Ask Lemmy

Accounts come and go, but shitposting is forever.

My what?

Avatars aren't info. They just clutter the screen. They very, very rarely are interesting. At worst, they show something inappropriate. They require moderation. They don't match any aesthetic of the site.

I literally didn't know they were supported and never see them anyway.

It is irrelevant.

I don't see the point. Even on my monster screen they're only 6mm² so if it's anything other than simple line art it's just a small meaningless square of digital noise.

I don't even see or care to see avatars. Its just clutter imo.

I don't even see it on voyager. I don't know why I would want an avatar anyway.

I gots one, they're just fun

Because having a pfp is gay

I haven't cared about stuff like that since I was 15

I don't care enough

procrastination of drawing one

Idk how to use anything here

Dang I thought I had. Thanks for the reminder - fixed!

Because a lot of people don't see a benefit in being recognized when pseudonymously interacting with strangers. And in some apps they aren't displayed at all.

My app either doesn't show them or it's off by default. I didn't know there were avatars but I'm not interested in them either since I'm reading on my phone and prefer a minimalist view.

I have avatars disabled

Mine's tied to my gravatar from 15 years ago otherwise I wouldn't have one. I'm not here to have a profile picture lol

Heck, I was salty when the old site added avatars. I already ignored names and was weirded out by "popular redditors" culture before avatars, and it was annoying to see a logo next to a name coloring my perception of the comment. I'm here to read comments, not to look at avatars

I had no idea Lemmy even had avatars until I read this post. So I went into my profile out of curiosity - even though I already had "Show Avatars" checked, I've never seen a user's avatar on here before. I did upload one for my own profile though for the hell of it.

There, I added an avatar.

That's me under my Performance Designs Spectre 150, circa 1997 or 98... Can't remember as I've slept since then.

My reader doesn't even show avatars

Most clients dont show them

I hid them to keep the comment section clean looking

Lemmy has avatars?

Because I don't care about it and it makes no difference. They only show in your profile and I don't look at my profile. The only people that do look at your profile are the people going there to try and find something to use against you.

I disable avatar display on all my clients. Reddit and it's siblings like Lemmy have historically been less person-focused than other websites, and many of us like to keep it that way. While it can be neat to recognise people, I only need their user handle to do so and I only check if necessary. It's nice to take a comment at it's value without regard for who said it. Reddit's push towards personifying their users is part of why I left.

because it doesn't matter at all

On Voyager I can't even see avatars or custom usernames

Almost every app for Lemmy I have tried does not even have them visible by default and require you to manually turn them on. If their only experience is using an app, they might not even know you can have an avatar.

You see my user name - that's all you need. You want more info? I've got a comment history you can see too. Why do I need some visual component that I can change when I've got an unchanging name until I decide to abandon this account and get a new one.