I think a little clarification is needed. No. I don’t actually think everyone there is insane. I don’t care about the bans so stop trying to use that. HB enthusiasts coming here and trying to call me out achieves nothing besides proving my point
Edit: Feel free to keep trying to brigade me. It’s not going to scare me to take this down
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Thank god for hexbear and lemmygrad though. Imagine the effort needed to block them all individually if spread over all the other instances.
Yeah, it’s actually helpful to have safe spaces for hateful assholes so they can be corralled away.
They still get loose and troll .world while the mods there give them free reign and ban you if you report them for trolling. You can’t call them trolls, but they can call you a troll.
On the other hand, an isolated community can also become a nasty brewing pot, reinforcing harmful behaviors and even intensifying them over time.
I don’t think calling them safe spaces for hateful assholes is accurate, but I understand frustrations with them.
If you think yogthos isn’t the main account of return2ozma you’re gonna have a bad time.
fuck that guy.
Before instance blocking was a thing I blocked individual trolls wheb I saw them and after about the fifth block I didn’t see a lot of hexbear, so it they have a few very loud individuals but instance blocking hexbear really made my browsing a lot more chill
lemmygrad? Oh, I missed that one.
Hexbear is sort of like a village of eldritch abomination worshippers in a Lovecraftian horror story - isolated, insular, entirely wrapped up in their own esoteric rituals and ideas and language, and immediately and collectively hostile to outsiders.
Wow, this is such an accurate description of so many online communities that have come and gone over the years, nicely done.
They also both worship Cthu… I mean, Stalin
I always joke that right-wing politics is all projection. But here we are with the cult of capital being dismissive to non-believers
is everyone
in hexbearinsane?Yes.
All animals are equal… But some more equal than others.
It’s not just you
How are you blocking full instances? I’ve been playing wack-a-mole blocking communities. I’m using Voyager on iOS, if that matters.
You go to settings -> filters & blocks
Thanks!
Th ability to do so was added a while back.
Lmao, they sure are insane. But if you listen closely they will tell you that sanity is a western psyop and you should enjoy the simple truths of life, like shitting in your own pants and bragging about it online.
I got IBS so I guess I already have an advantage in that regard
Oh so you have also failed the game of “fart or not?”
Many a time
Just like they claimed NATO had biolabs on the Ukraine / Russian border: it’s all a conspiracy to destroy poor mother Russia!
You are correct. Do your mental health a favour and block that instance along with lemmygrad.
Problem is that blocking the instance doesn’t block these clowns’ comments on other instances, you have to do a lot of manual blocking.
Some instances are defederated from them, which would prevent them from being seen elsewhere.
Lemm.ee basically doesn’t defederate anything. You should probably go to an instance that defederates those instances.
While I would prefer defederation in this case, I found being on an instance ran by competent admin small price to pay.
That depends on your client. Connect for lemmy shows a placeholder for comments from blocked instances. You can click to show the comment anyway or just blissfully ignore the high probability rage bait.
I actually like that implementation, because the obnoxiousness of hexbear users is context dependent. On posts about gardening and nolawns I’ll usually see what they have to say. On political posts, I usually regret reading their comments. So it’s somewhat nice to opt-in to comments on a case by case basis.
Many of them, yes. They’re among the most radical of the leftist instances, which means that they attract a lot of propagandists and tankies. They have some perfectly reasonable people too, but you know, vocal minority. Its the main thing most people notice about those instances.
Many people block hexbear, Lemmy.ml, and lemmygrad for these reasons.
I have yet to see any reasonableness from hexbear.
Hell, I had a few members tell me that I was part of the evil capitalist elite because I had a job.
They brigade like annoying unwanted fleas that you cannot get rid of.
What is a ‘tankie’?
“Leftists” who are more interested in authoritarianism than leftism. At their very worst, they even ally with the far-right.
Pro-China sycophants. They’d be the ones driving the tanks at Tiananman Square.
I’d also argue that these people only put up a facade of being leftist. I’ve never once seen a hexbear user actually make arguments for leftist policies, socialism, or communism. They just shitpost a bunch of anti-American memes and rally for the Russian and Chinese governments.
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How do you know a tankie from a government paid shill like UniversalMonk?
I’m not familiar with UniversalMonk. Why do you think they’re a government paid shill?
Apologists for Chinese/Russian government.
In theory, the things the other replies said.
In practice, anything left of the average Lemmy.world liberal/democrat.
I don’t Lemmy enough to say there are zero hexbear users who are pro China or pro wtfever people say, but I see almost none of the ridiculous shit the rest of Lemmy claim exclusively happens there. What I DO see is liberals (usually from lemmy.world if we’re swinging at instances) talking ridiculous trollish shit to hexbear users than using the silly trollish responses they get in response to justify these “all hexbears want to give America to Xi Jinping” posts.
Apologists for authoritarian regimes that have either historically been communist or paint themselves as such currently.
Or as far as most of .world is concerned, anyone to the left of Joe Manchin.
My definition of left and theirs are very different.
Tankie is such a weird thing to call these communists. They are way way less violent than liberals and conservatives are. They don’t even support any on going genocides like the others do.
Childish? Kinda. Insane? No.
There are three relevant things to say about hexbear.
1. It is not a serious instance. Or at least not completely serious; they’re mostly there for memes, funposting, “I know that feel” etc.
So they’re less like the meeting room of a communist party than like the bar where those communists hang out and drink beer, after the meeting is over.
I feel like this is often misinterpreted, as HB users say something that is mostly a taunt and others interpret as actual argumentation. And it also tends to attract younger users, who… well, behave like young people?
2. Even if not a serious instance, they’re serious about their views. Your typical HB user is communist, antifa, vegan, anti-cop, and interprets things in a very specific way. They’re rather transparent about it.
And, because of #1, they aren’t really willing to spend their time entertaining anyone’s counterpoints. It’ll be interpreted as sealioning or similar.
3. Hexbear was already its own thing before federation. As such it developed social norms that often conflict with the norms typically found in the rest of the Threadiverse (Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed etc.)
For example, even if Lemmy as a whole is prone to intrusive political discussions, HB users tend to do it far more. Because they’re used to an environment where this is typically taken as OK.
When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users:
- if you don’t like what someone is saying (because it’s idiotic, obstrusive, or whatever), block the person for some peace of mind.
- if you’re consistently uninterested on the content coming from an instance, block the instance.
This is the most reasonable response.
A lot of people here have long since made up their mind about hexbear based both on repeated meta posting on the topic and possibly a bad experience or two with them on a topic they assumed was uncontested but is a landmine topic for communists of a particular bent
I’ve personally never had a bad experience with hexbears, possibly because I’m more empathetic to their perspective, but more likely because I know when it’s time to disengage. There are users on lemmy who feel strongly about a certain topic that’s abrasive to hexbear users and dig in their heels when jeered at (or maybe feel a personal responsibility to stand them down) and are usually the users here who have the most complaints, because the standard reaction from hexbear users is irreverence (both the users and the mods).
Unlike a lot of liberals coming from reddit, communists often don’t have delusions about the neutrality of moderation and so they’ll ban you on a whim if they think you’re there to stir shit. They use the ban hammer judiciously even with users on their own instance. That’s often the biggest complaint both with hexbear and with lemmy.ml.
To be fair I’ve had a few bad experiences with Hexbears, but I think that most of them boil down to “unfunny guy interacting with unserious kids”. But since I’m often lurking there in my political account, I feel like my opinion about them is a bit less ungrounded than this whole “Hexbear bad! EDIT WOW THANKS FOR THE GOLD KIND STRANGER!” echo chamber.
(I also have a few bones to pick with .ml [the people in charge, not the whole instance], but they don’t apply to LG or HB, it’s a matter of transparency.)
Browsing their coms can be a pretty unique experience, especially if you go in with a preformed idea of what their communities are like. There’s a huge spread of interests and experiences, and sometimes you can be browsing a niche community and forget that these were the people posting BPB on lemmy.world threads a year ago.
Knowing the academic writings and history they’re referencing helps a lot with understanding where they are coming from, even if you may not agree with all of it.
Thank you for saying this in a more detailed way than I have been. This is exactly right. They built their own leftist haven and became a whole culture of their own, and then became federated. There is bound to be an initial clash, but honestly I think most of the people who hate on them never gave them a chance. All they saw were the shitposts and the in-jokes and you closed the door.
When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users
-
if you don’t like what someone is saying (because it’s idiotic, obstrusive, or whatever), block the person for some peace of mind.
-
if you’re consistently uninterested on the content coming from an instance, block the instance.
I see a lot of leftists (and leaning leftists), even on .world, who would be better off interacting with the users there (maybe blocking the shitposting comms). And outside of those most-seen comms (chapotraphouse and dunk_tank), there is genuine conversation and less shit talking and in-jokes. I believe, with more instances coming in that are federated with them (mine, .ml, and lem.ee? are a couple), some of the Hex-natives are understanding how to interact with curious left-leaning people with unintentionally wrong-headed ideas.
Downvote me all you want, I stand by Hexbear. o7
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antifa
Yeah, the famous antifa-tankers. Every single person I’ve ever seen that identifies as antifa was a tanker. Other people run away from that label.
I really hate that I need to point this out, because I feel like it will derail the discussion from Hexbear to fascism:
“Antifa” boils down to “people who actively oppose fascism”, instead of either supporting it or sitting on their hands while doing jack shit.
Is there something in the name requiring people to support fascism if it wears the right color?
Is there something in the name requiring people to support fascism if it wears the right color?
Do some people fighting fascism (aka antifa) go overboard? Yes, certainly; that’s bound to happen with any movement, group, or cohort.
For example, someone might miss the target due to witch hunting, or adopt an “ends always justify means” mindset, or even conflate “non-suporter = enemy”.
However. By implying that “antifa is fascism wearing a different colour”, like you are doing, you’re showing to not understand the obvious difference between
- individuals following an ideology grounded on xenophobia, nationalism, racism, militarism, censorship, suppression of your individuality by force, more often than not sexism, homophobia and transphobia; and
- individuals who don’t want the shit above to transform their lives into living hells, including some willing to use force to fight back.
This conflation between both groups is not just immoral. It’s worse - it stinks stupidity and similar filth from a distance. As such I’m not wasting my time further with you, go chew some grass.
Maybe you can clear this up then:
Why does everyone there unequivocally, wholeheartedly, unquestionably support Russia?
Russia has barely a trace of communism anymore and it is hard right oligarchy that fits almost every definition of fascism. Not to mention HEAVILY racist and anti-LGBTQ (I have multiple friends who were from Russia and they were the ones who originally told me that before I saw it for myself in Russia)
Yet the “antifa” hexbear will literally down vote you to hell and ban you if you say anything even slightly bad about Russia.
Also news@hexbear is 80% articles about the war with everyone citing Russian propaganda as absolute truth and every western media, every human rights group, etc… is completely lying about the war.
An interesting juxtaposition as they are in the same way pro Palestine and cite those human rights groups as telling the absolute truth in that case
I don’t know for sure. I’ll voice a strong belief in this regard, but take it with a grain of salt.
I think that Hexbear’s views on Russia is a specific case of a general tendency that you see all across social media (not just HB or Lemmy): to dichotomise complex matters into exactly one good side and exactly one bad side, while assuming that everyone belongs to those two bags. It should go like:
- NATO bad.
- NATO fights Russia.
- Criticism against Russia assumed to be NATO support.
- Since NATO bad, NATO supporter bad.
- Anyone who would otherwise criticise both NATO and Russia gets screeched at, and eventually shuts up.
- “Russia good” becomes part of a local consensus.
It gets messier when you add Ukraine into the equation, or consider people conflating governments and populations, but it should give you an idea - it starts with somewhat sane premises but quickly devolves into insane lack of logic.
It explains nicely why they’re supporting Palestine, even with the apparent contradiction: Israel is associated with USA and thus with NATO.
IMO their dichotomy in this topic is idiotic. However it is not just from their part, and blaming specifically Hexbear for this, like some people would do, would be unjust (and a self-demonstrating example). We, people using the internet in the 20s, are collectively doing it.
By the way, you see another example of the general phenomenon in this comment chain. Ctrl+F “elephant shit” and look at the comment I was replying to - “you either treat two types of bad as the same, or you’re defending one.”
[Now I probably drew the ire of all sides at the same time. Frankly? I don’t give a fuck; I’m too old and grumpy to play along.]
Maybe you’re telling on yourself by announcing your disdain for antifascists
Most antifa groups are anarchist collectives. So I’m not sure where you’re seeing this, unless it’s solely from people that are terminally online.
Yes. Block the community and move on.
You should petition your admins to defederate or move to an instance that does so.
People complain about world but I like it here. This is my third instance.
It’s not just you. Like many people that get sucked into cults, you don’t want to directly engage with them. Just nicely encourage them to deprogram themselves, and focus on maturing and becoming an adult. They really don’t like get called out like that, based on my interactions with them.
Obviously you can’t lump them all into one category, but the majority of them seem to be willing to cause chaos on other instances for a laugh. Doesn’t sit right with me, so i blocked them
cause chaos for a laughspread harmful propaganda from violent dictators for moneyEveryone I disagree with is a paid propagandist
Paid propagandist, true believer, troll. I’m not sure it makes that much difference.
Whether they are paid or not we don’t know, but they are spreading propaganda so they are definitely propagandists.
Not really. They have a lot of bits and in-jokes which are going to seem incomprehensible to anyone from the outside, but most of them are pretty chill if you engage in good faith. It’s like a lot of tech communities; if you don’t do your research and ask intelligent questions, you’re likely to get told to RTFM.
Red Team Field Manual? /s
idk, I’ve seen all the hype around hexbear users being obnoxious around Lemmy (including our own instance debating blocking the instance, followed by several of their members brigading the thread true to form)… but I’ve explored the communities on the instance itself and even subscribed to some of them like mutual aid, gaming etc, and those that I’m watching are actually just normal people doing normal things if more left than some other similar groups. In my experience it isn’t “all” hexbear users, because that would be a dumb generalization.
There are some assholes on that instance to be sure. Show me one that this isn’t true of. I’m glad our instance didn’t block them because I now get to decide for myself. I block communities and/or users if they’re a problem for me. I think that’s a good way.
I’m glad your instance stayed federated because I’ve seen some good takes from lemm.ee users on hexbear threads! 🥰
Yeah I joined this instance not knowing much about any of them and lucked into a very good crew! I did read their defederation policy (not inclined to unless extreme situations) and that is why I signed up here and they’ve been true to that. I think it’s healthy.
Pretty much, yeah, they’re insane. They’re also a very good reminder to go outside and talk to people outside your echo chamber regularly
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I’m talking more about hexbear in particular. That’s an echo chamber
Oh. My bad
Do you have any examples of this? Since world is defederated from that instance, I only end up visiting it when people like you come in and talk about how absolutely crazy it is over there, so occasionally I’ll take a curious peek. This time I see… a post about Indigenous rights, a post criticizing capitalism, a post dunking on musk, a post about FOSS… when do I start seeing the crazy?
They very quickly ban people who disagree with their propaganda. So just browsing, it looks like left leaning but generally sane people.
Go on there and say anything negative at all about China. You’ll see the crazy.
I might not agree with the moderation practices or even their opinions, but that doesn’t make them crazy.
You got cause and effect mixed up.
We disagree with them because they are crazy.
That is what they hate.
