Submitted 1 year ago by wowwoweowza@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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?”
Being called “twits” never put people off Twitter.
That’s great!
When Lemmy got named did no one think
I think that’s true so far.
:)
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.
There are two truely hard problems in computer science; P=NP, naming things, and off by one safety
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.”
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
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.
No. We all thought about the association to Lemmy, the guy from Motorhead.
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!
This was the original name inspiration
Scare us away? Some of us are on instances that make the connection more obvious.
Well, I mean…
It’s considerably better than “Redditor”.
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.
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
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.
superkret@feddit.org 1 year ago
When Lemmy got named, it was a safe haven for half a dozen communists.
No one thought about alienating normies.
wowwoweowza@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And now do the same people see it as a vehicle that could possibly dismantle corporate social media hegemony?