Similar situation to some. I tried Mastodon first, but it seemed like more of a Twitter alternative since you follow personalities rather than topics. Been on Lemmy for a few days now and it's a definitely more in line with what I wanted

The timeline split after harambe. This is known

First day of browsing Lemmy. So far so good. It took me a while to grasp the concept of an instance, but it seems to make sense to me now. I'm just hoping more communities start filling up and that the iOS app can get more development. Mlem is functional but veeery barebones right now. The browser works fine though!