If so, what are some misconceptions or seldom known facts?
I have an account on Hexbear, I also mod their !parenting@hexbear.net community, which has been growing steadily. It’s always wild to me to read what people think goes on at the site because, in my engagement with folks, it’s clear that everyone is just someone trying to get by in this crazy world we live in. All this talk about “tankies” or whatever, is pretty “online” behavior, and Hexbear often appears to me the least online by comparison. Sure, we’re active on the site, but I don’t get the sense that many people are wildly active outside the site, many people have negative views on most social media and have no interest in it.
The other thing that people never seem to notice is just how active our !mutual_aid@hexbear.net community is, and just how generous the users can be. There is a real sense of community on Hexbear that I struggle to find on the wider internet. That probably has a lot to do with the relative size of the user base.
The term “tankie” exists independently and prior to the popularization of the internet
The resurgent use of the word “tankie” is a very online anti-communist pejorative, akin to “commie,” “pinko,” etc. I have heard the word “tankie” maybe once in real life.
I’ll repeat a comment that I said once about hexbear:
I can feel a deep fire burning in almost all of Hexbear’s comments, quite different from most communities that just whine without purpose.
They are more of community than the rest of Lemmy.
I have a Hexbear alt. I use it, ironically, when I don’t want to talk politics, or if I want to keep up with the news, as the News mega is very useful.
A lot of people hold contradictory views about it, or think it’s some hyper-toxic space, but in my experience its less toxic than most other instances on Lemmy and gets into far fewer arguments. I love using the games comm and other hobby comms.
I also run a Capital weekly reading thread there, though momentum was hurt by the debacle a few months back regarding domain name.
Just lurk there for a while. IMO, biggest misconception is that they’re omnicidal lunatics. They have a lot of in-jokes and bits that seem incomprehensible and border on unhinged to an outsider, and sometimes they kinda lean in to the perception. But if you spend enough time there you realise they’re very intelligent and deeply empathetic people. The “unlimited genocide on the first world” rhetoric is an expression of frustration rather than actual intent.
As far back as I can recall, there have been at least two types of internet forums.
There are ones where dumb people go to pretend to be smart, and there are ones where smart people go to pretend to be dumb.
The problem with the ones where smart people pretend to be dumb is that eventually it attracts actual dumb people. Then the forum dies.
Which one is .ml?
Yes.
Literally something I’d say like 12 years ago.
If they’re deeply empathetic people, then why do so many of them support the Ukraine invasion and want them to roll over and give their country away to Putin?
This is not what “so many of them support” and I know you cannot source a popular post to prove otherwise because it doesn’t exist.
Hexbear oppose Putin, they just also recognise Ukraine and NATO also behave very shittily, sometimes moreso. There’s a recognition that the west have gleefully egged on this war at the expense of innocent Ukrainian/DPR/LPR/Russian civilian lives.
Wholesome “every single motherfucking one of you should fucking die in a meat grinder because I’m very upset at what Rachael Maddow told me in 2016” moment
Here’s an idea! If you have so much empathy for them, take their place! Spare someone kidnapped off the street against their will the horrible death you want them to suffer on your behalf! You’re the one braying for blood, you go spill it.
This is covered in another thread on this post if you actually want to know. I suspect you don’t, and just want to post gotcha arguments in bad faith.
gotcha arguments in bad faith.
Pretty much sums up all of hexbear here.
I did come across someone’s explanation that they think Putin isn’t a bad guy just because he invaded Ukraine but that argument doesn’t really hold any water with me. I suppose the last hexbear users that i interacted with who wished death upon me for once again pointing out their lies and disinformation were also extremely empathetic? They’ve been defederated from most of lemmy because they’re super empathetic people too? Do you think people actually believe this stuff?
the least propagnadized lemm.ee lib has logged on everybody
Because Ukraine isn’t part of the first world, they do still want unlimited genocide against the second and third world.
I’m subscribed to their tech, gaming, and news communities. They’re fine, I don’t care to make an account on their instance but nothing wrong with the Hexbear communities I subscribe to.
hexbear is just fine. the “problem” with them is that they are leftists. same with lemmygrad or to a lesser extent lemmy.ml
i predict some people will hate a lot on them here, but you should simply just go talk to them and decide for yourself what you think of it.
What a crock. They’re “leftists” in the same way that MAGA people are just “free thinkers.” I can’t say I’ve ever even see a hexbear user make any leftist comments or points of view. From what I’ve seen, they mostly push Chinese and Russian government propaganda under with the facade of being ‘communist’ (again never have I seen any mentions of actual communist economic philosophy from any of their users just anti-western, pro Russian/Chinese government talking points). I don’t even have any issue with anti-western sentiment but when you’re trying to pretend to be the ‘good guy’ while being Putin’s mouthpiece, similar to Trump, I’m going to call you on your bullshit.
Hexbear oppose Putin while frequently talking about theory and communist philosophy. There’s barely a single popular post that doesn’t at least reference leftist theory. You clearly are just talking 100% rubbish.
My bet is on you having been banned there for being some form of ass. Just because that seems to always be the case.
i’m literally seeing they say leftist things all day every day.
for some reason i knew this thread would derail very quick, hence why i called op to see it for themself and at least get the idea from someone who isnt an anticommunist like yourself.
(also you gotta admit its pretty ironic that trump is uniting the whole world against the us empire while also destroying it from within)
You knew it would derail very quickly because that was your intention with your previous comment trying to paint these people as if they’re a bunch of innocent victims being marginalized for being ‘leftist’. They’re not victims, and they’re not leftist. They’re the same people you would have seen hanging out in /r/The_Donald or 4Chan ten years ago, who only leave their cave to stir up crap, spread disinformation, and brigade others, only now they’re cosplaying as leftists on a new platform.
I’m not surprised that you’re pleased with Trump as him, Putin, and Xi are all birds of a feather who want to control all the power and wealth of the world. These sure don’t seem like the type of icons communists would flock toward if you ask me.
They’re the same people you would have seen hanging out in /r/The_Donald or 4Chan ten years ago, who only leave their cave to stir up crap, spread disinformation, and brigade others, only now they’re cosplaying as leftists on a new platform.
Is this AI generated? Hexbear was around before the Lemmy fediverse even existed. They were on a forked version of Lemmy without acitivitypub for the longest time. If their sole desire was to brigade, isolating themselves doesn’t seem the way to go. Also, they were the first large Lemmy community so who is really brigading, the new people from Reddit or them?
We also know where they were close to 10 years ago it was /r/chapotraphouse lmao
Also, about half their community is trans. Do you really think so many trans people are Trump fans?
Authoritarian leftist things.
A lot of people on non ml/grad/hexbear instances are both anti-authoritarian and leftist, so they see hexbear as just as bad as capitalists in terms of being pro-opression
“Authoritarian” is a meaningless descriptor. All states are authoritarian, what matters is which class is in control and thus exerting its authority. States controlled by the working class are demonized in the west as uniquely “authoritarian” because the corporate owners of the media cannot freely act as they please in the markets of “authoritarian” countries.
The US media is more than willing to praise Batista, Pinochet, even Hitler until later on, as long as they work with US Capitalists. Meanwhile, any country that attempts to assert its own sovereignty is immediately demonized and/or crushed via militant means.
What made you think I thought the US isn’t authoritarian?
Authoritarian means the government deciding what people can do or say beyond preventing actual harm to others, or causing harm to their subjects to promote the government’s interest to the detriment of the people.
Overthrowing other governments is imperialism, not authoritarianism - I’d define thr latter as largely internal, exceptions being eg. Singapore’s laws applying to Singaporean citizens and residents even when they’re outside of Singapore.
I never said you didn’t think the US was authoritarian. My point is that western media portrays other countries as “authoritarian” if they don’t play along with US economic interests, and will portray brutal dictators as defenders of democracy and freedom if they do play ball.
In the final analysis, “authoritarianism” is a matter of perspective, what matters is which class is exerting its authority, as all existing states are class states.
That’s a weird take, Hexbear is obviously a Left Unity instance, and there are plenty of Anarchists on the site. To me, people who think like this really need to hone in on what exactly their objections are with “Authoritarian Left” thought.
Hexbear has plenty anarchists. Left unity is a strictly enforced rule and has like 20 dedicated emotes.
Those are called enlightened centrists and moral relativists, friend.
Lmao, what?
angry thought terminating noises
Not wanting to lick the boots of either the government or corporations makes you a centrist?
That’s news to me
The other “problem” is that they were their own isolated place for a while which had an attitude of just laughing at or insulting libs instead of engaging (which is perfectly fine for an isolated website, where liberal intruders aren’t welcome), and upon federation suddenly became the largest instance at the time and many kept up that same shitposty dirtbag attitude, like posting PPB or just telling people to fuck off in reply to pro-capitalist arguments. So they quickly earned a collective bad reputation as rude trolls.
an attitude of just laughing at or insulting libs instead of engaging
Patently false. The PPB only comes out when it becomes clear you’re debating in deliberately bad faith.
Honestly anyone in this thread talking shit should pony up their chat logs so their behavior can be examined. 100% you stuck the stick in your own bike wheel.
I was forced to “talk to them” when they were still federated and it was horrible. It’s totally fine to have a political opinion, but it’s another to turn every comment section into a warzone. Even responses to random memes would somehow turn into a political debate and due to their high user count and black and white thinking this quickly turned into them attacking anyone who disagreed even slightly with their views. Hexbear were making sure that anyone who isn’t a tankie had no reason to be on Lemmy because they’d be haunted every time they’d share their opinion.
I’m all for having a normal exchange of thoughts, but this is like sitting in a room with 90% extreme leftists and getting swarmed and called a stupid lib the moment you dare to introduce some nuance. I’m still more left wing than probably 70% or 80% of the Netherlands and yet I’d relate better to the average center-right voter than to these nuts
black and white thinking
What is an example of Hexbear “black and white thinking”?
Yeah, they’re chill, idk. If you enjoy arguments and can handle some friction without breaking down, you’ll fit right in, I think. The only main difference I’ve noticed is that they’re a bit gayer than folks here, or at least talk about it more, and they don’t use obvious American propaganda/party lines as the framework to understand the world.
We did a census a while back and literally like 1/3 of the people were straight/cis
Yeah I like some of the hexbear comms and sometimes participate. Vegan Theory Club is an offshoot of Hexbear after the great vegan struggle sessions of 2021 when my account there got banned. We’re mainly a two discord servers called Vegan Theory Club and Vegan Home Cooks and we launched the lemmy more recently.
Just wanted to say, I like the posters from Vegan Theory Club, it’s a cool place.
Thanks! We’re trying to do something that isn’t just open source reddit clone by making it about the things we are interested and our own content instead of just spamming vegan blog links and filling the instance with fluff articles like a glorified RSS feed. I’m glad you like the posts!
This account’s instance federates with hexbear. Outside of politics and topics du jour, there’s little difference between them and you or me.
Huh. First time I saw this post, I figured it was bait. I’m pretty sure I was subbed to a couple communities on hexbear. Occurred to me today when I encountered this post again that I’d not seen any hexbear content for a while. Turns out my instance has it blocked. Not sure if it’s for technical reasons or moderation reasons. Does that go in the mod log or somewhere?
My instance also blocks both Lemmygrad and hexbear, even though Lemmygrad doesn’t really do trolling
My other account is on an instance that federated with them, this one does not.
I’ve never had any major problems from them, just bad takes and occasional belligerence from specific users. But I also don’t seek out their communities.
I wish we were federated with slrpnk.net honestly. The integrations you have over there are really cool (dokuwiki, etc), and you’re all comrades in making, IMO.
They’re just fine. Our views don’t always align but I’ve found suspending disbelief is very different from believing.
I love hexbear, have an account there too. They are nice and I’ve never had a problem.
I have a lemmygrad acct, possibly. but I just browse via this one mostly anyway.
I had a burner account back years ago before it was federated with the rest of Lemmy.
I’d already well-passed the stage where I was spending more time online than doing actual movement building on the ground so the low-content and causal comms are too chatty for me to even bother. There’s also some underlying abusive moderation (at least there was a couple of years ago), but that’s something I’ve seen on everywhere from .world to .ml, this is volunteer work and beggars usually can’t be choosers, there’s nearly always someone on a staff team who just deletes things they don’t like. Purging that behavior is tough without a healthy mod culture and mods who care enough to start a fight.
On the other hand, there’s some good comms among the slop and they keep liberals from coming in every minute with dumb questions they could have checked with a single web search or just reading an FAQ, so that’s a huge plus (tourists can go to lemmy.ml or lemmygrad.ml with any good-faith questions). Their dev work is commendable. For the place that it is, it’s done alright for itself, there’s a decent foundation from what I can tell, which is especially hard for a big-tent socialist site to build given the conflicting worldviews and values that arise.
If so, what are some misconceptions or seldom known facts?
It’s pretty hilarious how many of them seem repulsed by /leftypol/. They’re remarkably similar cultures, just less PDFs and “read a fucking book” culture, less catgirls and no ironic slurs.
