Submitted 3 days ago by wowwoweowza@lemmy.world to [deleted]
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.
TIL, thank you.
I like it.
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.”
Not only were they not bothered by it, they were inspired by a classic computer game, featuring lemmings fall 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.
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?
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!
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-_moved_s
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.
There are two truely hard problems in computer science; P=NP, naming things, and off by one safety
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
When Lemmy got named did no one think
I think that’s true so far.
:)
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.”
kabi@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Someone deterred by this was never going to even consider joining in the first place. They are just messing with you.