Permanently Deleted

  • thefunkycomitatus [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I think there's a deeper struggle session here than the name change. I'm completely fine with the name change. From what I gathered I assume a goal of the admin is to make this site a poster to activist pipeline, something I also agree with and think is desperately needed. Is that the case?

    I think the deeper struggle session is decoupling consumption from politics. That is people assuming that listening to a podcast is what determines people's politics. As in you could have someone that is a good leftist but because they listen to a socdem podcast, it makes them libs. In an act of pedantry someone might say that it's okay to listen, just don't like it or take it seriously, and that's what distinguishes a good leftist listening to chapo from a lib, but that still accepts that consumption is political action. It's implying a lib is a lib because they aren't listening to the correct podcasts or keep listening to the wrong one(s).

    It's especially worrying to see this kind of implicit concession from a self-proclaimed Marxist organization like PSL. If they really think that people listening to a podcast prevents radicalization more than the decline in material conditions of us all encourages it, then I don't know what to say. Part of the reason chapo has a stigma is that people on the left buy into this notion that the chapo to fash pipeline is real (although they may back down from such a maximalist take and say it's a chapo to socdem pipeline). If everyone chooses to walk on eggshells around chapo and treat it like this major threat to leftism, then that becomes reality.

    If you don't think chapo should be a part of leftism, then you ignore it. And that's why a name change is fine. Treat it like an entertainment podcast, which it is. If the goal of this site is to be about making real political action happen, then it's fine to not name it after a entertainment podcast.

    To me, the next big thing we should focus on is deprogramming the internet brain idea that going to the right websites, consuming the right podcasts, etc is what makes you a good leftist. You're not radicalized because you listen to a podcast. You're not radicalized because you go to a website. Those aren't radical political actions nor do they reflect any real political motivations. Everyone listens to podcasts and goes on websites. If our goal is to radicalize people we need to stamp out this idea that it centers on consumption and posting.

    • congressbaseballfan [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Want to push back on this a bit - I think people are fine with the name change, but not the name it’s being changed too. It comes across as weird and cringe as fuck

      • ComradeBongwater [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I'd most prefer the name as-is, but hexbear.net is the lamest possible alternative.

        I'd prefer it if it was something even vaguely related to leftism. @invalidusernamelol suggestions are all preferable to hexbear.

        I'm not too attached to any of it because it's ultimately aesthetic, but my 2 cents

        • congressbaseballfan [she/her]
          ·
          4 years ago

          It’s just an unforced error. I don’t care what the name is, but I have a feeling the name will be a detriment in bringing in outsiders. Just an own goal.

      • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        I agree, hexbear sounds like a wicca thing to people not in the loop on our very insular meta.

        It should be something more related to what we actually want this site to be.

        liberation.chat, commie.net, posterunion.io, etc.

        • htz [she/her]
          ·
          4 years ago

          still a big fan of leftunity.lmao

        • star_wraith [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I'm good with hexbear, mostly because I couldn't think of what else would work and I really don't care for lib.rehab, but your suggested names are very good, I like them all a lot.

    • acealeam [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      If the goal of this site is to be about making real political action happen, then it’s fine to not name it after a entertainment podcast.

      Yeah, that's entirely the tension of this site. The admins think posting, and this site, can be a force for good and political change, (obviously not like quickly, i'm trying to be generous) and a lot of users here (myself included) don't see that as feasible. If we were gonna uphold rebr0ist thought (which it seems like we're not anymore, lol), more than anything that's the belief that posting is not praxis and inconsequential. I really think that alone was 99% of what made the CTH sub what it was.

      • star_wraith [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I didn't take TC69's post to be quite so literally about using this site to get folks into the PSL, for example, and how the name hampers that. I took it much more as a criticism of the podcast, which is good and I very much agree with. The PSL example was a way to highlight how leftist folks who aren't terminally online like we are view the podcast. Which is that at best, it seems ambivalent about anything that isn't electoralism and at worst is a white-centric group of hipsters that is unconcerned about the plight of the oppressed, liberation, and seems to get awfully close to class reductionism a lot of the time (with Amber all but admitting she is one). We shouldn't want to be associated with that. I don't fault anyone for listening to it - I did myself until a couple months ago. But when we make that the name of the site, it's on some level an endorsement even if we try to sort of weasel out of it by saying no no, it's the name of a former Reddit sub not the podcast.

        • acealeam [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I just don't see the distinction. This is still, barring some incredible changes, going to be an offshoot of the dead /r/chapotraphouse. That doesn't mean it's not distinct. But in the end, we're substituting chapo.chat, a name directly referencing the /r/cth roots, to hexbear, which is a meme but still from the subreddit. We've got one more derivative and it's even more obscure now. I'm just not sure how that's any more clear, or what the real point of the distinction is. I really, really believe either we need to think long and hard about what this site is even supposed to be, or the admins need to announce their full vision for this site because we're kind of just guessing right now.

          • CommunistShoplifter [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            This. This is exactly how I feel. The chapo name has value because it identifies what we are and roughly where we came from. Anyone who clicks onto hexbear is going to get a sea of of bizarrely obscure left wing injokes, an insular community of shared reference points that are a mystery to them and a whole lot of confusion. If they're serious about a name change, more than the name needs to change or its just going to create a website like an old buffy forum where 20-30 posters who all know each other reply to each other ad nauseum and drive away any new members with their insular culture. Which is what I suspect will happen tbh.

        • acealeam [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Are you sure??? I really thought he was one of the old ones, and one of the few that didn't get purged. I remember he was the one that did the community update threads when they talked to the admins (like initially getting quarantined)

    • 666PeaceKeepaGirl [any, she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      This is the take I've been looking for honestly. I don't particularly care about the name of an internet forum, but I feel to an extent like I'm getting "called out" for still enjoying the pod. If the intent of the community is to curate away the sorts of views associated with liking chapo, then that's ok, maybe it's just not the community for me. But I don't get the sense that people here, by and large, would consider me a bad comrade for listening to chapo, or even necessarily for having the sorts of political viewpoints associated with that, which makes it frustrating to have mods talking about how people are going to think we're reactionaries if we don't purge the chapo association and branding.