I’ve treated Lemmy as a fun, silly blog since I made my account. I love how you can freely post anywhere and as much as you like, unlike on Reddit. I’m also a teen who grew up online with unrestricted internet access and does online school, so I’m a bit addicted to being online. I love how much more interactive the comments feel here, despite it being a smaller platform. I’ve had fun reading and interacting with people. But I think I might delete my account and everything, because people analyzing my behavior and accusing me of things has started to get to me. Most recently, someone accused me of trying to manipulate people because of my age and gender. All I wanted to do was make people feel some fun and giggles. I’m wondering if you’ve ever felt something similar.
Your only problem is you haven’t established hard boundaries for talking online.
Never use your real information, never reveal it, avoid even talking about it and if you have to give any details like age, location and gender, it’s fine to make something up.
Perish the thought that socializing you do online will ever connect with your offline world, don’t even go there. Hard rule, never blend the two, especially on public forums like Lemmy. With that rule, it won’t matter what people say to you, you’re shielded.
For that matter, tighten down ALL your social media, including your personal shit. Take down pictures and personal information. Socialize in person and establish real-world friendships and all of this will feel far less stressful.
I’m dead serious when I say it’s very dangerous right now to have unsecured personal information online. If you DO delete your account, make sure you delete all your history as well.
It sucks that things are like this now. It was very different when I was in my 20s, and as a result I met up with a ton of people and had lots of fun.