The few conversations I’ve had there have been unproductive and inflammatory. While even in other instances when I’ve said something someone disagreed with they would at least support their statement. Also no one would tell me why the “Confused Unga Bunga” meme is racist but they keep accusing me of it. I’m all for open discussions but even the comments there are so angry and toxic.
Edit: I’m reading every comment and taking everything people said and considering all sides. My stance on the phrase has changed but I am still hesitant about giving hexbear a chance. I’ll sleep on it though.
No, they’re bad people. Their whole point with federation was to troll other instances.
Not really. Since we don’t have the ability to instance block ourselves yet I changed instances to one not federating with them to avoid them and similar authoritarian instances like lemmygrad and exploding heads. I swing pretty far left on the political spectrum myself, but there’s a difference between that and simping for dictators, genocide denial, and other problematic things. I don’t even get it, China and Russia can hardly be described as leftist by any definition but they’ll bend over backwards to defend anything they do, and try to change the subject to another country instead if they can’t.
I really don’t understand the defense of Russia. Like if you are claiming to be communist, it’s arguably the worst example of exploitative capitalism going right now. Or they claim it’s because of colonialism while ignoring Russia’s history of conquering and controlling any nation near them.
In my experience? No.
There’s nothing productive from over there
Literally during the time they were federated with Blahaj I ended up blocking almost 4 dozen of them for their absolute toxic behavior including being dismissive of genocide, simping for dictators, and who could forget their stance on Ukraine. Their stance basically boils down to letting Russia steam roll them.
There’s nothing productive from being federated with them.
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Its less the socialism that users have a problem with and more the genocide apology and dictator simping.
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People invariably point to the Uyghurs and apologisms about China in general. I’m sure that stuff exists, just as it does in any leftist space, but I’ve never interacted with it so I highly doubt it’s some great cause people pick up torches for. Then again maybe it is and I’ve just never seen it.
I don’t understand all the hate. They’re just fucking funny. I have a great time there.
Maybe if you’re not a Leftist then there’s no appeal.
They do a lot of harassment and say some hateful shit. It’s not all jokes.
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Nope. Its about as useful as any extremist population of users. Full of holier than thou bullshit to excuse their own prejudices and generally garbage world view.
Interesting, I haven’t personally had any run ins with Hexbears, but everything I’ve read from them in non-Hexbear communities has generally looked fine to me. Sure, they argue hard and in detail when it comes to anything political and they can also be a little edgy, but I haven’t seen any of them be assholes, abusive, argue in bad faith, etc. So far I have appreciated their contributions. It probably helps that I generally agree with (many of?) them politically as far as I can tell, but despite that, if I saw them being assholes I would make notice because I don’t believe in defending the people in your team even when they’re doing wrong. I would be more likely to call them for taking the wrong approach instead. Do you have any example threads that demonstrate what you’re describing?
What I’ve personally seen is that the moment they’re mentioned they descend en masse on a thread. Most comments are fairly innocuous but there’s always a few that are overly aggressive, and if nothing else the sheer volume can be overwhelming.
Extremely toxic shithole.
Nope. There be trolls over there.
The question itself is inflammatory but there has generally been a good discussion. Locking instead of removing.
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No
Are you not aware that the confused Unga Bunga meme is based on a caricature of an Australian Aborigine, or do you not understand why the caricature is racist?
That photo is from a film about neanderthals. The phrase “unga bunga” has its earliest known usage in a Bugs Bunny short mocking Aborigines, but it’s a generic enough phrase that I’m not sure you can write off the entire phrase as racist against Aborigines: any nonsense word could be used in its place and I’m not sure anyone creating or sharing the meme has actually watched that Bugs Bunny clip from 1950. It’s just a nonsense phrase used to indicate low intelligence or nonsense. Given that the photo is of a neanderthal, I think anyone seeing the meme will understand that it’s supposed to mean “a caveman would be confused by this” and not about any particular group of modern or indigenous humans. Most usages of the meme imply that the poster themselves is the confused one, so I don’t think a racist would find it very funny to post something like that.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/confused-unga-bunga
Given that the words “unga” and “bunga” have existed in print since at least 1700 AD, I’m not sure we can point to that one Bugs cartoon as the definitive and only definition of that particular nonsense phrase. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=unga%2C+bunga&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
I promise you plenty of indigenous Australians have had to tolerate this phrase and the associated ableism for that entire time, and it is still used against them now.
The association of ‘primitive’ cultures and low intelligence is a huge continuing problem, including dehumanisation in the form of calling people different species’ names.
I grew up watching those cartoons, and we definitely used it in an anti-aborigonal way for quite some time after it was pulled. Into the 90s at at least, probably mid-00s.
I’m glad to hear it’s losing that history.
According to knowyourmeme the dude in the meme is a neanderthal character from a movie.
“Unga bunga” was originally used in a cartoon in 1950 with a caricature of an Aboriginal Australian, and it’s completely reasonable for someone to not know that. I didn’t until you prompted me to go and research the meme.
The phrase seems to be nonsense babble - there’s no way to deduce the Aboriginal Australian racism link from the movie image or caption, you have to actually research the backstory.
Given the image it’s commonly used with being a literal neanderthal it’s easy for people to not know the origins of the phrase “Unga Bunga”
Honestly I didn’t know it until this thread too
Edit: Basically what I’m saying is it’s common usage in meme format doesn’t attach it all that much to its history so not knowing the history of it is understandable.
It reminds me of the “Change my mind” meme that depicts Steven Crowder (a far right talking head). A lot of people probably didn’t know that was him until somewhat recently even though the meme has been around for a long time. Would you say those who used the meme not knowing it was Steven Crowder adhere to his political views or even accept them? Especially in the time before it was wildly known that it was him and what his political views were.
The “Change my mind” meme spread way faster than his popularity.
In what sense is it based on an Australian Aborigine? The movie it’s from is explicit that the character is a Neanderthal.
Oh yay another one of these threads. They sure are different from each other and provide substantive conversation.
I subbed !urbanism@hexbear.net and honestly, it’s too much image and not enough text for my druthers, but the kids are all right.
