For all new users: I’d recommend picking an instance that:

• Is geographically close to you first
• Has the same “moral compass” as you (ie if they allow NSFW content or are defederated from instances that has sensitive content)
• That isn’t hammered by too many new users

It’s not that hard to check out this info, usually after a day or two on Lemmy you’ll figure these things out.

My instance lemm.ee is sooo bad, totally don’t join our awesome club so I get longer load times. 🤫 How can we bare having not banning the evil porn and federating with all the other instances!

Also a cute lil instance at https://literature.cafe/ opened up too.