What brought me here:
When breadtube became a thing around 2016 it was my refuge from the horrible reactionary shitshow the internet was at the time. It opened me to things further left than Obummer.
I lurked on Reddits sorry excuses for leftist subs and heard them whisper about the CTH sub as being "bad leftists" but they never explained what was bad about them so I checked for myself and checked out the podcast and was like "They aren't bad they're just a bit obnoxious." I didn't really hang out on r/CTH, only saw the occasional post, and I listened to the podcast every now and again (and not at all anymore, stopped listening after the 2020 primaries) and that was about it. Then r/CTH was banned, this place was mentioned and I got curious.
It felt like I had finally found a place that wasn't going to demand I be civil towards Nazis. I wasn't going to be banned for saying "kill all slave owners." I also thought you guys were really funny. So yeah, Ironally r/CTH made you guys more appealing lmao. It also helped that you retained the "fuck being civil to horrible people" energy while at the same time attempting to make sure marginalised groups weren't thrown under the bus.
What made me stay:
A community of weirdos that genuinely
want to make the world a better place and stand up for their marginalised comrades. Whether it's the mutual aid comm helping people the best it can, the news comm shining a light on events the world tries to bury, or simply the movie comm providing a safe fun area to chill, I feel like this place provides something other places on the internet don't. It also is a place I feel like I can ask any questions about leftism and not be called an idiot. You guys taught me things ranging from practical stuff how to take part in my local org, to mundane things how to make a rad bean recipe. I think that's worth something. Also I still think you guys are hilarious.
EDIT: added some more context because I was reminded of stuff I had forgotten.
I didn't come to hexbear, I went to chapo.chat and they switcherooed it for a hexbear right out from under me.
The UK subreddits all banned me claiming I didn't love the country enough and should leave... Ironically none could refute my complaints but instead decided to question my loyalty. My loyalty to what?
Every other political philosophy is dogshit dogwater bullshit. Communism will win. Free Palestine.
And somebody has to be the funniest person here. I don't know what you'd do without me.
Started listening to Chapo in 2019, found and was entertained by the subreddit, wound up on a lifeboat here. Excellent meme content, wonderful effort posts, and the only place on the web that respects trans people and doesn't bow down to pornography
r/CTH brought me.
I stay because:
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I steal takes here and reuse them elsewhere. It's useful.
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I really really enjoy drama.
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Some of the funniest people on the internet are here.
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What brought me here:
Arguing with NAFO soying over the Ghost of Kiev on Reddit eventually took a toll on me. I eventually found more like minded people.
What made me stay:
Those like minded people haven't gone away.
I showed up when reddit banned 3rd party apps. Initially joined .world cuz large means good. Heard about the specter of hexbear and checked it out and found out its a pretty based place.
Now I'm just kinda here vibing, usually only commenting on stuff pertaining to my preferred treats but otherwise lurking the good community that exists here
I lurked on the subreddit, I lurked on the discord lifeboat (and left it as soon as the site went up) and then started posting occasionally. went through a few accounts with a dozen or so comments on each and then stuck with this one just in time for the Ukraine War to start
my upbringing in relative poverty primed me to accept genuinely left-wing ideas but remained in the liberal bubble until Corbyn and the movement that brought him to power came around and exposed me to the concept that ideas left of Obama existed. I was still kind of in that I'm-a-very-smart-and-respectable-and-civil-politics-understander zone but all it would take is a push, and that push came from the subreddit. I didn't really have any background or knowledge of anarchism nor possessed any particular drive to distrust authority as a general concept so I slid pretty easily into Marxism-Leninism (though I do definitely like and respect anarchists and don't really have any reason or background to be sectarian against them, so this website's non-sectarianism fit me quite well).
I think the biggest part that attracted me was that people actually gave a shit about politics, there was actual passionate energy there, after years of lukewarm boring shit about how we just need to gradually introduce ranked-choice voting and shift taxes around and we'd create the perfect society. The only people I'd heard yelling about politics before was people yelling in support of reactionary policies, or sort of just yelling into the void about how they wished things could be better but offering no solution, but hearing people yell in support of policies that would help people was this big moment where my latent frustrations felt validated. Hearing somebody say something like "LET'S JUST GIVE HOMELESS PEOPLE HOUSES!" instead of liberals going "Hm, well, first we need to introduce a means-tested system of soup kitchens that utilize tax breaks to attract social workers..." was just one of those moments where you realize that problems can actually have (relatively) simple solutions and not everything has to be this stupid fucking 53-stage system which inevitably fails at stage 11 when a new president takes over and the parliamentarian says that there isn't enough money or whatever.
also, I hate to say that the chapo podcast was a big part of my left-wing turn as much as the subreddit was, but it kinda was, so I'll always have a spot in my heart for Felix and Matt even though I've outgrown them politically and don't listen to it anymore. It did kinda Americanize me but I made up for it by becoming the Ultimate Geopolitics Understander Who Knows Something About Most Countries later on once the Ukraine War started.
I was in my open-source arc and I found lemmy, joined lemmy.world because "default instance" and then they did their whole preemptive defederation thingy. they basically said "this is a tight knit online community of communists who hate NATO" and I was like, "hell yea." I stayed because you all challenged my worldview and taught me new things about the world I didn't know before.
I heard all of the libs were congregating so I decided to check it out.
I fucking hated the discord that got formed after /r/chapotraphouse got banned.
Partially because Discord sucks (
) but also there was some inscrutable drama constantly happening and I just didn't have the time or patience to even try to figure out up from down, and then saw a mention that they built a discussion site so gave it a try.I don't know why I'm still here, this last couple of days of drama at a site I look at daily has me wondering why the fuck I do anything at all. So fucking stupid to put any energy or emotions into a fucking website, and let it become this important to me
Used to post on the old sub. Came over here after the ban. Stayed because this place keeps me sane.
Back after Bernie 2016 collapsed I started trying to look at the reasons why the Democrats said one thing and seemed to do another (spoilers: it wasn't seeming) and I honed in on what the fuck was up with Trump and found that liberals were fundamentally incapable of articulating why Donald Trump had won. I kept a close eye on the news and believed the bullshit that the walls were closing in because, again, I was ignorant and found no voices that spoke truth.
Then I found a video of the Chapo Trap House guys perfectly stating why liberal humor trying to make fun of Trump was just not fucking funny. They were shitting on liberals and it took me some time to realize that they themselves were not liberals, they were socialists. Or something like socialists. I didn't really understand. Anyway, I listened to them for a long time and it got me interested in politics in a different way, and I kept tabs on the subreddit to see what sort of other perspectives were out there. Kept doing that. Followed the Chapo twitters. Got to know them a bit. Tried to wrap my head around their perspectives and found all the other people they retweeted and who dwelled in their comments, even after the subreddit was killed. Then I found some jerkoff mention chapo.chat in a gloating "they're so unhinged they got banned from reddit" sort of comment which immediately made me think you guys were too cool for reddit so I followed you here.
And continued to lurk for a long time because I was insecure and dealing with a lot of personal issues and just scared of joining yet another online community and making such a gigantic ass of myself I get ostracized or banned. After this place transitioned to Hexbear I finally found the courage to join in and start leaving comments, and eventually start making posts.
The reason I stay here is because it's the only place, the only fucking place on the Internet where discussion of politics does not make me feel like an insane man surrounded by children struggling to pronounce the word "politics" as they cast their team sports mentality on it and don't even think to question things and wonder why the fuck everything sucks so much beyond "it's the brown people's fault." It's a vibrant community of wonderful people with moderators who take absolutely no bullshit and have created -- according to the trans folks here -- one of the most, if not the most trans-accepting and -supporting community online. Every day I come here I find comments that make he laugh or think or just feel like I'm not completely fucking insane when I'm thinking about the fucked state of things.
Coming to this community has given me support and the semblance of a social life when I didn't really have any, and kept me afloat in times of despair. At the very least no matter how shitty things are I can come and laugh at the pissing owl website. It's wonderful. I love you people.
I would see my friend on bear site and she had a bunch of spicy memes. At the time I wasn't a commie but I was an anarchist so I was drawn to it regardless.
