Lemming Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
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Lemming definition, any of various small, mouselike rodents of several genera including Lemmus, Myopus, and Dicrostonyx, of far northern regions, as L. lemmus, of Norway, Sweden, etc., noted for periodic mass migrations that sometimes involve crossing bodies of water. Incidental drownings that have occurred during such passage gave rise to the myth of mass suicides among supposedly frenzied lemmings jumping from cliffs into the sea. See more.

«A person who follows the will of others, especially in a mass movement, and heads straight into a situation or circumstance that is dangerous, stupid, or destructive.»

So i guess we are in the midst of a lemmingrun right now!

  • @spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    12•1 year ago

    I honestly don’t think this platform specific language needs to stick around. I really think a lot of that originated as marketing and has always felt somewhat unnatural to me. Particularly because the threadiverse/fediverse is made up of many interconnecting platforms it’s pretty clear that these terms will cause more friction than anything else.

    This is also why I prefer lemmy’s communities to kbin’s magazines. Communities feels more like a universal description while magazines feels like platform specific language.

    • @CarrierLostEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      This is it, imo. Especially because mastodon and kbin federate as well, trying to make an identity out of “lemmy” doesn’t really work.

  • Old Man Fire
    10•1 year ago

    anyone play the lemmings series of computer games back in the 1990s?

      • Old Man FireEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        lolyep, quite often it was, and they usually wouldn’t survive the fall but just go splash

        • @Nihlan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          3•1 year ago

          As a former member of a gaming community who unleashed the lemmingrun tactic on their enemy, i concur.

  • bayjird
    6•1 year ago

    Some of the most memorable scenes in White Wilderness, Disney’s 1958 Academy Award-winning “True-Life Adventure” nature documentary about wildlife in the snowy northern portions of the North American continent, were ones featuring lemming suicide: the death of lemmings who drowned after jumping off cliffs and into the sea. But the scenes shown in the documentary were staged by filmmakers in order to replicate supposed real-life behavior of lemmings that could not be captured on film, and thus did Disney perpetuate for generations to come the legend of periodic, inexplicable mass suicides by lemmings who die by hurling themselves off of cliffs.

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/white-wilderness-lemming-suicide/