I like this view, because I have zero idea what I just walked in on. This account is just 16 days old and I'm just here to chat non-politics and doomscroll. And by 16 days old I mean like 4 because their acceptance email got sent to spam and I didn't notice it until then.
Tbh, I had no idea there were even factions or drama among the instances.
You don't really know it until you stop watching videos for like a week. Suddenly you want to do your favorite things again; try things yourself again.
I used to play Star Wars 4th Edition Pen and Paper RPG with a 40 year old and his 32 year old wife when I was 16. They were just harmless geeks, like me.
If anything, my mom making snarky comments about the 40 year old guy really soured our relationship for a while. My friend who was my age and who also played with us sent her a picture in the mail of the 3 of us holding hands under a rainbow. She was pissed.
It's fine. Your son could just as easily be friends with someone his age that's a psychopath. It's in the person, not the age. At 18 you're going to have to trust his judgement a little more.
"Arch Linux"
Honestly, that's what I'm currently doing. I've always chuckled at the cleverness of the name sh.itjust.works. I started on .world, but I forgot to migrate my 2fa because I switched from Google Authenticator to an open source one on a new phone and didn't take my lemmy token for some damn reason.
I'm only switching because I'm a neutral entity online when it comes to politics and identity. I use the internet to escape that, not dive into it. I don't mind seeing it, I just move along and let people be people. I'd rather not be potentially tied to an image or faction by association; its nothing against .ml or anything.