Lately I’ve been seeing posters here express some form of the sentiment that Hexbear has fallen from its previous heights of glory and now we post amongst the ruins of greatness. This is not a response to anyone in particular, and I don’t want to call anyone out. In fact, it seems to be a normal human tendency to romanticize the past. But I’ve been here since the beginning and want to provide an alternate view.
1. Hexbear just isn’t like it used to be. 
This is one I am particularly suspicious of, since people started posting this after the site had been around for a couple of months. Before that they posted about how chapo.chat wasn’t like the old chapotraphouse subreddit. If the good ol’ days ever existed, they always seem to have been just prior to the current moment. If anything the site culture and vibe have been remarkably consistent since its inception, for better or worse. Faces have changed, people have come and gone and sometimes come back again, but Hexbear remains.
2. People used to be nice here and treat each other as comrades. Now there is just a culture of shallow dunks. 
Seriously? Be for real. I’m not going to deny that we love a good dunk around here, but let’s not pretend that this is a new phenomenon. It’s a big part of the culture around here that predates the site and even arguably even the subreddit. You can be free to like it or not, criticize it or not, say its productive or not, but its definitely not a new development. There’s always been a lot of love and mutual support, but also a lot of vicious arguments intracommunity arguments here. If anything I think there’s less of this now. The early posters would laugh at what passes for a struggle session around here these days. The VCJ struggle session seemed at the time like it might legitimately end the entire site.
3. This site had the potential to be a place for organizing and building something rather than just posting. 
This one is an interesting counterfactual. From the beginning there was no clear agreement on what the ultimate purpose of the site would be, and there were definitely people who saw the site as having revolutionary potential. There were also people who saw it as a place to hang out and shitpost among comrades and were skeptical of its potential for organizing. Over time, I think it’s become clear that we’re closer to the latter than the former. I’m okay with that, personally, but more than that I think it’s worth considering why despite having a lot of smart, determined people on the site, organizing never really materialized, or if it ever had that potential in the first place.
4. People used to post effort posts and stuff and now its just a bunch of shitposting. 
It’s always been mostly shitposting. This is one of my first comments on this site. It’s hard to say if there really used to be more effort posts or not, but what’s stopping you from writing an effort post if you feel like Hexbear needs more of them? I’m doing it right now, and so can you.
One thing that really has changed is that we used to have more comrades actively working on developing the site. Hopefully more people will step up to do that (not me though because I can’t code).
In conclusion, Hexbear is mostly, for better or worse, as it always has been. Enjoy your time here without worrying about whether it measures up to some imagined glorious past. If there’s something you feel is lacking, step up and contribute it. This site is nothing more or less than the sum of our contributions.
- Hexbear just isn’t like it used to be.
Does anyone actually miss how Hexbear used to be? I've been here since day one, and most of my memories of the first twelve months or so are of endless drama, Kerryposting and people being awful to each other. Remember when people hated the mods so much that a lot of people called for "mod elections", and then the mods called it a "colour revolution"? That shit was ridiculous. People on hexbear are really good to each other now compared to the chapochat days. Look at any of the trans threads, mental health threads, self-improvement comm, anywhere in the megathreads.
personally my favorite memory was the vegan war because holy shit was it easy to dunk on carnist arguments, I was like fuckin Lebron James for an entire week until the mods had to shut it down because we were too powerful
This site was extremely aggressive and full of constant fighting and struggle sessions in the early months. The people who couldn't just accept that this isn't Reddit and your fellow posters should be given the benefit of the doubt either mellowed out or left and I think this place is better for it.
When I first found this site back in 1999 by opening Netscape Navigator and typing "Can bears have more than five sides please?" into AltaVista, it was perfect. I think the Y2K bug hit this site particularily hard.
Eh it was really at it's peak back in the 70's when it was an underground zine. It turned downhill fast when it's main editor got kicked out of the scene for creeping on little girls - It was a different time!
Pshhh, everyone knows that we were at our prime when we were the main delivery service for Yippie activities to be coordinated without USPS surveillance
People are funny things. Change too much and they'll say you've jumped the shark, change too little and you're accused of being stale and outdated.
Honestly, I think we have a good number of silly and serious posts. Although I do want to start making more effort posts.
I think the problem with using Hexbear to organize is the danger of being doxxed. It can make it hard. I think more posts about union tactics and organizing, how to spot feds etc etc would be welcome.
This site does do good though. Particularly when we get together and donate money to our struggling comrades. I think what we do does help people, even if it's not much.
If people want to get more serious I welcome it though, theres always a good reason to help people get some real praxis done.
Like you said, this site has survived so many crazy things. I doubt it's going to die anytime soon. Hell, I've been here long enough to remember that people have been crying wolf about the site since day one, lol.
- This site had the potential to be a place for organizing and building something rather than just posting.
It's a place to go when something happens in the world and you need a sane evaluation of it, either found and posted or talked about in a comment. That's what it is
I've been here since the r/cth days and imo this place is about as good as it's ever been. There was a 1-2 month period right around the start of federation where it became 100% dunking on idiot libs 100% of the time, which got a bit tiring, but I think things have stabilized and this is a basically good place to hang out online. Honestly I'm really happy with the state of the fediverse in general, I'm enjoying mastodon & lemmy more than I ever did twitter or reddit. We did it! We fucking did it! We built a real actual place to hang out online that doesn't just feed into some VC's pockets! And all we had to do for that is do what we do best: posting (and a lot of unpaid work on the part of people building & maintaining the infrastructure lol).
Mastodon, like Tiktok, inexplicably becomes good if you stick to images of pics of wildlife, zoos and landscapes etc
In the effortposting post I made this point and I think it stands for basically any cultural quirks we have here aside from maybe our more deeply held ideologies. This is a really small site - according to the stats in the side bar there are less than 1000 visitors per day. I would love to see what the daily comments per user distribution looks like but I suspect the median is close to 0. This means that the site is just really suceptible to noise. Small numbers of users who do particular things like effortposts can become part of the 'culture' even if it's really just like 3 people. When a couple of those people get tired of doing it and leave then things are no longer 'how they used to be'.
I think this applies to more than just effort posts. The 'culture' is going to change pretty rapidly in some cases because it's not really a culture. It seems like a culture because our view as an individual user is zoomed in but in reality it's just a handful of people doing a thing and they might stop doing that thing at any time.
the_dunk_tank is a bad concept for a subbear and I wish it wasn't so prominent.
The internet is a communication network with billions of people connected to it. Of course somebody somewhere will say something stupid on it. Every day. You shouldn't pay attention to it. It also amplifies people who deliberately voice shit opinions for views.
Good sense says focus on quality instead of deliberately wallowing.
People were already posting those takes here, the_dunk_tank is around so people can unsub
It'd be fine if it was people who mattered, or people we thought were on our side, or exceptionally bizarre and verified to not be trolling. Showing some random Redditor is an Epstein-defending paedophile isn't really useful to see.
Somewhat contrary to my other post in this thread I actually think the dunk tank is an important place for people to learn. Putting colossally bad takes on display for folks to mock and tear apart is a great way for some folks to learn. Maybe they have a similar take and can see why that take is harmful. Maybe they didn't know they had a take on something and seeing a bad take get obliterated can help them form a good take on it.
Also it's just important for anti capitalists to have a safe space to vent. We can't safely vent in society most of the time so it's important for us to have a place to blow off steam sometimes too.
Maybe they have a similar take and can see why that take is harmful.
Well, I've also seen it happen a few times where someone makes a dunk post about something and any actual criticism of it is flushed out by shittons of weird memery, because posters are more concerned about following the correct line than having takes because of actual reasons. It's not even remotely common, I think I've seen it maybe once or twice total, but it's a concern.
It should be used exclusively to get mad at official Anthony Blinken tweets.
The dunk tank is a containment sub like fakenews is. It sadly still spills over into other Comms at times.
On point 4: I do think effort posting has reduced and part of the reason for this is that the biggest people that were previously doing it couldn't stop being fucking dickheads to anarchists.
I loved Joey Steel's posting for example but they just couldn't stick to the non-sectarian rule and for that they got the yeet. This is just one example but it happened to others too.
I don't see a solution to this, short of alienating large swathes of people that should be our comrades despite ideological differences. The non-sectarian line must be maintained.
Never ask:
- a man his salary
- a woman her age
- a poster on hexbear what they really think of anarchists
Honestly sick of walking into random leftist spaces and see people having incoherent rants about why every leftist they don't like is a NATO fed liberal red fash tankie and get distracted and obsessed with random conspiracy theories about infinitely far away countries, instead of staying focused and on-mission with the huge number of things actually in our faces to deal with. Sure, HB isn't perfect, but it is.
every leftist they don't like is a NATO fed liberal red fash tankie
This would be an ad verbatim comment on this site if you removed the tankie and red fash part
Honestly the best solution to something like this is for anarchists to have thicker skin.
(Disclaimer so that mods don't remove this post: I'm an anarchist myself)
Nah the issue goes both ways. It's not just about thicker skin it's that any leeway on this topic is a slippery slope that will lead to immense struggle sessions and ridiculous very-online melodrama. It's also the easiest thing in the world for wreckers to agitate through, both ways, and they know it. Anti-sectarian rules over on reddit are less about sectarianism itself and more about preventing the immense amount of wrecking that comes through it.
That may be true, but I take more offense to the banning of bmf than I do to their sectarian comments (have you ever noticed that they don't engage with anyone, and have never replied to any comment? every one of their posts and comments is once-off). I even appreciated JoeySteel.
Personally, every now and then I'll come out and say something about how rigid pyramidal power structures were carried over from feudalism to capitalism, and a successful and true socialist movement is going to have to ditch them. I think there's a lot of constructive criticism to go around.
I think sectarian posting should be allowed, as long as it's high effort analysis and not deliberately trying to be antagonistic. I think that would encourage more dialogue rather than stifling it.
I think that's just inviting an entirely avoidable drama outbreak that will 100% occur when the borderline between "high effort" and not is found and repeatedly tested by those that wish to deliberately see the drama happen because it's very funny.
In conclusion, Hexbear is mostly, for better or worse, as it always has been.
More emotes now though, and they're categorized!
looks like anti-rate-limit-action threw some bricks into emoji-picker's windows
Previously the bottom half of the emoji-picker wouldn't show up, ever, because you used up all the HTTP requests the webserver would allow you to have (aka rate limit) just to scroll through the first half. At least, that's what I think happened.
Just to clarify, because maybe I'm doing something wrong, but the emoji picker can't be accessed through apps like Eternity, right? I try to save posts with emojis for later use or search for them on the site but through the app if I want one, but I'd love to use the emoji picker if possible.
The one thing I would like to see less of is folks trying to bait others into getting themselves into trouble. We all have some problematic opinions or do or have done some problematic things somewhere. I know it. Not a single one of us is the perfect leftist from birth until now. It's impossible. All we can do is our best, and sometimes someone is in a different spot in their journey of unlearning and relearning. They're doing their best too just like you. They are on their journey. They'll get there just like you did and they could use the help. Stop trying to get people banned just to make yourself feel superior. Baiting is sectarian.
This isn't to say we shouldn't be trying to protect our community, we should. The people who are actively trying to push harmful shit or refuse to try to learn? Fuck em. Dunk on em all day. Remove harmful posts even if they come from a good place. Ban frequent harmful posters. Keep doing those things, it's important to protect the community. But baiting folks who are trying to learn or are trying to do the right thing into getting their posts removed or getting banned isn't helping. Teach folks who want to be taught rather than try to tear them down. Lift each other up. This is a community that removed down bears in an attempt to drive more discussion (among other things), so stop trying to lead that discussion down a path that's gonna get folks into trouble. If someone is gonna do harmful shit on the regular they don't need your help, they'll get themselves banned.
Trying to play Leftist Highlander isn't helpful and will only result in nobody being on the site, because not a single poster here is perfect, so expecting literal perfection is entirely unrealistic and trying to hurt each other over it is childish.
Anyway that's my 2 cents on the vibes lately. Watch as someone uses this post to try to bait me into getting banned. You won't be able to.
To add on to that, I would really like to see people being more welcoming of heterodox opinions. I've posted a few things that goes against the hexbear party line over the years, and a few users will interact and discuss on a polite level, but most are so caught up in them having the "correct" opinion that they never stop to interrogate what it is they believe and what lies at that beliefs foundation.
To give an example: I once said that unironic calls for genocide of white people was bad, and a lot of users called me a lib and mocked me for being offended. A few interacted with the post, asked clarifying questions where I had been unclear, and that was well and good.
I guess that might be more of a reading comprehension thing.Yeah I recall seeing that, thinking it would be a good discussion, and just bailing out of the thread when it was just a wall of nastiness rather than anyone actually confronting the take and discussing it. I don't really know how I feel about that specific topic and would love to see and participate in some discussion around it but am too afraid to say the wrong thing and get chased off the site for trying to learn and form a take on it.
I think the sort of behavior of tearing each other down for having a "wrong" take on something that could be an interesting discussion prevents the sort of effort posts folks say they're looking for. I know I stay far away from threads that could turn controversial because I know I've got some dumbass brainworms too and I've seen what happens if you accidentally expose yourself as an idiot. Again none of this applies to things that are clearly a wrong take...like let's not engage in good faith discussion with terfs or nazis or anything, but there is a line at which we should agree someone is trying and we should work with them at that point rather than tear them down
Yeah I've had a few and they often leave me disappointed. I try to preempt these things by writing the general consensus of hexbear, before I write why I disagree with it, but you still get tons of users just regurgitating trite talking points which they've never looked into themselves.
Some people on here use "leftist" as an identity signifier that shields them from ever bettering themselves.
I once said that unironic calls for genocide of white people was bad
Accusatory posts about "white genocide" are never gonna result in anything other than toxic threads
Because the very premise itself is in bad faith, EVEN IF the user making the argument believes they're doing so in good faith
And the toxicity is amplified ten-fold when posts like that are made on a site that is (let's be real) majority white
personally I'm waiting for the five year mark before I start whining about how this place used to be funny and epic but now it's cringe and full of newfriends
Just get the mods to ban all the posters who have been here more than a year and then you can say whatever you want! Who's going to argue?
I am mostly criticizing a recent peak. I'll be realistic that the tone has always been semi-hostile (when it wasnt extremely saccharine) with people being angry you said something tongue-in-cheek or trying to start a fight over the correct way to shit or something, but I feel there was a spike and I like to think the people here can do better - but at the end, I don't care that much anymore. It's what it is. Everybody's gotta be the smartest and the bestest, even online
Everybody's gotta be the smartest and the bestest, even online
I'm here to be the dumbest.
