ship to programming interest our programming fanfiction litRPG‘s and audiobooks not necessarily in that order.

Geezer Iowan here, getting the feet moist in anticipation of reddit (see account there of same name) becoming unusable/unpalatable for me. Too many interests/hobbies to list, but outside of work culture, the lion's share of my real life socializing is via local wind bands and orchestras; I'm a french horn player, and horn sections tend to develop into their own little social clubs.

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.

Here's my "me too" post.

Reddit refugee fleeing the third party app bullshit. I'm in IT, HPC to be more specific, at a well-known university in the Midwest. I play lots of video games, and by lots I mean mostly Terraria.

Hello! I do IT for the government. Currently in STL (not technically midwest, depending on who you ask) but I grew up in Michigan. I came here due to the news that Reddit will be soon charging 3rd party apps exorbitant and unsustainable (which is probably their goal) prices. Also on Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@Arindrew

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!

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.

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

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

Love the regional community server

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.

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.

Howdy all. Think I'm figuring out how Lemmy and the Fediverse works. Neat stuff. Hoping to see midwest.social take off as reddit implodes.

Hey, all. Like many, I'm bailing on Reddit given the drama and sheer disrespect for everyone, trying this community with a few friends.

I'm an Iowan, soon-to-be dad, equally-avid gardener and range time enthusiast, software engineer, gamer, etc. Based on the other intros, seems like I'll fit in well enough.

I wish I was consumed with exploring Hyrule; the pre-baby DIY crunch is too time-consuming.

I'm pretty much going to echo a lot of the same sentiments. I expect my Reddit usage will plummet when the third party apps are killed so I've gotta waste time somewhere.

I'm a long time, old school nerd. Tabletop games, video games, fantasy books, enough programming know how to make lives difficult, all that kinda thing.

Been rereading some old Spider-Man comics on Marvel unlimited lately. I've probably got a bit of a Tears of the Kingdom addiction going on as well. There's plenty more about me and I'm hoping this will be a fun, new internet home for the immediate future.

Hi there! I'm from Colorado, which is almost the midwest! I saw the community and decided to pop into Lemmy through here, though, since it seemed to be friendly and welcoming. I write queer fantasy romance and love a good book!

Another emigredditor here. I never posted much over there, I hope this platform stays cozy & welcoming after the inevitable influx!

I’m in Central Illinois, and I was very pleased to see there’s already a !cats@midwest.social community!

Hello everyone. 26/m living in Peoria IL metro, working in a small evangelical church leading music and trying to not be outed as a leftist and an exvangelical. Interested in movies, Lego, urbanism, fantasy football, and craft beer with a new budding hobby of cocktails. Grew up in Champaign though, so by default I’m into college sports as well.

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.

Yo duders, Reddit refugee here like many of you. I reside in northeast Indiana. My hobbies include video games mainly on PC, anime, movies, hiking, and traveling. I'm enjoying being here.

Hi everyone! Like a number of new users here, I’m coming over from Reddit due to the recent changes there. I grew up in central WI, and currently live in Milwaukee. Work as a software engineer, and in my free time, I love to nerd out on rollercoasters, hike, and whatever tech projects I get myself in to.

Hoping to find a community as nice as people are in the Midwest, as well as a place to see pictures of everyone’s cats

Hi all, with Reddit’s big API change I thought I’d get my foot in the door for another home. I’m back in Minnesota after being born here like 20 years ago (that’s how long it’s been since the 80’s, right?) I’ve lived in Lafayette, Indiana; Kansas City, (both sides), and Eau Claire, WI. I was a semi active, mostly lurker in a bunch of subs for ereaders, Minnesota, Marvel stuff, Forged in Fire, etc…

Stereotypical nerd: Books: Fantasy & Sci-Fi Gaming: Mostly Tabletop & Board, but PC & Console aren’t out of the question. PC: Typically a Mac because I like having access to a big name with integrated Unix, though I have windows Pcs and *nix utility boxes around. Last job: IT support, now stay at home dad.

Hi, I'm Shawn (38) from Ohio. Married with two children. I've been a teaching assistant for children with special needs for over 15 years. I'm a liberal, geek, and enjoy technology, reading, science-fiction, and playing Minecraft. Probably over-sharing, but am interested in meeting other like-minded individuals. o/

Hello! Originally from southeast Oklahoma, currently in southeast Wisconsin. I moved to Wisconsin from Oklahoma a two years ago and I'm really glad to be here. I'm liking Wisconsin so far. Both of my little ones were behind in language skills and education in general. (especially coming out of COVID) and the care and attention they've gotten from our school here in WI is so much better than what we had back home. I myself am an electrical engineer and software programmer. I came here looking for a better job. Most of my friends had already fled OK or would like to soon. I enjoy retro gaming and game console mods. I also recently became a certified ham radio extra class operator.

Yet another long time Apollo refugee joins the instance. Greeting from Omaha, home of the Henry Doorly Zoo, Runza and… uh… Berkshire Hathaway? M/39 software dev with some young kids and a dog. Looking forward to the same bullshit on Lemmy I enjoyed on Reddit: D&D memes, programming, college basketball (Rock Chalk) and video games.

Hi. I'm looking for weird shit in the Internet. I decided to hop on Midwest.social to ease the burden in Lemmy.ml

Fellow from Lansing, MI here. Joining as part of the reddit exodus, and because I like the concept of the fediverse.

I of course found my way here from reddit. I started lurking on mastodon occasionally when musk first took over Twitter, but I didn't get into it. I wasn't a Twitter user either. This looks more like my jam though.

I'm a lifelong chicagoan (nw side). I've been daily driving slackware since the late 90s. I play a mean bass. I smoke meat when the mood strikes. I bought a fixer upper without the skills or budget to fix it up. I have a 4 year old daughter. I work in international logistics.

Hi! Just joined because of the BS happening over at Reddit right now (RIP Apollo 😞). I've enjoyed my experiences on my friend's Mastodon instance and figured a Reddit-adjacent service on the Fediverse could be fun too. Librarian and researcher from Michigan, into social computing/inclusive design, hiking in the woods, collections development, Melee, Dwarf Fortress, etc. Nice to meet you all 👋