Born too late to enjoy the euphoria of the fan-made AMV. This shit was the epitome of cool to nerdy 10-year old at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWtyWjhbhSA

To me the writing feels like a mixture of Bo Burnham and Dr. Seuss. So basically, Bill Wurtz. Yeah, these could be the lyrics to a Bill Wurtz song, with vocal harmonies hitting on the words at the end of the sentences.

Probably "Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend" by Domenico Losurdo (Italian Marxist). It's on my reading list.

I also don't think this story is true because

1. Trotsky only lived in New York for 2 months, so he probably did not have enough time to develop a "favorite" restaurant

2. Trotsky says in his autobiography that he spent almost all of his waking hours reading, writing, and going to meetings about socialism. This was during WWI and all the socialist parties were in disarray and chaos about what to do next.

3. Trotsky barely spoke English (his main languages were Ukrainian, Russian, French, and German, and he was literally trying to learn English on the boat ride over to New York), so the idea of him trying to "convince other patrons" to not tip in broken English seems very silly to me.

'Tis not the King who is evil, the King is wonderful and he loves the peasants. 'Tis the King's advisers who are the real source of evil! If I could sit down and talk to the King, I'm sure he would realize how much I'm suffering, and he would make things right.

-Literally medieval peasants AND bazinga minions.

I officially call upon the USSR to take better care of their nuclear plants before something goes horribly wrong in one of them.

Unironically, Trotsky's autobiography "My Life" is heavy on personal details and relatively light in theory while also going over the entire Russian Revolution. Obviously he comes from a unique perspective which you might not agree with, but his overall depiction of events leading up to the creation of the USSR is pretty accurate. And Trotsky 100% writes like he is the main character, so it will probably fit your needs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v3YxJpw8KI

WAKE ME UP INSIDE

Thank you so much, I could not remember the emote name.

Musk hunting for people taking advantage of wasteful government spending:

They will forever treat him like a god for "making" Apocalypse Now and The Godfather

Important to note that both of those were based on pre-existing and well acclaimed novels. Francis Ford Coppola is not and has never been a good writer. But when he was younger, he was humble enough to recognize when other people had written good things and copy/ accentuate their writing.

I am starting to understand why the French government got so angry over the US-Australia nuclear deal. It was a sign that France was no longer an imperial power, but truly just another minor fiefdom under the American lords. The next few French governments, like other European governments, will be more and more unpopular, unable to offer the rich the spoils of empire or the poor the benefits of basic social democracy.

I'm just here wondering why there are 5 faces on the Naruto Mount Rushmore instead of the usual 4.

I will not tolerate any maize slander! Indigenous people in central America worked for thousands of years to create that incredible crop. Same goes for potatoes, I am forever grateful to the people of Peru for genetically engineering such a delicious tuber.

I think we all know that Black Mold Futures was Trotsky. Now he lives peacefully in Mexico (r/trueanon posting as u/OpenCommune).

the all too common man-activity of earning social validation by shitting on socially disenfranchised people

I apologize for by bluntness, but don't all human beings do this, not just men? Can you honestly tell me that you have never spoken to a woman or a group of women and heard them insult a social group lower than them on the conventional social hierarchy? For a current example, there are a certain number of women on Twitter right now talking about calling ICE to have the undocumented family members of their Trump-voting neighbors deported. I mean, men are making those posts too, but I have seen just as many women making the same posts. Anecdotally, I have personally known many Christian women who insult or are dismissive towards Muslim women, which also has a racial component to it.

J. K. Rowling, specifically, is the world's most famous hater of trans women. She holds events where groups of cis women get together to basically hate on trans women together. In my opinion, this is a way for her to earn "social validation." Obviously this is toxic, as you say. But to claim that men do it far more often than women do, well, I have not seen any evidence of that in my personal life nor have I seen any data to support it. If you do have a book on the subject or a scientific study saying that men engage in this activity more than women do, I would be interested to read it and learn more about the issue. But I just think most human beings do it in specific social situations. Thank you for being open enough to have this discussion.

"If you enjoy dunk posts, you ain't a POC, jack."

I like your "against argument," but I would add just one thing to it: the "Spoonful of Sugar" argument. A spoonful of sugar really does make the medicine go down. I don't think that anyone here is trying to argue that low-effort posts (screenshots of right-wingers on Twitter or Reddit) are revolutionary or will change the world. Low-effort posts are just supposed to be fun. They give you a little hit of dopamine. And then the rest of the site is the "fruit and vegetables" of the website. Personally I go on c/theory to look at the Das Kapital reading club, and I also click on low-effort posts to have a little laugh at how the conservative right-wing cancer is evolving in real time on social media.

Isn't that the whole point of left-wing social media? Invite as many people in as you can with "sugar" (comedy and community) and then introduce them to "fruits and vegetables" (Marxist theory and real-life organizations)? Is there a single website that exists and functions that only has the fruits and vegetables, with no sugar? If Hexbear is going to be a "no fun allowed" website, why not just make it a straight re-direct to the collected works of Marx and Engels? https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/

To be fair, did I roll my eyes when I saw UlyssesT make his 1,000th Elon Musk dunk? Yeah, because I had seen it before. But then again, it seems like that was their hyper-fixation, and I don't ever want to insult someone or put them down for being passionate about something. Not clicking on a UlyssesT post costs me nothing. Anyone who wants to avoid low-efforts posts can just unsubscribe from low-effort coms.

And like, people are always going to find a way to make low-effort posts. If you ban recess at school, kids will run around in the hallways. Kids need recess! You can't just tell them, "Sit in a chair all day, and learn all day, and don't do anything fun, or else you're a terrible person." That attitude will obviously lead to resentment among the students.

This whole situation reminds me of the Bolshevik-Menshevik split. The Bolsheviks wanted to be serious and disciplined, while the Mensheviks wanted to let amateur socialists (mainly academic professors) join in. I guess it worked out for the Bolsheviks. But at the same time, Lenin spent a good deal of time "dunking" on people. So did Marx. And one of the reasons Lenin and Marx won people over is because they were funny. They had some sugar.