This place (Lemmy) reminds me a lot of when I used to post on SA back before Reddit was popular. I wouldn’t call it “small” per se, but you actually knew who the moderators were. And since there was no upvote/downvote system, it was a lot more casual and people didn’t feel the need to try to tailor their posts to get upvoted.
Of course, it was also a dumpster fire sometimes too, and just like Reddit, the guy running it was a jerk. But I do miss it sometimes.
I miss it to, SA was the precurser of internet culture and was a fun place to post. I feel like the modern internet has been a bit sanded down.