So, in my circles of friends, I am the most terminally online person. I remember being a soc-demmy kinda person (who called themselves socialist) when I joined r/cth when it hit 69,420 members.

Now here I am with opinions like "Stalin and the USSR weren't so bad" and "The tanks rolling into Hungary in 1956 were correct, actually". I feel like the community here on hexbear has kinda shifted in the same way. That said, we've steered clear of the patsoc menace, who aesthetically venerate AES while following the most regressive social/nationalist opinions of what they think of as the working class.

This has somewhat put me at odds with a lot of my RL friends, who are anarchists or trots of varying degrees. I'm generally not down with getting into spats with said RL friends, so I keep a lot of my opinions to myself. This is especially onerous with opinions about the Ukraine war.

How did I end up here? How did we..? I remember back on r/cth the line "This is enough to turn me into a tankie", or some such thing, as though being a tankie was just socialism + willingness to use violence to achieve it.

I can remember online anarchists posting fairly high profile Ls that I think split actual anarchists and left-liberals who just liked to call themselves anarchists (and now online anarchists who really like NATO? idk). But those events had a lot of people shy away from the anarchist label and kinda mull about their own beliefs. The main ones off the top of my head were CHAZ, Vaush audience watchers, and the anti-work breakdown. Certainly, I remember r/cth being a lot more awash with anarchist rhetoric and population (claimed or otherwise) than hexbear currently is.

I don't want this to be a sectarian rant session, but more a reflection of political journeys from r/cth's medicare for all socdem position to the current vibes of hexbear, both personal and pontifications of why this shift occurred.

This isn't the be-all and end-all of my thoughts of my own political evolution. I'll comment some more as I think of them (in between cleaning for rent inspection)

  • supdog [e/em/eir,ey/em]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Brace on the CTH ep went on the rant about being "normal" which I support. Even if you're a hardcore ML your first priority is to just act normal. Probably includes subduing some stalin-was-right takes.

    If I read I'd probably be more of a trotsky.

    The difference is on this small niche website for 18 active users we don't have to be a big tent for anybody. Peer pressure crowding out other views.

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      hehe... the success of hexbear dot net is that there's only 50 of us and each of our thousand alts, we truly are our own best friend. :data-laughing:

    • keepcarrot [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Unfortunately, I was fucking weird way before I paid attention to politics. :(

      • Shamwow [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Well if weird is your normal that's okay too.

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
      ·
      2 years ago

      i mean, if your friends also have weird made up politics, i think that gives license to go a little koo koo bananas on them. but in a fun and cute way ideally.

      • supdog [e/em/eir,ey/em]
        ·
        2 years ago

        now that I'm basically middle aged I realize that there is a certain type of uncle who shoehorns political ranting anywhere it can barely fit.

        It doesn't really matter that "but I'm actually right" because people don't know that and it looks exactly the same as a disgruntled uncle aka disgruncle.

    • TheLegendaryCarrot23 [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      "If I read I’d probably be more of a Trotsky[ist]"

      Opposite for me lol

      And also I unironically disagree, that was lame. Be wierd who gives a fuck, have an outburst here and there . Constantly"being normal" is what pushes a lot of people to keep their politics away from their daily lives, and just in general talking about"being normal" being the guiding center of your life is so binal. And yes you can "be wierd" and organize .

        • TheLegendaryCarrot23 [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I completely agree as well! Also what you wrote about not getting into vicious spouts with everyone one disagrees on things with (let's just say with people who excuse western imperialism and particularly American crimes) is something I had to work on when I was younger . I think all this is more about "growing up" rather then an obsession with conforming and "being normal" honestly . At the same time don't be afraid to get mad when appropriate. It's all a chaotic balancing act I suppose lol .