Maybe. Or, like most users, they are aware that “fediverse” refers to the ActivityPub network as a whole, as well as adjacent networks such as matrix and diaspora.
When I say fediverse, I don’t mean Lemmy. If I want to refer to the part of the fediverse we are using, Lemmy/Kbin, I say threadiverse. It’s just one corner of the network.
I have no interest in the twitter format for social media, but people who do and enjoy mastodon, have just as much right to be excited about federation and what it can do for social media.
What I don’t understand, is why make this meme? Neither Lemmy nor Mastodon, is “the fediverse”. Only together, do they become a “universe” of federated instances, and even disparate platforms, which yet interoperate.
A Mastodon user who says they love the fediverse, likely loves it for the same reasons a Lemmy, Kbin, Friendica, Pixelfed, or MissKey user does. Where’s the joke?