I’ve recently joined Lemmy and was reminded of this old fact I used to hear about all the time that lemmings will commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs when they migrate (lemmings being the namesake of Lemmy, I think?).

Do lemmings actually do this? Because I think it would be funny if a social media software was named after an animal that’s literally known for mass hysteria / mob mentality.

  • Rhaedas@kbin.social
    21·
    1 year ago

    Lemmy got its name inspiration from two places - the rock singer, and the game Lemmings.

    As mentioned, Disney set up the poor creatures and made up the whole thing, but I’ve commented before that if you treat the analogy as Disney being the evil corporate forcing the lemmings into a no win situation, the lemmings chose to leap into the unknown (the Fediverse) rather than put up with corporate crap anymore. So it’s not a suicidal thing, but more of a F U I won’t do what you tell me thing.

    • WildlyCanadian@lemmy.ca
      41·
      1 year ago

      Think it makes for an even better analogy, corporations (and the rich) pushing the masses of a cliff (for profit)

      Reminds me of the people who blindly follow celebrities and corporations, blindly and unwittingly supporting the inevitable demise of our society, and eventually our planet.