What is hexbear?
I saw a post that talked about racism towards people and when I talked about it the response I got was very heated and a person even called lemmy.world a community of 'hitlerites'
I have been around for a week or so and this is my first time seeing such explicit vulgar reaction towards another community, is this a one-off or should I block hexbear?
TLDR: they are right-wingers pretending to be left wing
I love this image. Something that always confused me is that they are communist, but support russia? An extremely far right government?
Authoritarians like authoritarian regimes. They'll perform extreme mental gymnastics to reconcile their preconceived notions with reality, like the tankies that declare China to be socialist. Also, most of them see the US as the Great Satan that is responsible for any and all evil in the world. Therefore anybody who opposes the Great Satan must be good.
There's no support for the Russian Federation. Support for the USSR? Absolutely, but not the RF. There's critical support, as in the RF currently takes an antagonistic stance towards the United States, which many Leftists see as the greater global evil, but no leftist genuinely thinks the RF is doing that out of "good intentions" or has any model that Leftists should replicate.
That sums it up.
They like anti-West authoritarian anti-capitalists that are just dictatorships with some form of oligarchy. Point being the USSR was State Communism for the people but just a party kleptocracy for the top. Modern russia is just another authoritarian oligarchy/kleptocracy without the communist veneer. China, another dictatorship hoarding wealth and power at the top.
Point being nobody does actual marxist communism where the people are in charge. It’s always a veneer for the people, even Leninist or State communism just results in authoritarians.
What does the Y axis represent here?
Technically, the X-axis doesn't represent anything either, as the far-right plot point curves upward, rather than continuing.
Separation from reality, maybe?
"Y" is the name of one of the major meme/shitpost contributors on lemmy.ml
It looks like another way of drawing the political compass left/right (collective vs individual rights) on the x axis and authoritarian/libertarian (obedience to centralized authority hierarchy vs distributed political pluralism) on the y axis. Tankies and far right would be in auth q1 and q2, far left q3, and not representing q4 labeling the quadrants from top left clockwise.
If we read it as a political compass
Auth+
Lib-
Why would supposed right-wingers be holding Leftist theory reading groups, hosting mutual aid comms, donating to Palestinian gofundmes, and supporting trans rights to some of the highest degrees on the fediverse? Irony? Seems like a silly hypothesis.
hosting mutual aid comms
I've seen those posts (I have no filter).... "I need money for rent" 🦗 🦗 🦗
posted from lemmy.ml
Okay, that is legit hilarious and makes so much sense in retrospect.
haha love that
Bend the far right and tankies closer to the center dot.
I like horseshoe theory. Basically far-left and far-right come to be same extremistic pieces of shit that are more alike than not, e.g. Hitler(right) and Stalin(left).
The left-right spectrum itself just isn't a useful model, but the mere existence of anarchists contradicts horseshoe theory.
Hexbear, lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml are the "Tankie Triad".
Hexbear is the worst most extreme of them and lemmy.ml is the least which is why they've managed to avoid getting defederated from world (either that or because they're like the third largest instance behind only .world and SJW)
Hexbear is pretty widely defederated
A lot of .ml users and communities are there just because it was the only big instance much earlier on. I'm in no way a tankie but still use .ml a lot (a community I run is on there) because it was the first one I made and i'm too lazy to look into new instances or switch.
yeah the other two I definately agree with, but lemmy.ml is mostly tame.
All I heard of before is that lemmygrad is more "extreme" than hexbear? My instance defederates from lemmygrad, but federates with hexbear, I don't know the exact reason for this though.
I was in an instance that was like that, but since they even made a post justifying their stance on keeping the federation with hex, I just jumped ship.
Not having to deal with ml, grad and hex is so much better.
Huh yea that's kinda weird, but it's also fairly subjective or perhaps your instance admins "straw that broke the camels back" just happened to be coming from lemmygrad at the time. But still weird to defederate from one and not the other regardless of which one was first lol
It's been a while since my instance was federated with either of them, but I remember grad being more extreme in their beliefs and hb being more... annoying. The hb folks did a ton of brigading and picking fights. Maybe they chilled out since then, but the .world threads were exhausting to read with hbs being assholes in every single one, including things that had absolutely nothing to do with politics.
I think it's the other way round. They share similiar politics but lemmygrad users don't have the same abrasive commenting style.
Hexbear is pretty widely defederated
Lemmygrad too I guess
I would block hexbear. I've done it server-wide. They are mostly very loud trolls pretending to be communists. Some could be actual communists, but I don't buy anyone actually wanting to be in such a toxic environment and believe what they claim to believe.
They're "communist" if you believe that supporting the CCP is "communist" and that the usa is "capitalist". It's all just political tribalism to them, that's why they are also anti-Liberal and at times very anti-Democracy. The actual definitions of any of these political identities is completely lost on them, all of these words only mean west or east to them.
To add to your comment: Blocking the instance at user level is pointless, it only blocks their posts,not their users, so you still have to deal with their bullshit and they post their propaganda at every instance that tolerates them so it makes its way to those who blocked it anyway.
The only solution is to defederate.
User blocking also doesn't block votes so they'll also still influence your feed.
Hexbear, lemmygrad and (in great part) lemmy.ml are tankie instances.
They basically deny any crimes of Stalin, Mao etc…
I mean Mao greatly regretted his plans and was very sad they didnt work, he went onto become a vegan and grow his own food as to not get the food meant for the workers
I'm sorry if I sound tone deaf I am new to Lemmy .~.
Welcome to lemmy! For the most part lemmy is nice place to be. You will still see the occasional crazy though. Defiantly not something you see all the time. If you find a user, community or instance popping off a bunch of crazy the best thing to do is block them. You won't be missing anything without them.
Welcome and there is zero need to apologize. Some people (and group of them) can be a real pain. Once you have learned how to filter them out, it's a nice place with nice people. There is no shame in blocking them, a bit like I would not let someone enter my home so they shout their nonsense into my ears, or make their mess on the carpet.
Once again, welcome ;)
I nearly left lemmy because of Hexbear. Learning they could be blocked salvaged the platform for me. It's not just you - they are pretty widely reviled.
Welcome !
Howdy! Can confirm that most people and places I've seen on the Fediverse are lovely... Except Hexbear. They're one wall of cognitive dissonance away from being right wingers and constantly complaining that liberals are all lying to themselves about their liberalism. That THEY are the TRUE left wingers.
Welcome to City 17 Lemmy!
block hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. And any user named "UniversalMonk" on any instance. You'll thank me later.
I'd probably be more selective about blocking users from lemmy.ml, but I'm a bit biased in the question given the server I chose when I joined Lemmy
my first account was on lemmy.ml because it was one of the top options on one of the apps I used. it stopped working with jerboa which why I switched to lemmy.world...
Gotta catch'em all
Who is UnversalMonk? Never seen him. Probably because div0 (my instance admin) blocked him for some petty bullshit like calling him an egocentric power tripping keyboard warrior
This post goes into detail about some of his shenanigans. Short version is he's a ban-evading right-wing troll who pretended to be a big third party supporter up until the election, and now just regurgitates right wing trash all day.
Note: being on Lemmy for about a year, I didn't live through the early days of this place. Here's what I can recollect, as neutrally given as possible.
TL;DR The recent conflicts between two politically different groups on Lemmy have radicalized many people, and many Hexbear residents in particular. Unless you are to discuss the far-left ideas and are very radical about disadvantaged groups, you are safe to block it.
Hexbear is a far-left (as in actually communist) anti-discrimination community, initially more of a safe haven to promote equality and foster a healthy and welcoming place for leftists to come together.
With core developers of Lemmy also being far-left, Hexbear naturally fitted the landscape along with the official Lemmy.ml, heavy far-left Lemmygrad.ml and others.
As time went on, however, all sorts of left-leaning and apolitical folks, not just far-left, came to the platform, filling other instances like Lemmy.world (now the most populated of them all), sh.itjust.works and many others.
As a result, Lemmy has two groups of people with radically different political views: one is a group of more or less organized far-left, and the other is everyone else, most commonly liberals. This distinction has caused a lot of conflicts and heated discussions based on political adherence.
Most notable case is latest US elections. The far left side generally called not to vote Democrat as Biden has failed to deliver on many of his promises and empowered Israel to commit war crimes in Palestine, while the liberal audience called to vote Democrat to not let Republicans take the lead, which may arguably lead to an even worse outcome than unaccountable Dems can make.
This divide has raised a lot of mutual hostility, brigading, and uncivil behavior, which has radicalized many on both sides of the conflict, the consequences of which you have got to experience.
What to do with that is up to you to decide. Hexbear is very politically uniform and very political overall, so if you're not here to discuss communism, you won't lose much and will gain additional peace of mind.
This is by far the best and most informative answer. The only thing it's missing as another couple commenters pointed out is hexbear is all about their oversized memes and emojis, making anytime you happen upon one of their posts extremely conspicuous (even if politics aren't being discussed).
The oversized emoji bug was fixed, by the way. They display normally now on other instances.
Also Hexbear and Lemmygrad were populated by r/chapotraphouse and r/GenZedong users respectively when those subreddits got banned, which happened before the main Reddit exodus that populated instances like .world
I'm being a little pedantic here, but "far left (as in actually communist)" wasn't a thing until these recent online debates and forming groups started putting labels on groups and putting them into boxes. Communists are not necessarily left, nor far left. It feels a bit weird to 'put' them anywhere. That said, I know nothing about hexbear or this little group on Lemmy and how they identify..
It is unclear what this excerpt is meant to demonstrate.
By default, the terms "left" and "right" are describing the level of economic equality/freedom in a given society. The left call for economic equality and redistribution of resources, either through peaceful cooperation and abundance or through heavy state intervention, the right stands for private property above equality and freedom to act in personal financial interest.
Communists hold economic equality as paramount and vital for society, and put it above all else; in a perfect communist world, everyone always has access to everything that is available in an economy, and as such, there is no money (you can already take anything you need) and no point to privatize anything as there's no revenue to speak of.
Thereby, communism is far left.
Bro tf?
Uh no? Also your linked book page doesn’t fit your argument.
I'll do you one better, why is Hexbear??
Wow, I was wondering why I hadn't blocked a single hexbear or lemmy.ml user here: my instance did it for me! I've had multiple accounts on multiple servers and consistently had to block hexbear users until finally blocking hexbear outright. It's been a much better experience then.
You should block hexbear
Hexbear.net is a Left-Unity instance populated mainly by Marxists and Anarchists. They generally don't get along with Lemmy.world, whose admins defederated from the major Marxist-aligned instances.
Whether you block Hexbear is up to you, I enjoy my time there a lot but it's also because I'm a Marxist. The ones saying they are "pretending" to be Leftist never seem to be able to explain why a large group of people would all ironically have theory reading groups and ironically support trans rights for years, even before federating with anyone else. What would they have to gain?
If I were you, I'd ask on an instance actually federated with them. You'll get different perspectives than you will here, which is always the case when it comes to controversial topics like Marxism, where opinion varies greatly from instance to instance.
The issue with hexbear isn’t Marxism or anarchism or communism, it’s apologism for violent authoritarian regimes to the point of insisting on an “alternative facts” version of “history”.
Alternative facts is when you refuse to admit you were wrong after carrying water for a single source white supremacist even when all the major media platforms that boosted the claim dropped it years ago.
So for years, as a 'good leftist', you continue repeating blood libel while you scream at people to support a capitalist committing genocide.
I really don't think they are a left-unity instance considering that they get very upset and unpleasant to talk to if you don't support authoritarianism or their alternative "facts."
Like I'm cool with all sorts of different leftist viewpoints and I think it's necessary that we support each other, but I draw the line at authoritarianism and rewriting history.
The reason they got defederated from so many major instances is less to do with the politics and more to do with the spam, brigading, and bad faith interactions that had no intention of civility.
This is objectively untrue, Lemmy.world refused to ever federate, as, in their own words, a "pre-emptive last resort".
In their statement, the reasoning they explicitly highlighted was Hexbear's stances like being against western propaganda and disliking the mass overseas wars driven by the US. Don't believe me? You can read it here - https://lemmy.world/post/2498330
So no, Hexbear was very explicitly defederated because of politics.
You can tell someone is terminally reddit brained when they're still accusing people from federated instances of "brigading".
Credit where credit is due, youre honest and youre correct. Have my upvote!
I try to be both, lol. Thanks!
Left-Unity instance
I doubt it or I'd be over there. Instead, I got attacked and mocked by a circlejerking mob of angsty teens from Hexbear operating in bad faith for remotely questioning something about communism and then got permabanned from Lemmy.ml. I didn't even attack it! 😂
Do you have a link? Would be interested to see.
Remember that they don't consider liberals to be leftists
It's a tankie instance. You're not missing anything important or reality-based by blocking it. You should also block lemmy.ml.
In fact, you should block everything and everyone expect for a small walled garden of committed neoliberals
If I wanted to hang out in an ideological ghetto, I'd unblock lemmy ml.
Oh another one of these
Short answer:
"What if 4chan was communist instead of neonazi"
Similar level of assholety and low post quality. Better politics. Overall don't bother, not worth it.
“What if 4chan was communist instead of neonazi”
Not quite, that would be /leftypol/
Better politics.
This reminds me of one of their site banners:
lmao the blatant transphobia "disengage with the largest trans safe space on lemmy"
you're so obvious
even if one assumes your trollish comment was in good faith, it only takes a single glance at hexbears front page to see it's filled with kindness and reason. just people having fun online while still making space for serious discussion. and again, making sure marginalized people are safe and welcome. I wonder what your real issue with the site is?
seriously, what other site allows trans people to safely and comfortably be ourselves like this? https://hexbear.net/post/4271750
Tank goes vroooooommm.
There is literally nothing transphohic about their comment, what the hell are you on about? People don't like Hexbear because it's trans-friendly, people dislike it because of their tankie politics and users that act like edgy 14 year olds.
Hexbear is a different instance where its users are basically a group of hard communism supporters. If you disliked their behavior, feel free to block their instance.
They are not only hard communists, they have 0 interest in propagating their ideas, they only insult and despise everyone who is not 100% in agreement with them. In the best case, and I don't think it is, it is an endogamous community only for themselves, the opposite of what a federated social network is
Their entire stated purpose of federating is to "dunk" on people and "dismantle Western propaganda". They're not interested in participating in good faith and never have been. They don't see anyone who disagrees with them as a person, just something to yell at and harass.
"tankie" here, dont really support them, they are the reason the left cant unify and are constantly infighting
I'm sorry u had to experience these extremists. Block the instance and forget about them.
I just took a look at your participation in the hexbear thread you are referencing, and I'm confused about the issue. Seems like you got mostly thoughtful and positive replies. There was some .world bashing at the end including the bit you quoted. It seems strange to me that rather than ask questions about hexbear to the actual users there, you came over here to ask on an instance that has daily threads complaining about leftist instances.
It's a bear with six legs
"Anyone right of me is Hitler" sounds pretty on point for them. Instance block and move on with your day.
Tankies, mostly. They're on my blocklist,but managed to avoid it for a disgustingly long time; they do have some good content from time to time, but in the end seeing the repeated vitriol and genocide denialism simply wasn't worth it.
Yeah I think a lot of Lemmings tried to give them a chance when we first joined, because we are pretty left leaning already so we figured communists couldn't be that bad. Unfortunately, they're actually far more moronic and toxic than anyone could possibly imagine.
I used to recommend for people to make up their own mind whether to block them, but I now feel it's better to block them immediately, because they're really just the worst kind of people who will do anything to bring others down to their level of misery.
Hmm, I obviously know it's not cool to use the R-word, but the M-word is also out of bounds now? I will rephrase my comment out of respect for persons of intellectual disability who might happen to come across my comment on Lemmy, while still attempting to convey my feelings about hexbear in an attempt to answer the question posed by OP.
Yeah I think a lot of Lemmings tried to give them a chance when we first joined, because we are pretty left leaning already so we figured communists couldn't be that bad. Unfortunately, they're actually far more stupid and toxic than anyone could possibly imagine.
I used to recommend for people to make up their own mind whether to block them, but I now feel it's better to block them immediately, because they're really just the worst kind of people who will do anything to bring others down to their level of misery.
If the S-word is also problematic, please provide me some guidance as to how I might describe persons of a certain type without offending anybody. I assume the D-word could be construed as offensive towards certain groups as well. I am asking genuinely, because I have no interest in causing anyone undue distress, but there surely must be a way of using the English language to express meaning precisely, otherwise it wouldn't be a very useful language.
Tankies
It's an instance meant to seem attractive to western youths while explicitly only serving the needs of the Chinese Dictatorship.
Most of their users are bots, human decency is their kryptonite. If ever you are convinced that any of them are your friends, you're just another mark they intend to make full use of and throw away: you are not a human being in the eyes of Hexbear.
I’ve had more issues with .world mods then any of the communist ones.
Seems this post is being brigaded by hexbear alts fyi
I bet they are russian trolls /s
Also there is no fucking "brigading" on lemmy given how small it is, idiot. I didn't actively seek out this shit, it just popped on my frontpage.
It's an instance that became known for brigading other instances to "dunk" on anyone who has remotely different ideas than they do, as well as spamming oversized emojis and pictures of pigs shitting on their own testicles. They have been defederated by most instances for good reason, as they always showed up enmasse to completely derail discussion and their own stated purpose of federating with other instances was to "dunk on liberals and dismantle Western propaganda". Their users would harass people in DMs for weeks on end if that person said something they didn't like. I was there to see this happen in several instances before they all defederated from Hexbear and it almost made me quit Lemmy entirely.
Below are some examples of various instances considering federating with Hexbear, only for Hexbesr's users to cause enough problems to get defederated. The threads themselves are best viewed from an instance that federates with Hexbear in order to see the awful behaviour for yourself, and the lemmy.ca thread has several more examples of this.
https://lemmy.ca/post/3326347 https://lemm.ee/post/4543536 https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/2017079 https://lemmy.world/post/249833
Do note that a lot of Hexbear users have alternate accounts on lemmy.ml and midwest.social (because nobody wants to federate with Hexbear), and a lot of these people will be in this very thread trying to defend Hexbear. Don't be fooled by them. Hexbear is a toxic cesspit.
Hexbear users will bully you to hell the very second you say something they disagree with. In my case, I said South Park is a funny show. They also think Putin is a good guy and at the same time they pretend 90% of their users are trans. Basically it's a bunch of douche kids playing revolutionaries and intimating anyone they disagree with. My 2 cents.
I've never seen anybody on hexbear say Putin is a good guy. And it seems pretty transphobic to say that they're just pretending to be trans.
I’ve never seen anybody on hexbear say Putin is a good guy
Well I've seen a lot of user refusing to say he's a authoritarian dictator so it's basically saying he's a good guy.
The same thing goes with refusing to vote Harris: that was basically saying you don't mind letting Epstein's closest friend rule the country because you don't want to vote for a "lib". Good job.
And again, I didn't say people are pretending to be trans, I said I don't trust Internet polls, especially anything that mones from hexbear. It seem hard to understand for you, but it's not the same.
Now here's my question: are you trans yourself? Because if you're not, that would be incredibly transphobic and discriminating from you to pretend you can speak in the name of a minority group. Please reassure me.
Cis man declares himself the arbiter of trans-ness, only trans people who agree with him politically are valid. (He's an ally okay, don't point out his rampant transphobia or he gets pissy)
Yerbouti is a thin-skinned french canadian who is still bitter to this day that he went to a chapo show and they made fun of french canadians.
Hexbear has published numbers, around half the users identify as trans. Are you saying users pretend that number is higher, or are you saying that the users reporting to be trans are pretending? Neither is accurate, but the latter is incredibly transphobic.
Additionally, no one thinks Putin is a good guy.
I'm saying I don't believe anything that comes from Hexbear, and I definitely do not believe half of their users are trans. I already had that discussion so I have 0 interest in discussing with you people. People don't magicaly become transphobe just because you said so, stop appropriating other people's reality. And yes, most of their users are tankies pro-putin and pro Chinese government.
I love going there and bullying them. Its my fav pass time when they had enough they just delete all my post cause they are malding! They also like to call it their platform which I always correct them on ..
ITT: everyone says they're bad without giving any examples, telling you what to think instead of letting you form your own conclusions.
ITT: the example is in the past and OP is asking why they're bad.
If there's no link it's not an example it's an anecdote.
Worse moderation than Reddit subs. Will ban any views that don’t fit their narratives. Just got a server wide ban for giving links showing how the ceasefire was reached by promising the right wing factions more of the West Bank as Trumps largest donor intended.
They're decent people as long as you don't argue politics with them... I think
Sometimes I like hexbear, agree with them and laugh with them, and sometimes their insular attitude makes me cringe. I am very critical of the democratic establishment in the US but hexbear’s “blueMAGA” talk is really offputting to me and sounds like the incel / redpill speak from parts of reddit and other online communities.
It truly depends on your own political views. What do you consider yourself?
You either block them and die a liberal or you engage and observe and live long enough to start spreading their agitprop and using your new pronoun "comrade" as you lead the way to glorious revolution.
(Seriously though, they're just people on a leftist political instance. You'll get the good, bad, and weird, same as any other place).
Its a leftist space that sometimes has trolls
"Sometimes" is an understatement. Their entire purpose for federating with other instances is to attack and "dunk" on anyone who remotely disagrees with them.
Here's my take...
They're more cohesive and insular than most groups you'll find on social media.
They've brewed their own strongly held culture and ideology.
Many are also used to being ostracised by other communities due to sexual preferences or other personal attributes.
The result is, if you naively post in a thread in which they are active your opinion will get stomped on if it does not directly align with theirs.
Many are also used to being ostracised by other communities due to sexual preferences or other personal attributes.
Based on their polling, most are trans and based on reading their posts for the last year, most are sick of the rampant transphobia on pretty much every social media platform, including on lemmy
Have you ever heard of a drop bear?
Don’t slander the Noble Australian Aerial assault Marsupial! Koalas are high most of the time and only drop to catch unwary people.
Hexbear is pretty overwhelmingly queer/trans and anarchist/communist.
If you've never run into a transfem communist IRL it's probably because you're not in many queer or left wing organizing spaces.
I'm actually pretty new to Lemmy in the last year and in that time I've seen way more .world posters being toxic about .ml/hexbear and making vague posts about how bad they are. I have to imagine that's why you're now seeing backlash to .world. Also most of the time I see people complaining about these instances and I dig into the modlog it's overwhelmingly because they got banned at some point for being reactionary and are bent out of shape about it.
In my experience as a queer leftist, world is toxic as hell. I’ve had numerous moments where I’ve considered banning the whole instance but there’s communities on it I like. So i ban individuals who drink too much liberal kool aid and think team blue can do nothing wrong and genocide is perfectly reasonable because the other guy is worse! and they have been crying non stop since they lost and continue to blame the left for having a backbone rather than look in the mirror.
Needless to say my whole account got banned on world for being a Luigi supporter and anti-democrat. So im on an anarchist instance now, and even after a minor disagreement with an admin over the concept of copyright it’s still nice.
Yes, you should definitely block Hexbear. They're a toxic, angry group of people, who have no intention of ever engaging in good faith.
this user was banned from hexbear for saying ::: spoiler cw: genocide denial "When Israel kills civilians, it's collateral damage from them going after Hamas. Hamas, however, launched an operation where the entire point was to kill civilians. The two are not comparable." :::
They seem like grad users in the fact that no one outside their instance wants to federate with their toxic instance. Who would've guessed that a highly charged instances calls people "Hitlerites" as an insult. (Obv I lack context here regarding the comment.)
Hexbear is cool. I've learned a lot from them. the thing is, some of the people there can be a little brash at first. I recommend looking around the instance a bit before you decide on blocking it. some of them can be a little brash but they mean well.
This is an extremely reasonable take, not sure why anyone would downvote you for it other than tribalism.
You found it, the answer is tribalism.
if anything, they are just proving them right about their instance. but it is what it is, there will always be tribalism on the internet and in the world.
Hexbear.net, lemmy.ml and Lemmygrad.ml have a lot of extreme leftists who have very wild takes that could be mistaken for right wing takes.
I personally don't recommend blocking them because outside of political threads they make up a lot of the content/memes/discussions, but up to you if you want to try that out.
I've blocked all 3, I see comments from them but not posts.
Most of the communities are are slowly moving away anyway, given how many users don't want to engage with the instance at all.
There's honestly a lot of high quality posts on lemmy.ml. Maybe some from Hexbear if you're into leftist niches like veganism
they make up a lot of the content/memes/discussions
Shouldn't be "rewarding" them with content/activity, they only have like 2 or 3 communities that crack the top 20 in MAUs these days anyways. And they're all .ml
It's something every sane person should block as soon as they join Lemmy.
https://sh.itjust.works/c/meanwhileongrad
One word, Tankies.
The community I shared rounds up posts that really portray their Phalusophy Philosophy really well. Now you would need to scroll down a bit to see some posts from hexbear specifically.
but I cannot recommend you enough to stay well away from hexbear, lemmygrad and if possible .ml
Ah yes the liberal cj comm
Quick question, what's the humor in satarizing a Chinese man as a yellow bear, specificially? Why not a Panda?
That came out of China.
When he was first in power, Xi painted himself as friendly and uncle like. His body shape and This attitude led to him being referred to as Winnie the Pooh in China to evade the auto censors on Chinese apps and services, which was then added to the censor list and it Streisland effected to where it is today.
"A self help group for people who struggle with solvent abuse."
Best answer in this thread.
I would ask them in their Q&A comm
Hexbear, together with Lemmygrad and Lemmy.ml are left wing, communist instances here on Lemmy.
A lot of (new) users of Lemmy have very strong - as in negative - feelings about them because of their ideas. Which to me makes sense because a lot of these users tend to be more centrist in their views and have never read Marxist literature before.
I will be honest with you and tell you my experience: they can be dickish and straight up trollish in their behavior, but not anymore than your average online trolls. The actual main reason people dislike them, is because they stick together and sometimes "brigade" post which nominates them and talk shit about them.
I personally was on the receiving end of their trolling when I first joined Lemmy too. But among the trolls, there were also very nice users who gave me friendly replies. And I had great conversations with them.
Eventually I even decided to open an alt account in one of those instances to learn more about their views and engage with them on their political knowledge. I really enjoy learning from them and having open conversations about politics with them. Even when sometimes I see their more extreme opinions, I still try to always be open minded at first. More often than not, I will learn that something I used to think on a subject, was the result of historical misconceptions or straight up propaganda. That is not to say that they can't be wrong of course. But it pays off to be receptive about new points of view.
There are some elements that can be considered extreme, especially to someone from the general public who has never engaged in political conversations with someone who is very much to the left. It takes a little adjustment if you want to try and engage because so much of the media and literature we consume reinforce our views on the system while they specifically try to be critical of it.
Bur FOR SURE you will never see that instance be racist or bigoted. I have lost counts how many times I've seen that in other instances, but with them, you know exactly where they stand on that. As in, they do NOT tolerate that.
Tldr: Hexbear (with Lemmygrad and Lemmy.ml) are openly communist instances on Lemmy. They are very vocals because they have a large userbase. They can be trolls that stick together sometimes. If you are politically interested/involved, I instead recommend joining one of their instances to see for yourself.
Edit: you can also tell how much people here have a negative feeling about those instances by the reactions in this post. Everything remotely critical is upvoted, while anything that even hints a positive opinion of them, will be downvoted. And then more and more users will start downvoting without even reading the comments. And they will start attacking users because they disagree and feel the need to attack them because "that instance bad"...in a way not too dissimilar from the brigading I mentioned before for some of the users from those instances. Showing you a real life example of how there are extreme users in every online community
I think this is probably the fairest description. Hexbearians are dickish trolls sometimes. Unfortunately, because Hexbear was the biggest Lemmy instance for the longest time, a lot of communities found this initially overwhelming, plus the big jump in political perspective is too jarring and can seem nonsensical.
But I believe anyone who takes a moment to engage in good faith with the cool users, and ignore the trollish ones, will see you can have constructive, interesting and caring discussions and realise what the attraction of the community is.
Sorry this is not true. They are very aggressive and attack every viewpoint harshly when it disagrees with their very radical beliefs. The reason instances ban them is they are not here for the conversation. Nothing good comes from that community, only confrontation.
Sorry this is not true.
It is true. That's MY experience with them
They are very aggressive and attack every viewpoint harshly
And? I do too when I'm heated about a topic. If your viewpoint is to defend fascism, why not attack it? And I'm not talking specifically about you here. But if we're debating, I expect someone to bring a good debate.
The reason instances ban them is they are not here for the conversation
Sorry this is not true.
And I already gave my explanation as to why in my original comment.
Nothing good comes from that community, only confrontation
So just like your comment? Lol jokes aside, I already addressed everything you said before. But I'm happy you were able to disagree and get it out of your system. I've noticed a lot of Lemmy users have this weird obsession with those instances, when in reality they are just instances. They have both shitty and normal users. It's always more nuanced than that.
You ever see the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Enterprise is about to get ripped apart by an energy wave that responds more and more violently the more power they put into their shields?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
There's an analogy for your disparate experiences in the context of your dickish attitude.
Yes block hexbear. It’s one of the first things I did on lemmy. Save yourself the toxicity of dealing with them.
Why don't you asked them yourself? !askchapo@hexbear.net
Probably a bad idea to ask about a Marxist instance on a .world community, since .world is known to be quite biased against Marxism.
Or at the very least @kaprap, make a similar thread in !asklemmy@lemmy.ml, it'll give them a chance to speak for themselves.
I've frequently noted that you tend to get a very one sided answer when you ask, for instance, Mormons about Mormonism. Likewise, I wouldn't expect a balanced and fair assessment of hexbear by asking hexbear mods and users.
And you don’t think marxists have a Marxist bias?
OP has the opinions of the non-Marxists already by asking here, on an instance defederated from most of the Marxists. May as well ask the Marxists what they think too.
Holy shit the sea of strawmen in this thread is insane.
I asked hexbear to see how they think in exchange
For people curious, it's not as bad as it is portrayed and I believe the disdain is only in place because of their overwhelming support of China and USSR
That's a very accurate assessment. Even on hexbear there's contentious debate regarding China and Soviet Russia.
Hexbear is the only community i have blocked, they call anyone with a different opinion nazis, they are either trolling or mentally ill
They mandate trigger warnings for pictures of cheese.
Base line Lemmy has a left skew. Hexbear people are the basis for probably a quarter of conservatives talking points.
One sentient beings cheese is another sentient beings coagulated r*pe juice.
A place with a high amount of queer and trans socialists that all the cishets on the fediverse mald about. The instance is something like 66% queer / queer adjacent and 51% are trans / trans adjacent. Essentially, a lot of people are very aggro about the fact that they have carved a safe space out for themselves prior to lemmy becoming popular recently. Tldr:
Here's some of their demographic surveys.
I don't think that's why I find them so unpleasant though?
I don't come here to talk about sexual preferences.
Why do you hate arabs, germgerm?
I am trans and hate hexbear. It's not because they're largely queer, it's because they're tankies.
Blahaj is dope, hexbear is not.
Well, cool, but you're a highschooler so you don't have much real world experience, though being a closeted queer as a highschooler is definitely a hellish and radicalizing experience, I've been there. Also, as a trans person thats been transitioned for a long time, you begin to realize the number of allies you have is very few and debate is very much a waste of time (fun for cis people, terrifying for trans people) and its far more important to build independence and resilience for the community and remove awful people from your life. Hexbear has mutual aid drives and housing support groups that have saved many trans people from homelessness and even their lives. Think: does SJW or lemmy.world do the same, or are they just all hot air and complain about 'tankies' in a vague way while doing nothing? Is it fine to be rude to people who think debating your existence and the existence of other marginalized people is good fun?
No, they're just assholes. Nice try, though.
Stick around for a while longer and you will find their assessments are not far off.
Do not interact with them destroy it with fire
Honestly, if you're not a communist, the less you know the better.
A self help group for people who struggle with solvent abuse.
Actual leftists mostly, with a few crazies.
Actual crazies with a few leftists.
Fuck stop appearing in my frontpage
A community of adherents of a political ideology which is fringe and marginal, and at the same time responsible for Trump's victory. Very dangerous individuals.
It's gross.
