For the country being a white supremacist settler-colonist state that's doing a slow (now fast) genocide on Palestinians. It's nice to be on the correct side for once, as I used to believe that Israel controlled the USA and not vice-versa, I've learned so much more about the world thanks to leftism. Being a reactionary I was seriously ignorant and in the dark, fueled by dumb ass racist thoughts and a baby's understanding of the world.
Which subreddit?
r/ChapoTrapHouse. Originally an unofficial fan sub for the podcast of the same name, but it quickly outgrew them and just became a general hive of leftist shitposting and theoryposting. This site was made to replace it after the sub got banned a little over 3 years ago I think.
Oh yes, I remember those days.
People forget that it's not just former liberals or "disaffected BernieBros" that become communists.
Also, it was banned, but later, you got people gravitating to /r/communism (which, I think, was already there since 2007) and other versions of Chapo subreddits, which would balloon in activity.
Now, after /r/GenZedong was suspended of being on the front page of Reddit, a lot of people have gravitated to /r/TheDeprogram, from what I can tell and a few smaller subreddits.
TheDeprogram can't be long for this world imo but I like their vibe. Probably both for the same reason lmao, reddit doesn't like cool people being cool.
lol I hate both /r/GenZedong and /r/TheDeprogram; the general culture is not good, but /r/TheDeprogram is better than /r/GenZedong was at its height, from what I can tell.
Actual discussion, even if not always a friendly atmosphere.
The atmosphere here has absolutely mellowed out compared to the sub and its direct parallels. I for one don't mind some raucousness and shitposting (I've got 4chan in my own history too despite "only" being a dumb lib at worst, so big surprise there) and I'm pretty forgiving of the occasional brainworm when the overall community is saturated with better takes to drown out and eventually replace the brainworms. But I love the chill vibes here too.
Are we talking about /r/TheDeprogram or Hexbear?
I'm from a community that's all pretty serious. We study theory and all that. We have discussion consistently. We have a lot of Chinese members, an academic scholar who saves books from extinction, and a journalist from outside the USA. We're not that shit-posty and I think that's good for actual learning, whereas Stalin memes, for example, are known for being exaggerative or even false to a degree. Also, a lot of us are in orgs rather than being lower-case "c" communists.
Both to different extents, although tbf I'm less familiar with the deprogram sub.
This isn't explicitly or even implicitly a place for deep discussions, although that's not at all unwelcome with the book club threads and such. CTH and its descendants have always been this idiosyncratic mix of a place to vent and commiserate about capitalism, posting bits of theory (sometimes for discussion and sometimes just into the void, contributing to the ambient leftist atmosphere), and digesting theory into more-postable memes that then leak out into the wider internet. Posting obviously doesn't hold a candle to actual praxis (and mad respect to you and anyone else for the praxis btw), but I like to think that generating ambient leftism on the internet, even if it's a bit shitposty, is a net positive too.
I agree. You have my word on that. We're at least winning culturally thanks to you all. I think that that's worth something, at least.
idk about winning yet, but seeing "stalin saved the world from fascism" in the wild on twitter and reddit gives me some hope
Folks here are directly responsible for me joining the org that I did and in part the work we are doing out on Pine Ridge and eventually elsewhere.
Posting can be praxis, but it can also be a distraction.
On another note, I do like the chill vibes here too.