There was one called Homophobia that got like 50 members after being created like 10 minutes before. And of all things, a community about homophobia. With a drawing of a Confederate beating up gay people.
I’ve seen a few reasons.
New communities are created, a very specific and relevant post is made(which is likely the reason for making the new com), and it rides naturally through new/hot/all.
New communities are made as a direct discussion in a com or instance so people already know where to go as soon as its made.
And then some are made as alternatives to others due to conflicts so there’s a side that stays and a side that leaves to the new com immediately.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Communities will only show up on remote servers if an account from that server is subscribed to that community. To increase accessibility and enhance the user experience, many servers have a bot account that will automatically subscribe to new communities so that they can start receiving posts in that community. That accounts for the majority of the instant subscribers on new communities.
rikudou@lemmings.world 6 hours ago
Yep, this is the reason, the service that facilitates this is called Lemmy Federate.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Yup, pretty much. I’ll lazypaste the response an instance admin made after I asked a similar question recently: