Yep, same problem Lemmy has vs reddit. Only the nerdiest tech nerds got on here. Not many communities from reddit or just in general here. For example, I had to go back to reddit for a good sized general anime community.
I’ve had the same experience. I still post here because I want the platform to take off, but Lemmy doesn’t fulfill my needs.
It’s not the gossipers, it’s a trending view. Mastodon doesn’t tell users about active conversations as they happen. That makes it really hard to get breaking news, because you need to be following someone who is posting about it AND you need to recognize that it’s breaking news.
Maybe that has improved in the year or two since I used Mastodon.