What is hexbear?

submitted by kaprap@leminal.space

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?

206

Log in to comment

453 Comments

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?

Deleted by author

reply
2

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.

I can't help but wonder if tankies are the political equivalent of flat-earthers. I should probably ask that on NSQ some time, when I can figure out a way of asking that won't get me banned.

I can’t help but wonder if tankies are the political equivalent of flat-earthers.

One way forward is to ask them for evidence for their viewpoints and investigate their sources for errors. The problem of the flat-earther is that there is objective evidence of a 3D rounded Earth that they can't adequately counter with objective evidence.

The only problem with that is that I don't have the political knowledge to be able to counter their responses, and nobody else responds to the thread, so it kind of dies there. If for instance they say (as they have) that North Korea is a perfectly normal country, I don't have any location-specific knowledge to be able to respond to that, and I'm aware our own media have their own agendas so I've no way of knowing objectively who's right.

, edited

Damn, that analogy is apt af

most of them see the US as the Great Satan that is responsible for any and all evil in the world.

That’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

America is largely fine. The problem it has is a violently coercive economic model that forces people to be profitable to other people or risk destitution, homelessness, or even death by exposure, and a political system that is militaristic, imperialistic, and dysfunctional.

My favourite quote is this:

America has three political groups, but is serviced by only two political parties - the extreme ChristoFascist right has a party all to themselves, while the moderate right and centrists share a party such that it cannot effectively function.

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.

, edited

I’ve spoken to plenty who were way too sympathetic to Putins ‘Ukrainians are Nazis’ chat with complete disregard of the nuances.

Support for the USSR? Absolutely

Wait, really? The ones responsible for, among other things, the Holodomor? Those guys? Why?!

, edited

Marxists support the USSR as the world's first Socialist State. They don't believe it was some perfect wonderland free from troubles, issues, problems, etc, rather, they acknowledge that the USSR was real Socialism with real victories, like free healthcare and education, an elimination of famine in a country where starvation was regular, doubled life expectancies, dramatically lowered wealth inequality while dramatically raising wages, and over tripled literacy rates to near 100%.

Hexbear aren't unique in general support for the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority of Marxists see it as far better than Tsarist Russia and the modern Russian Federation.

, edited

They don’t believe it was some perfect wonderland free from troubles, issues, problems, etc, rather, they acknowledge that the USSR was real Socialism with real victories, like free healthcare and education, an elimination of famine in a country where starvation was regular, doubled life expectancies, dramatically lowered wealth inequality while dramatically raising wages,

"doubling" the life expectancy? Life expectancy was 30 years old prior to the USSR forming in 1922, so yes "doubling" to 67 took until 1967, and before they doubled it, they dropped it to 23.6 years old. Tens of millions of Soviet citizens died early deaths to get there. Starvation didn't end for many and rationing was commonplace. I suppose killing off a sizable portion of your population would mean less mouths to feed, but what a horrible approach to try to solve that problem.

Perhaps a better measure would be infant mortality. The USA, with its "worse" healthcare, has had consistently less than half infant mortality (or even lower) for every year the Soviet Union existed.

and over tripled literacy rates to near 100%.

...in *Russian*. If you spoke a different language, like Ukrainian, it was forbidden by USSR law from teaching it in schools. This happened to dozens of languages in other Oblasts.\

dramatically lowered wealth inequality while dramatically raising wages,

On the surface this looks good, but that would be with a Western view of what earned wages could buy. Even with money there was limited food to buy for decades at a time during the Soviet Union. Further, you couldn't just do something like go a buy a car. You had to get on a wait list for years to even have an option to buy one.

Hexbear aren’t unique in general support for the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority of Marxists see it as far better than Tsarist Russia and the modern Russian Federation.

Better than the final Tsar or Putin, probably, but those are both really low bars to gauge a win by.\

I'm not saying everything about the Soviet Union was bad, but holding it up as an example to aspire to would be rejected by most folks that would be forced to live that life (or die an early death under its heel as a consequence of actions of the state). Do the Marxists you're referring to really pine to live in 1940s or 1950s Soviet Union?

"Tankie" here, russia sucks

What makes you a "tankie" if you don't share their beliefs?

If you agree that "russia sucks" make someone not a tankie, then you'll conclude that 99% of Hexbear are not tankies.

Can you go over there and get a poll started?

, edited

Russia and China. The two groups who are well documented to use tanks against their citizens; hence the name. A tankie is someone who defends that, at least historically.

People usually call me a tankie

You called yourself a tankie

we don't, we just hate the us more.

It's obvious you hate yourselves most.

how so?

See, this is why capitalization matters.

, edited

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.

*posted from lemmy.ml*

I don't see how that discounts anything, why would right wingers create a relatively isolated community to read Marxist and Anarchist theory, protect and advocate for trans rights, and frequently pin donation threads for Palestinians? Seems like *way* too much effort to be ironic, and defederating from other instances would *hurt* their supposed goal of "trolling."

You're forgetting that Hexbear and lemmy.ml tend to support Russia and the CCP, both authoritarian dictatorships with Russia being openly Fascist. This is because of the general "America bad" viewpoint on these instances.

While the US has its... *problems*, that doesn't mean their geopolitical rivals are then magically all-benevolent. Multiple sides in conflict can be shitty, and ignoring the genocides that Russia and China have been committing over the past few years is unacceptable.

hosting mutual aid comms

I've seen those posts (I have no filter).... "I need money for rent" 🦗 🦗 🦗

What does the Y axis represent here?

The amount of mental gymnastics being done to justify their ideology

Mental gymnastics is the term given to people who read books by the mental couch and potato chip crowd.

Technically, the X-axis doesn't represent anything either, as the far-right plot point curves upward, rather than continuing.

Separation from reality, maybe?

, edited

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.

, edited

"Y" is the name of one of the major meme/shitpost contributors on lemmy.ml

It's a reference to horseshoe theory with the addition of the left wing where it's actually democratic as opposed to communism authoritarianism which can resemble fascist authoritarianism in a war economy.

"tankies" (aka Marxist-leninists) fully believe in Democracy - they just reject the idea that neoliberal two party American democracy is the be all and end all.

For some reason they are more pro Russian suppression state, Chinese one-party censorship state and even apologise for DPRK. It's pretty tall order to call any of those democratic. Then from my discussion with tankies they often advocate for an armed revolution which are very undemocratic in their nature and often lead to one-party states or a military junta government.

Marxist-Leninism is a democratic ideology but the way tankies talk doesn't sound very democratic to me.

For some reason they are more pro Russian suppression state

They really aren't. I keep seeing .worlders assert this but I've never seen it there. China and DPRK yes, but not Russia. (I also do consider China to be at least as democratic as western countries, not so much Korea, but I don't mind hearing opposing views.)

Is it the way tankies talk that make it sound not democratic to you? Or it the biases you went in with?

, edited

If we read it as a political compass

Auth+

Lib-

Okay, that is legit hilarious and makes so much sense in retrospect.

haha love that

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.

, edited

Judging by the dislikes in my previous post, my point did not get across, but whatever...

You can be a dictator on either spectrum. And if you're a dictator, at that point you dont care for any left or right leaning values... Today it seems its easier to become one (a dictator) going right, since these folk are by nature more guilable...

If you consider your self a liberal and you think thats far-left (what republicans for example like to paint their opponents), you're an idiot. Also those that think they're marxists or whatever, you're even bigger idiot, enjoying your materialistic ps5 and 4090 dreaming of a communism... oh the irony

And about anarchists, some people just want to see world burn... or profit in a lawless society

And if you’re a dictator, at that point you dont care for any left or right leaning values…

But this just evidently isn't true. Take the fascist dictators like ᴉuᴉlossnW and Hitler, who clearly believed in their ultranationalism, irredentism, anti-communism, anti-liberalism, militarism, etc. etc. until the days they died (ᴉuᴉlossnW even created a last testament while captured shortly before death re-iterating all their beliefs despite their lost of dictatorship). Then take socialist-party dictators like Castro, Stalin and Mao, who, despite any and all critiques and shortcomings and hypocrisies and failures, intentionally took actions with measurable results to improve living conditions, health and literacy for the worker class as a whole, while limiting and even oppressing the owner class (*bourgeoisie*). If you already checked out that video in my last reply then we'd know 'left leaning values' can mean a heap of different things in different contexts, but I believe that these progressive and anti-capitalist efforts are solid examples to prove the point.

Also those that think they’re marxists or whatever, you’re even bigger idiot, enjoying your materialistic ps5 and 4090 dreaming of a communism… oh the irony

I don't have either of those, but I can't understand why there would be any irony or contradiction there, at all. Marxism isn't an anti-technology or anti-fun lifestyle or some religious glorification of poverty. At its core, it's an analysis of society which (long-story-short) concludes capitalism is an exploitative system and socialism is an alternative economic system where the worker class, as opposed to an owner class, control the tools and resources of production. There's far more depth than that, but how much time or money someone has doesn't (directly!) come into that analysis. The famous rallying cry in the *Manifesto of the Communist Party* (1848) is "Workers of the World, Unite!", and those workers rich enough to afford luxuries are still workers with shared class interest with other workers. You don't need to be committing crimes against labor to reach that level, they're not buying factories, commissioning mega-yachts and flying to space.

And about anarchists, some people just want to see world burn… or profit in a lawless society

I'm talking about the political philosophy and movement, anarchism. Most of them want to abolish the concept of profit whatsoever, and they make up a major part of the environmental and social justice movements. There's plenty of critiques of their movement, but they really only want to burn down the state which exploits us.

Lol, ok :)

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.

Deleted by author

reply
17

User blocking also doesn't block votes so they'll also still influence your feed.

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

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.

Deleted by author

reply
6

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

I think it's the other way round. They share similiar politics but lemmygrad users don't have the same abrasive commenting style.

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.

Hexbear is pretty widely defederated

Lemmygrad too I guess

, edited

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

, edited

Responsible for estimated 40 million deaths on the low end.

"Oopsie, my b."

All is forgiven.

It shows he tried his best and was sad when he failed, he cared for his people

Mao played a personal role in organising the mass repressions and established a system of execution quotas,[175] which were often exceeded.[165] He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.[176]

You ever love a group of people so much you personally set an execution quota on them?

, edited

Mao introduced some terrible measures, for sure, but it's a long shot to say he's "Responsible for" every death or imply it was at all deliberate. Famines in China were more widespread and frequent pre-Mao.

Life expectancy doubled under Mao.

, edited

Life expectancy tanked from 40s to the 30s under Mao in 1960 because of the famine. It went back up because Mao took a step back from governing and moderates introduced economic reforms to save the economy that Mao hated by the way and life expectancy shot up.

If I kick someone in the teeth then a dentist gives them implants, they technically have a better smile because of me. Are they gonna give me credit for it? Doubtful. Likewise, don't give Mao credit for someone else fixing a mess he created.

So all hitler had to do was say he regretted his plans and all would be fine?

Hitler was a vegetarian, so half as good as Mao who was vegan, obviously.

Hitler killed them on purpose

so did Mao, see this comment

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

"Oh no, block the people that want everyone's needs to be met"

, edited

fun fact: you can want everyone's needs to be met *while also* being allowed to criticize China, Russia, and while not acting like an insufferable twat. Wild, I know.

It's true. And all those things happen on Hexbear all the time. So I don't know what you're talking about.

"not acting like an insufferable twat"

hexbear

yeah no. Funny, good try, but no.

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...

Yeah, I'm an .ml user because it was one of the top instances when I first joined and idk how to switch it??

You would just create a new account. Take it as a chance to prevent too much personal info from piling up under one pseudonym.

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

, edited

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.

, edited

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”.

, edited

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 can’t tell what you are talking about.

Adrian Zenz

, edited

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.

, edited

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.

The world mods also outright support Israel.

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!

, edited

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

You should block hexbear

I'm sorry if I sound tone deaf I am new to Lemmy .~.

, edited

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 ;)

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.

Weird, because I find them also lovely.

You likely have never been a target of their vitriol. Consider yourself lucky.

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 !

Welcome to City 17 Lemmy!

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.

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.

Nobody mentioned blahaj broski

when i used blahaj i was harassed by transphobic chasers. it is NOT a safe space.

Deleted by moderator

reply
10

Defending chasers attacking someone is transphobic, and you need to do some serious self-crit if you consider yourself an ally. However, elsewhere in this thread you are attacking transgender individuals and accusing them of "faking it," so this is a pattern and not a one-off.

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.

Deleted by moderator

reply
15

That's a bold claim. A quick look at their top communities list (one of the top 15 being explicitly a '*community for transgender and gender diverse people*') and the first two rules of their CoC make it seem especially trans friendly.

MLs are incredibly good at hypocrisy.

one of the top 15 being explicitly a 'community for transgender and gender diverse people'

And as we all know if someone says they're a certain way that makes it so!

This level of naivete seems to be a requirement for being on .ml

If only there was a way to verify their claim so you weren't forced to take their word for it.

Look, maybe you're right. But this was one of the lamest responses to someone bringing receipts that I've ever seen.

, edited

Since you're bringing up instance stereotypes, I have to say I'm disappointed to see baseless conspiracy claims from a dbzer0 user. dbzer0 is usually decent.

And as we all know if someone says they’re a certain way that makes it so!

Are you implying that this active community is somehow just an elaborate hoax? Why?

, edited

Look, there's no reason to disbelieve here. If they claim to be trans, and they try to have trans-friendly policies, and keep talking about trans issues, why go this route?

Is your greater point that they're pretending to be mostly trans as a way to use their trans-identity as a shield for criticism? If so, criticize that when they do it. The counter-argument to "you can't criticize me because I'm trans" shouldn't be "you're not trans", it should be "being trans is not a defense". Ya follow?

And if the argument is that hexbear want to appear more trans in order to "virtual signal", then I'd say there's plenty to criticize about the way they run their instance, we don't need to try and deny anything good they do.

Transphobia is when you disagree with a liberal about anything, regardless of how much you support and respect trans people, apparently.

This is a very bad take. It is well-documented that Hexbear's userbase is around 50% trans, and has a well-developed moderation team in order to protect their userbase. Discounting trans people because they disagree with you politically is in fact transphobia.

If you think Hexbear is trans-friendly, then you’re transphobic.

No, lol.

Someone complaining about being harassed by transphobic chasers and you said "good", it's for allies.

bruh wtf

Leate's modlog is filled with homophobia and transphobia under the guise of being an ally, this is a pattern and not a one-off.

Many such cases tbh, so many of these types are extremely quick to accuse others of 'faking' their positions and it's always projection.

There's 7 featured posts, which I assume are stickies made by the moderators. The 3rd post after that, so the 3rd actual popular post, is "fucking libs are still making excuses in the comments". Such kindness and reason ...

Funny how you don't say anything about what that post is actually about - it's about redditors excusing Kamala's support for Israel. They aren't kind to you if you defend the mass slaughter of civilians, no.

It seems to me that showing equal kindness to oppressor and oppressed would be supporting the oppressor.

Deragotory language, generalization & stigmatization. It is hate speech against all liberal minded people, there is nothing kind or reasonable about it.

Hate speech? Is "lib" a slur now? Are liberals a protected class? It's not "hate speech" it's just criticism of political views.

Better politics.

The same way getting stabbed is better than taking a round of buckshot.

Flashback three months and you were supporting a genocide

Bullshit.

, edited

Deleted by moderator

reply
4

Abstentionism is transphobic.

, edited

“What if 4chan was communist instead of neonazi”

Not quite, that would be /leftypol/

wiki page / KnowYourMeme


Better politics.

This reminds me of one of their site banners:

screenshot of a chan imageboard post with the text "What the fuck? Why does /pol/ have one or two reading lists and /leftypol/ has tons?"

Hexbear has its origins on Reddit's ChapoTrapHouse which I'm pretty sure has a connection to leftypol in its history.

But sure

My point is:

Hexbear = Jerkoffs, except class conscious

Would be nice if they weren't jerkoffs but hey, at least they have class consciousness.

, edited

This analysis isn't quite accurate. On the whole, Hexbear is actually one of the kindest and coolest and community-minded places I've ever been on the internet. But I'd agree there's an issue of a portion of users who happily get overly aggro if you annoy them (and being allowed to get away with it).

, edited

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

, edited

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..

communists are on the left, not sure the page you linked is making the case for anything other than American political scientists being extremely unserious

Cold War brain rot just ruined a generation of thought. My dad was a never-Trumper that called Trump a communist.

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.

I assume the rest of it would explain how Stalinism created an economic and social heirarchy at express odds with real Marxism but that still leaves you with real communists being the left. The author is ultimately crying about humanity's insistence that words mean things and trying to take the word communist away from communists.

, edited

What do you believe "leftism" means? I can't see a world where an ideology based on public ownership, collectivization, and working class liberation could be seen *not* as left.

, edited

A label, in all honesty. Historically they're not left nor right nor middle. They can have ideologies of many, but too long to get into here. I was being pedantic because it's a slight bug of mine when they are labelled and boxed like that. For example Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov (Bukharinists) and others like Joseph Stalin were not considered left but were communist.

Bukharin was considered "right" from the standpoint of a far-left ideology, as a point of comparison to the standard party line. That's like saying -5 is a positive number because it is closer to positive numbers than -10.

Bro tf?

Uh no? Also your linked book page doesn’t fit your argument.

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.

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.

Deleted by moderator

reply
23

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.

, edited

I'll do you one better, why is Hexbear??

I’ve had more issues with .world mods then any of the communist ones.

"Anyone right of me is Hitler" sounds pretty on point for them. Instance block and move on with your day.

I'm sorry u had to experience these extremists. Block the instance and forget about them.

, edited

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

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.

, edited

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.

Just cleaning up after your whitewashing. Good try though. Their community is just a bunch of trolls like you said. I'm glad the instance I use block overtly toxic ones.

, edited

Just cleaning up after your whitewashing

What crimes exactly has any of those communities committed? I must have missed those posts.

Also...I admitted some views can be extreme/incorrect. I never said they are the perfect instance. None is. And that's not how you use that term by the way, my friend

Their community is just a bunch of trolls like you said

That's not what I said :) you are very obviously misquoting my comments

I'm glad the instance I use block overtly toxic ones

Neat. Good for you then, that's the beauty of the fediverse

The amount of pride these people take in their ignorance is astounding... anything that conflicts with their worldview, well it must be fake and you must be lying!!

Note to OP: probably not best to take advice on a topic from people that, in having explicitly blocked that topic from their feeds, have sheltered themselves from it in its entirety and aren't going to have in-depth knowledge aside from their own worst experience with it or some rumor they heard of someone else's experience.

, edited

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.

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.

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

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."

And? They murdered around a thousand people in a military attack.

There are no good guys in that conflict.

Equal condemnation for unequal sin minimizes the greater and exaggerates the lesser. That ceases to be an answer and becomes a cover for genocidal fascists against a national liberation movement.

Deleted by moderator

reply
2

Deliberately discounting a transgender person's identity and *accusing* them of being transphobic is *wildly* transphobic. With a moderation history like yours though, it seems this is a pattern, where you pretend to be an ally for xyz group and then accuse people from said group of "faking it" if they disagree with you.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-killed-hundreds-its-own-people-7-october/49216

not surprising you're doubling down on your support of israels genocide, but hopefully others won't be fooled by the same propaganda as you.

, edited

The Supernova deaths

The rave is often reported to be the largest single site of deaths that took place on 7 October. The UN report said that 364 out of the 3,000 total ravers were “killed either at the site, near Kibbutz Re’im or in adjacent locations.”

But a detailed breakdown of the deaths recently published by The Times of Israel (based on an Israeli TV channel’s investigation) shows that more than 60 percent of this figure actually died outside of the designated grounds of the rave.

Is that saying 364 out of 3,000 were killed, or 3,000 total were killed? It's not a very well written article.

Deleted by moderator

reply
5

Seems this post is being brigaded by hexbear alts fyi

what really

Yep lots of pro hex comments appeared as I was posting from accounts with little comment history but aged accounts. Probably some loser with a dozen

Deleted by moderator

reply
1

You need better hobbies man

Deleted by moderator

reply
2

Nah that's just Antiyanks again. They have hundreds of accounts.

They/them or is Antiyanks a thing?

, edited

Antiyanks is a user who gets banned constantly and keeps making new accounts over and over. If you see a brand new account that attacks other people and quickly gets banned, that's them. Their usernames usually insult the admins or Americans and they tend to use small instances for new accounts making them very easy to spot.

They claim to have hobbies outside of insulting people on Lemmy, but I find that very hard to believe given how dedicated they are to it. They were already up to over 30 accounts just 2 months ago.

I don't think I've ever noticed this guy and I'm terminally online. Midwest.social admins win again I guess.

Learn how federation works

Learn how not to seethe.

Learn how not to cope

, edited

Deleted by moderator

reply
3

Deleted by moderator

reply
2

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.

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 has proven so many times to be completely unreasonable that it isn't worth wading through that much toxicity to find the good parts.

, edited

I have not had that experience, at all. If anything I've had that experience on .world.

, edited

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.

, edited

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.

We disagreed on copyright?! That's a ben, landlubber! a drowning person with a trihat

It had to do with AI training on data (individual peoples artwork for example) without permission.

I don’t care about corporate stuff being stolen but individual artists getting screwed doesn’t sit well with me. And it’s the one and only time I’ve ever said nice things about adobe of all companies! because they compensate artists who’s work they train their ai on.

Guess I’m gonna have to change instances again lololol (please don’t ban me I like it here)

I was clearly joking! all good! pirate captain giving the thumbs up

which instance, if you don't mind sharing? I'm not looking to move, but it's good to understand the landscape.

Lemmy.dbzer0.com

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.

, edited

Deleted by moderator

reply
17

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.

Deleted by moderator

reply
13

It's not what I'm doing. I'm saying I give this survey as much credibility as any internet survey: none.

Deleted by moderator

reply
12

Nobody is saying that a particular actual person is lying about being trans. Its unusual because its literally 100x the incidence of identifying as trans as the population wherein the community is broadly left on many topics not focused entirely on trans issues.

Adding the fact that its an internet poll one can easily suspect that the poll is inaccurate as is incredibly commonly in any such polls.

Suspecting someone's polling methodology is poor isn't the same as questioning their identity. It isn't transphobic

Nobody is saying that a particular actual person is lying about being trans. Its unusual because its literally 100x the incidence of identifying as trans as the population wherein the community is broadly left on many topics not focused entirely on trans issues.

It's a trans inclusive space on the internet that actually enforces rules against transphobia (unlike on .world). I don't see why it's odd for it to have a much higher representation of trans people when the rest of the internet is an absolute shithole of transphobia.

Yerbouti just likes to be bigoted when the target is 'safe', like a political enemy. It's embarrassing and not 'ally' behavior by any stretch.

The claim that they're pro-Putin relies on no one actually going there to check, because they very much aren't.

Also yeah, denying people's identity just because you disagree with their politics is pretty transphobia

"You people", huh?

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.

Look man, if you're just going to engage in this kind of wildly bad faith behavior, I really don't see any point in continuing to engage.

I agree that this is not going anywhere But I'm not speaking in bad faith, I'm sharing observations from interactions I had with Hexbear users. Maybe you should ask yourself why, on a left-leaning website like Lemmy, almost all the instances have chosen to dissociate from Hexbear. Maybe if you believe everyone around you sucks, you're the one that does.

Also, why can you just answer my last question? It's a fair question since every god damn time the hexbear subject is brought, people like you call tranpshobic anyone who dares to criticize it. I will give you much more credibility on the subject if being trans is your reality. BTW, why would you call me "man"? Bold of you to assume that I'm a man.

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.

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 ..

To be clear, your posts are largely removed not just from Hexbear but other instances for rampant misogyny and general manosphere talking points, as well as getting into constant fights with other users.

Thank you for your interest in me.

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.

, edited

ITT: everyone says they're bad without giving any examples, telling you what to think instead of letting you form your own conclusions.

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.

, edited

You know mod logs on Hexbear are public, right? It's very, very clear that "giving links" is not why you were banned.

, edited

Yes I’m aware. Please quote or link whatever you think is ban worthy. Nice alt btw.

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.

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.

, edited

Given the liberal meltdown post election and inability to self reflect about the landslide loss, blue MAGA is entirely fitting.

"I'll be glad when they all get deported or end up in camps, serves them right for being anti-genocide single issue voters."

Totally rational statement.

MAGA is a movement that glorifies a Hitler like figure who has promised to put tens of millions of honest workers in concentration camps because somehow immigrants are the cause of all their woes. These folks were both willing to deny any loss for any reason and willing to kill their neighbors in a civil war to "take their county back" if they lose.

"bluemaga" are people what mad that America's Hitler won?

, edited

bluemaga were coming to the defense of Genocide Joe until the very last second and the only thing that made them switch was a bad TV performance. They didn't care about the genocide, it was a bad TV performance that made them go "uuuh not a good look sweaty" and then they started rooting for the genocides second-in-command. They're mad Hitler won because they were rooting for Mussolini

, edited

Blue MAGA is the cult like belief that the democrats can do nothing wrong and any criticism of them is a vote for trump. It’s idiotic, just like their red MAGA counterparts. They’re willing to accept a genocide so long as their team wins.

Define Blue Maga for me, I haven't seen a consistent explanation.

, edited

Blue MAGA to me (everyone’s gonna have a different definition) are liberals who can’t accept any criticism or self reflection about the democrats or why they lost, and immediately knee jerk reaction to anyone criticizing dems as being trump supporters and being happy trump won. At their most extreme, they’re also fascists, saying shit like “I hope you end up in camps, I hope you get deported, I hope they kill you, etc”. (I’m a visibly queer woman)

They have the political understanding of young children and can’t comprehend why their party lost in a landslide (dems lost the presidency, the house, the senate, state governments, local elections) and immediately conclude it’s because of identity politics - racism, transphobia, queer phobia, hates women, hates immigrants, etc. because that’s what the MSM has been drilling into their soft little heads for the last decade now. If they actually talked to trump voters, third party voters and non voters they’d learn how wrong they are.

It’s so simplistic it reminds me of when George w bush blamed 9/11 on Muslims because “they hate us and they hate our freedoms” and not the real reason: those involved hate our imperialism, our capitalism, and our foreign policy for good fucking reason being on the receiving end of our bullshit for decades. And look around you, well you’re on a Canadian instance so maybe not but - Al queda won.

Edit: also I just wanted to add - I at one point canvassed for the democrats on behalf of Bernie’s campaign in 2016. And I’ll never ever vote democrat again. I held my nose for biden and immediately regretted it over a whole slew of issues but israel most importantly. But after the smug contempt the party holds the working class in and shoves their shitty neoliberal candidates who actively make my life worse while pretending theyre my ally down our throats I’m done with democrats for good. If they can’t hold a primary they can’t go around bleating about how they’re saving democracy. Not all of us are as stupid as the blue MAGAs who believe that idiocy.

Anyone who thinks its the people that fail the party and not the other way around. So basically anyone who blames the people for not voting dem, instead of blaming the dems for not putting forth an appealing program that would represent the voters. You know, like in a democracy.

It truly depends on your own political views. What do you consider yourself?

, edited

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.

, edited

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

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.

, edited

There's honestly a lot of high quality posts on lemmy.ml. Maybe some from Hexbear if you're into leftist niches like veganism

Sure, but that content could go elsewhere where you can actually criticize China without catching a ban. And if those communities choose not to, that's their problem when more and more people decide to block their instance as not worth dealing with.

, edited

Why would you tell others to block lemmy.ml from your lemmy.ml account?

God forbid any of these genocidal white supremacists calling themselves leftists and parroting 1950's red scare propaganda self select themselves out of our hair

I mean I think I gave a pretty balanced overview of the information

Oh wait sorry I misread your original comment.

Actual leftists mostly, with a few crazies.

Actual crazies with a few leftists.

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

"tankie" here, dont really support them, they are the reason the left cant unify and are constantly infighting

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.

, edited

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.

https://hexbear.net/post/2687582

https://hexbear.net/post/3635039

I don't think that's why I find them so unpleasant though?

I don't come here to talk about sexual preferences.

Deleted by moderator

reply
2

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.

, edited

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.

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).

, edited

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.

It's a bear with six legs

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?

You'd have to ask the Chinese internet users who started the meme. Or there is a detailed wikipedia article if you're interested in the backstory.

, edited

Wikipedia actually doesn't state that it was *chinese* users that started it, just that the Chinese internet started taking the comparisons down (same with all of the articles I found and the ones Wikipedia references as sources). Additionally, the original image of Xi and Obama together as Pooh and Tigger, and the subsequent picture of Xi and Shinzo Abe as Pooh and Eeyore, emerged as *group* pictures of world leaders, but *only* the comparison of Xi to Pooh stuck.

Further, that doesn't explain the immense popularity among westerners in portraying Xi as a yellow bear, nor why it seems to be *especially* popular among western right-wingers.

Curiously enough, MWoG is maintained by a gamergater. Curious indeed.

OK maybe not *started* (couldn't find a definitive origin), but they did *use* it quite a bit.

Additionally, the original image of Xi and Obama together as Pooh and Tigger, and the subsequent picture of Xi and Shinzo Abe as Pooh and Eeyore, emerged as group pictures of world leaders, but only the comparison of Xi to Pooh stuck.

Maybe because the others didn't throw a tantrum about it. Or maybe because Chinese users have to use euphemisms and memes to avoid censorship.

Further, that doesn't explain the immense popularity among westerners in portraying Xi as a yellow bear, nor why it seems to be especially popular among western right-wingers.

If you say so. I for one had not seen this meme for quite some time and had completely forgotten about it until you brought it up.

I brought it up because MWoG uses it as the community icon.

Again, your sources don't seem to support what you're saying, there isn't widespread disapproval of the CPC. According to Harvard, support for the CPC is over 90%.

Source on the gamergater claim?

, edited

Here's where they admit to it. They claim to have gotten better, but they *were* radicalized by it, and their behavior indicates that they haven't actually moved too far beyond it, such as when they complain about "encountering wokeness." In another instance, they blame far-right radicalization on "forcing equity," which is just anti-DEI nonsense.

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.

I might be naïve, but the color of Winnie's... cloth, never seemed to be a factor to me. It's the odd physical similarity between Xi and Pooh that's striking; what with their roundness, debonair allure, large nose and whatnot.

Sure, so why Pooh and not a Panda?

Why not indeed. Is there any cartoon panda (and another cartoon animal) that look somewhat like the lanky Obama and comparatively stubbier Xi that could have been used when the meme originated?

I don't fault the origins entirely (though it is suspicious nonetheless), I fault the staying power and the overwhelming usage by right-wing westerners. Why isn't Obama referenced as Tigger, or Shinzo Abe as Eeyore?

Do not interact with them destroy it with fire

It's something every sane person should block as soon as they join Lemmy.

, edited

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? [email protected]

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 [email protected], 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.

The opposite is true, when you only ask people not federated with Hexbear you get equally imbalanced opinions. OP already did that, may as well ask on Hexbear as well to get the other side of the story.

Huh. Interesting that *everyone* not federated with Hexbear would have a imbalanced/negative opinion of them, wouldn't you say? Why do you suppose that might be?

, edited

Hexbear removes any questions or opinions they don't agree with. They heavily censor the discussion and consider it a feature of their community.

Other Lemmy servers allow a diversity of thought and opinion. They allow people to question and disagree.

It's not about sides of the story, it's the difference between free discussion of individuals versus a standardized party line that cannot be questioned. The former tends to expose the truth, while the latter tends to obfuscate the truth.

Lemmy.world doesn't allow *any* opinions from Hexbear, they defederated from them. That is *more* censorship, though less obvious because you don't see the comments getting removed. Even then, comments still get removed for going against the "party line" as well, usually comments critiquing the Democrats.

What's more correct is that Hexbear is more open and up front with its bias, while instances like Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works try to pretend that they don't hold bias.

, edited

Bias you say? ROFL!

If you said this exact same thing in a community hosted on Hexbear or .ml, about Hexbear or .ml, it would be deleted, and you would be banned- 1st offense.

Don’t believe me? Check the mod logs. The admins there have banned people for far less.

The fact that your comment is allowed and you’re free to express it already belies your entire argument

, edited

That's completely incorrect, there are hundreds of hexbear users commenting on this thread right now, using the alt accounts which they are allowed to make here. Or am I expected to believe that the 400 comments on this thread were simply normal Lemmy users who felt like defending hexbear? Give me a break.

Any hexbear account (or federated account) that expresses a disallowed opinion quickly gets banned and the comments purged, so that hexbears can maintain their echo chamber. What an absurd argument, claiming that defederation is in any way comparable to active censorship of content. You don't even get to see the comments that get removed on hexbear because they purge them, leaving no trace. No *comment removed by mod*, nothing in the modlog.

Don't fucking equate my instance to hexbear, I can see right through you, charlatan. You can run and hide from the truth all you like, but it will come for you eventually.

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.

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.

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.)

by [deleted]

"A self help group for people who struggle with solvent abuse."

Best answer in this thread.

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

You'll find a good amount of transphobia on this post too, proving them correct. One user is directly attacking trans users by claiming that the trans user is "faking it" and attacked another user by defending chasers, calling chasers "allies."

, edited

It's really everywhere for those with the eyes to see.

Absolutely, and despite reporting many of them they seem to stay up.

Yes, that's what I said, only more delicately.