hi hexbear, its been a difficult weekend for this site but it looks its cooling down. i am one of the “anti-dunk/dredge” mods and feel like an explanation would ease tensions further and offer explanations to some users who oppose or are unsure about the proposed changes to the site. i also want to address mistakes i have made in handling this. i want start by saying that i love HB. i've been (mostly lurking) on HB for almost 3 years and its been an overall positive and relatively fulfilling experience. i cracked my egg on HB, learned so much here, interacted with some amazing people, and enjoyed my occasional posting. i would have made a post yesterday to assuage the burgeoning struggle session, but i had some in-laws over and couldn’t sufficiently respond to criticism.
and i love the users here. i think we are the best user base on lemmy and are a safer place for marginalized ppl and left unity than a vast majority of the anglosphere internet. i am lucky to be a user here and am humbled to be part of the 10% of users who have a more direct impact on site policy.
this site is great at what it does, and some of that is shitposting. i think most of us can agree we love our shitposting. users have been accusing mods of being anti-shitposting and “trying to make the site serious”, this is not true. while shitposting is fun, we’ve also built a community where ppl can engage in mutual aid, connect with leftists from around the world, and (sometimes) enjoy a space that is accommodating and safe for all (minus reactionaries). there have been many attempts in the past to address site culture and when successful they have made this site better for marginalized people, which would also make it better for more privileged users if they have solidarity. these include pronoun tags, CW/NSFW requirements, and crackdowns on “ironic” bigotry.
i think there have been some miscommunications over the past few days and i contributed to that, so i wish to de-anonymize my statements and apologize for pain they have caused to my marginalized comrades, then explain my position so we can reach an understanding. the mod discussion on the tank comms was done in good faith, and our intention was to make similar improvements in site culture. there is no “mod cabal” and i seriously doubt there are wreckers in the current mod team. 10% of active HB users are mods, we are users too. we want to make the site better. the dredge tank was created to separate celebrity gossip from sharing bad takes of random social media users. the dunk tank changing names was an easy decision, it obviously had to go, but many mods raised concerns about dredge tank as well. we are addressing problems we have been struggling to solve for a while: rule 8 was insufficient in pruning the harmful aspects from dunk culture (i talk more about these below).
some dredge tank material is truly heinous and CWs/NSFW are not always used when necessary. this can go unnoticed because some marginalized people don’t like the dredge tank. it exposes us to violent rhetoric; rhetoric that is leading to use being assaulted/murdered. we know you don’t endorse their views, but some of these posts can harm your comrades mental health and can be an outlet for implicit (mostly “ironic”) bigotry. this continued ignorance/indifference for the well-being of ones comrades is evidence that further work is required in purging reactionary tendencies from this site. stricter enforcement of CW/NSFW rules is insufficient and we cant just "block the tanks" because this “ironic” bigotry and liberal attitude toward CWs/NSFW can permeate to other comms on HB.
some of the “anonymous mod comments” shared by carcosa caused discord in the announcement threads (carcosa, imo, is innocent, has been levelheaded and judicious throughout all of this, gave significant decision-making capacity to the mod team, and has been a great admin). some critiques of the language in these anonymous statements are valid, especially the critiques from my marginalized comrades regarding the language i used when discussing my fellow HB users.
i am de-anonymizing my statements so i can apologize and explain my perspective:
“dunk culture” can be fun but it’s rarely constructive, gives off white cishet man vibes, and has the potential to shift closer to the reactionary reddit “snark”.
this frequently quoted line is mine. i was not calling you, reader, a white cishet man. i am sorry for the clumsy phrasing and i believe i genuinely hurt some my comrades who are POC, trans/GNC, gay, and women. i used “white cishet man” as a placeholder for “very privileged person.” lets be honest, most of HB is privileged in some way-- this site is primarily leftists from the imperial core. in this statement i was trying to communicate that dredge tank material tends promote a sentiment that is counterproductive to solidarity. i am truly sorry for shoehorning a specific identity into this and offending marginalized ppl who use the tanks. my statement was aimed at a specific type of behavior that is more common on the tanks than elsewhere on the site. i should have elaborated instead of using the nebulous term, “dunk culture,” which caused confusion.
think of your average privileged person in the imperial core. they benefit from some power structures in society. they could be a comrade tho. it is typical of a privileged person like to show off their leftist stripes and differentiate themselves from other, more reactionary privileged ppl. “listen to this horrible thing a relative/coworker of mine said,” the privileged person gossips to their comrades. they are sharing this to show that they are superior to the subject of gossip. they understand the struggle. yet they dont understand that they are giving marginalized people a glimpse into their world. they are telling their “comrades” that the imperial core is filled with bigots who hate them, but they are one of the good ones. this leads to misanthropy in both the privileged person and their marginalized comrades. im sorry for using “dunk culture” instead of just saying what i mean, i can see how that could come off as wrecker-jacketing
It promotes misanthropy and, depending on the post can serve as an outlet for “acceptable” bigotry by copy/pasting the most heinous takes without pushing back and sometimes without a CW.
the type of post i believe is harmful gives the audience a false perception, that others are more reactionary than in reality. there are billions of posts every day on social media platforms. and of the english-language content, it is rife with bigotry. but sharing this hateful content with your comrades (even if you CW/NSFW properly) promotes a culture of misanthropy. your fellow imperial core workers are potential allies, not moral inferiors. people are capable of self crit and growth. not everyone in the imperial core is an irredeemable bigot, and a lot of the time these 3 like takes from reddit are crafted in fort eglin or posted by an incel so terminally online that he will never influence anyone outside of the internet.
i should have specified the type of posting instead of using “dunk culture.” very specific self-serving/self-aggrandizing, “look at this person calling for your execution! people in the imperial core are so evil, but i am a special exception.” this promotes misanthropy by concentrating the worst takes from average (non-celebrity) people living in the imperial core. death to america means death to capitalism and the states that uphold it, not death to the people living there. Xi hasnt sent the nukes because there are workers here. there are internally colonized people here. do your POC neighbors deserve to be nuked? do you deserved to be nuked? i don’t think you do.
the two quotes i addressed above were the statements i made opposing “dunk culture.” i also made statements defending the new counterpropaganda and gossip comms:
Counterpropaganda is where you can post Mike83829293’s takes. Posts require clear effort being made in countering the falsehoods of the original post, or furthering the discussion.
i believe this would help solve misanthropy problems. counterpropaganda would be dredge tank, but instead of posting horrible takes for the sake of showing others a horrible take, some sort of pushback would be required. we are not asking for essays, i am sorry for the lack of communication on that as well. we just want any pushback, you can cite sources if you want. just say something against it. how would you counter this if you could communicate with the author of the horrible take? not to prove that you have the correct take, but to demonstrate that some ppl with reactionary views can be presented an alternative. sometimes a good response is :pit: and thats great. this promotes other users to do the same, and instead of sharing images of filth to prove how clean we are, we are sharing our hygiene methods and methods for convincing others to adopt them.
basically, getting mad at powerless ppl is not just unproductive, it breeds misanthropy, which is a hotbed for other forms of bigotry. further, this has encouraged “ironic” bigotry which appears occasionally on HB.
now that ive made my case, i hope we can come to a consensus with the user base before making any decisions on these comms. but i prefer these decisions were made in good faith with the voices of marginalized people being heard.
and gossip is just dunk tank with a new name. its an honest name. elonposting is gossip, its fun! revel in how much we hate the wannabe god-emperor! gossip is not inherently bad, gossip can save lives. when two women share with each other which men have made them uncomfortable or assaulted them, that is considered gossip. some gossip helps people, some gossip is just fun.
we all want this site to improve. we want to be the best we can and provide a nice community. i hope i was able to shed light on the position of an “anti dunk tanker.” in the future, even in private communications with other mods, i will refrain from talking about certain segments of HB (i.e. tank posters) as a monolith. if i have a problem with a type of post i will be more specific and provide sources. i didn’t provide examples of behavior in this post because “callouts” are inappropriate in a self crit post.
again, i am sorry for the callous language in my statements. i value user input and wouldnt want to make a permanent decision without transparency and consideration for the 90% of users who don’t mod. HB should be a welcome place, it should be fun, but it should also be safe
love to all my comrades,
ZL
it is an apology
edit: i really do want you to know that i am sorry for using that language. the interpretation of that statement was not how i intended.
I've mostly stayed the fuck out of this struggle session, but i think i unfortunately need to pitch in at this point. I do not think the general gist of the outrage directed at that statement runs along the lines of "a mod made an intentionally hurtful statement to misgender trans comrades, question the femininity of women and accuse POC comrades of being white on the inside". That would be a far-fetched, malicious and inaccurate conclusion. I believe it is a much more common perception, and also my perception, that your statement showed certain ideas you have internalized, and have not reflected upon properly. This is why people ITT accuse you of a nonpology - you go for the "i was misunderstood and actually meant something else" line instead of confronting your subconscious bias.
As trans people, we've all grown up in a deeply and disgustingly transphobic, exorsexist, cishetnormative and gender essentialist society, and like the cishet people around us, we have all internalized some of that. Upon cracking, we can begin to realize this and build a new framework for how we understand gender and sexuality, but that is not done within a day, it is a process. And with a lot of the fellow trans people on this site, i see that they are struggling with reactionary artifacts in their attitudes that they have not yet questioned and debunked for themselves. Hexbear is generally what i consider to be a safer space for trans comrades, i know i am welcomed, represented and protected here, but unfortunately our trans community isn't as radical about gender as many of us want to believe. It's not as bad as trans reddit, outspoken transmeds and enbiephobes are rare and quickly get the hammer, and we've had a lot of learning with the heavier use of CWs in the trans mega and the discussions around Julia Serrano and enbiephobia, but a lot of work still remains to be done.
A part of that work, and where my criticism of your statement comes into play, is the field of gender essentialism. I understand your critique of the tanks, the comm does show aspects of the site culture that i am personally not very comfortable with. I view this site mostly as a safer space and a place of community that helps comrades with personal growth, offers them assistance and acts as a bullwark for marginalized comrades who need a break from the liberalism in other safer spaces. A place where you can, for example, be both openly trans and openly Marxist-Leninist. Others view it as an unapologetic dirtbag hive. A place where you find community in a shared rage at the conditions we live under, were we are free from insincere demands for civility and decorum and can revel in tearing into reactionaries without restraint and mercy. Were we can enjoy the rare feeling of being, as was a popular quote on the old sub, "numerous and beligerent", an infamous and dreaded shitposter brigade. These are the two faces of hexbear.
When you claimed that this second face of hexbear gave off "white cishet man" vibes, you made a gender essentialist assumption: That being coarse, uncouth, aggressive and loud is a trait of hegemonial (white and cishet) masculinity. Women are described as "hysterical" and "b_tchy" and "hormonally imbalanced" when we exhibit such traits (i've been on the receiving end of all of that a lot over the last years). Queers are slandered as "shrill" and "drama queens" when they do. Transfeminine people in particular are attacked with the concept of "male socialization", a common Terf strategy to silence us when we speak up. POC, especially black people, are constantly policed for signs of aggressive behavior and demanded to be calm and collected to not upset the whiteys, threatened with disproportionate, sometimes lethal, responses when they show any signs of agitation.
The "cishet white man vibes" line is not a callout of privilege. It is securing the privilege of white cishet men that reserves uncivility for them and only them. I get that wasn't your intention. But that's besides the point here. You need to confront which effect your statement had, understand the hurt it caused and demonstrate the introspection that is needed to overcome this kind of sentiment.
"I didn't mean to say you're white cishet men, I meant to say you're privileged assholes!"
Yeah some apology
If you wrote something someone thought was very privileged, and they said your post had "white cishet man vibes", would you think that they were possibly using clumsy language and did not intend the statement to be interpreted how it was written?
I think you sincerely believe it was a clumsy statement but I don't think you've given yourself the time to reflect* on how you came to use that phrasing on a website with a majority (I think?) of trans users.
*Obviously you can't "win" in this scenario where you want to give an apology quickly because you recognise it has caused harm.
If you think the issue was "clumsy phrasing", you grokked nothing from nearly destroying the site and should not wield power over its users.
e: the sentiment behind it shows outright contempt for the userbase, even moreso after your explanation.
It is not about being insufficiently specific. It is about feeling that a subset of posters are not wanted, and crashing out when you realize the damage blanket banning them would cause. I've enjoyed a lot of your posts and would welcome you in the posting trenches, but this certainly ain't it.
Impossible to know how many people were driven off by it, but you served a plate of turds, and upon getting it sent back to the kitchen, picked out a few pieces of corn, put it on a differently colored plate and served it again.
E: I don't mean to single you out in particular, if anyone is emblematic of the problem it would be @replaceable. You making this post is more than they did.
However, one of the most directly damaging sprays of gasoline onto this fire was from your hands, and I really don't think any form of apology cuts it as far as accountability goes.
It isn't. You are defending your actions and explaining how we merely misunderstood you.
Whatever your intent, your action was to call the reader a white cishet man. Your attempt at clearing up that confusion does not make it much better to be honest. Now you're just calling people who enjoy it "very privileged". It's indicative of the same mindset. You are making your own judgement about a group of people you disagree with and cataloguing them into some group that allows you to feel good about thinking ill of them. You know nothing about that group of people. This statement is hurtful and ridiculous too. Here's one clear example why
Nobody thought you meant to intentionally misgender people. That's not why folks are pissed at you for writing that. They're pissed at you for the subconscious bias it reveals, and that is also why this isn't an apology. You're going for "I was misunderstood actually" instead of listening to what people are critiquing you for.