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.
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.
I think cats should be allowed to stack rocks.
As long as the cats are indoors
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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.
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