I tried tildes.net first and it was alright but always too serious for me to really feel like myself. It's not the fediverse but it is a reddit-like.

Then I got hooked on Mastodon. I had been on Twitter before but never liked it. Mastodon just felt so much nicer and clever and I felt like I could be myself. I also got lucky and joined a great instance right off the bat.

After that, I found Lemmy and eventually piefed, and it was 196 that really made it stick for me.

I tried loops too but never got the same compulsion/reward loop, kind of like tildes.

I would love a Facebook replacement for my real-life friends, but the network effect is a pretty strong deterrent. I've heard good things about go-to social in general. Maybe I'll try that out, but I'm pretty content with the services I already check regularly.