Personally, I was a left liberal for all my life, but had kinda looked into the abyss of anti-sjw and gamergate stuff, like watching Sargon and Bearing, but hadn't really subscribed to their beliefs, more putting them on as background chatter.
Things changed when I read manufacturing consent, listened to Chomsky and found Chapo at around the end of 2018, at which point I found myself as more an ancom, but Chomsky's talking points on Leninism and the USSR was never as cogent and didn't make as much sense as his other points, so I held skepticism about my beliefs then.
Reading more on theory and history, and looking more into different left tendencies via channels like Rev Left moved me over to be a Marxist, as it made the most sense to me in explaining the current and historical situation. Currently making my way through Lenin and looking more into historical ML states and I've found that I'm pretty comfortable as just a Marxist with ML tendencies rn.
only exposure to politics at a young age was through gaming and my older brother who was an infowars follower. joined the military, no understanding of politics but identified as "democrat" and "not a nazi or racist." 2016 election comes and i start reading r/politics and was astounded a dumbass criminal could win the election. watched destiny on twitch, believed he was a leftist and enjoyed his debates with the alt right. learned from destiny talking to actual leftists that neoliberalism is cancer, and that we live in a one party fascist country. these past few years learned about the atrocities of capitalism and imperialism. currently identify as a "leftist" but haven't read theory to understand my exact ideology. i am a doomer, i expect civilization to collapse due to climate change within my lifetime, and the usa to fall apart/civil war/full fascism