Do you browse hexbear or have an account in hexbear?

that hexbear supports the entirety of russia. a lot of times i hear stuff like "they don't actually care about queer people since they support russia", which is a gross oversimplification of their views. they hate russia's reactionary politics.
this misconception i think comes from the war in ukraine, in which if ukraine wins, they get to join nato. hexbear considers nato to be an imperialistic organisation that holds power towards a large portion of the world, and therefore, anything that opposes it should receive support, albeit critical.
- .
  
  I think that has a good chunk of libs that see "Critical Support" and think that you support that soo much that is doing double damage...
  
  A lot of people have a purist attitude to politics. "Critical support" is a vital part in understanding these positions of Hexbear and others, that one can support a side of a conflict and still be critical of it. Geo-politics isn't a simple binary. No two groups will perfectly align, but that doesn't mean they can't see mutual lines of benefit despite their disagreement. For example, just because someone supports Ukraine doesn't mean they have to defend everything their government does, such as supporting the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. It would be absurd to assert that! Similarly, it would be absurd to tell the communists still crying about 1989 that they support the entirety of the capitalist Russian Federation, the same RF that destroyed many of the gains the USSR made for both countries by enabling oligarchs to loot the place and plummet life expectancy.
- God forbid a sovereign nation can choose its partners...
  
  Well can Eastern Ukraine?
  Because as a "sovereign" nation, Ukraine is an amalgation nation of two bordering existing countries of which the partner organisation NATO's sole existence in question is to be enemies with one of the two bordering countries and thus used deadly violence to suppress any dissent from its Eastern half.
  This is in stark contrast to the US full-scale invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and further invasions of Libya, Syria and Palestine which WERE sovereign nations, where no such dilemma took place.
  Bush' full scale invasion of Iraq was based on lies.
  Bush' full scale Afghanistan invasion was based on searching a fugitive.
  The full scale bombardment of Lybia was because the US did not like Lybia's leader.
  Same with Syria.
  For Palestine, it's Israel that wants to genocide the country.
  
  Always very annoying listening to dipshits for whom history began in 2022 lament on how Ukraine's sovereignty was violated and they should be allowed to align themselves without interference. Just as long as they don't align against the west in which case you perform a violent coup on the behalf of neo-nazis who begin campaigns of ethnic cleansing.
  But that didn't happen doesn't matter.

Just lurk there for a while. IMO, biggest misconception is that they're omnicidal lunatics. They have a lot of in-jokes and bits that seem incomprehensible and border on unhinged to an outsider, and sometimes they kinda lean in to the perception. But if you spend enough time there you realise they're very intelligent and deeply empathetic people. The "unlimited genocide on the first world" rhetoric is an expression of frustration rather than actual intent.
- As far back as I can recall, there have been at least two types of internet forums.
  There are ones where dumb people go to pretend to be smart, and there are ones where smart people go to pretend to be dumb.
  The problem with the ones where smart people pretend to be dumb is that eventually it attracts actual dumb people. Then the forum dies.
  
  Which one is .ml?
- Literally something I’d say like 12 years ago.
- Browse the news mega or other serious threads. Not everything is a joke post, though there are many of those.
- If they're deeply empathetic people, then why do so many of them support the Ukraine invasion and want them to roll over and give their country away to Putin?
  
  This is covered in another thread on this post if you actually want to know. I suspect you don't, and just want to post gotcha arguments in bad faith.
  
  Wholesome "every single motherfucking one of you should fucking die in a meat grinder because I'm very upset at what Rachael Maddow told me in 2016" moment
  Here's an idea! If you have so much empathy for them, take their place! Spare someone kidnapped off the street against their will the horrible death you want them to suffer on your behalf! You're the one braying for blood, you go spill it.
  
  This is not what "so many of them support" and I know you cannot source a popular post to prove otherwise because it doesn't exist.
  Hexbear oppose Putin, they just also recognise Ukraine and NATO also behave very shittily, sometimes moreso. There's a recognition that the west have gleefully egged on this war at the expense of innocent Ukrainian/DPR/LPR/Russian civilian lives.
  
  They have empathy for people outside the usa empire. Its not something a western supremacist like you would understand. Did you, for example, know that the people outside the usa empire are real humans? Because when I was a liberal, I didn't.
  
  Because Ukraine isn't part of the first world, they do still want unlimited genocide against the second and third world.

Yeah, they're chill, idk. If you enjoy arguments and can handle some friction without breaking down, you'll fit right in, I think. The only main difference I've noticed is that they're a bit gayer than folks here, or at least talk about it more, and they don't use obvious American propaganda/party lines as the framework to understand the world.
- We did a census a while back and literally like 1/3 of the people were straight/cis

.
- The other "problem" is that they were their own isolated place for a while which had an attitude of just laughing at or insulting libs instead of engaging (which is perfectly fine for an isolated website, where liberal intruders aren't welcome), and upon federation suddenly became the largest instance at the time and many kept up that same shitposty dirtbag attitude, like posting PPB or just telling people to fuck off in reply to pro-capitalist arguments. So they quickly earned a collective bad reputation as rude trolls.
  
  an attitude of just laughing at or insulting libs instead of engaging
  Patently false. The PPB only comes out when it becomes clear you're debating in deliberately bad faith.
  Honestly anyone in this thread talking shit should pony up their chat logs so their behavior can be examined. 100% you stuck the stick in your own bike wheel.
- I was forced to "talk to them" when they were still federated and it was horrible. It's totally fine to have a political opinion, but it's another to turn every comment section into a warzone. Even responses to random memes would somehow turn into a political debate and due to their high user count and black and white thinking this quickly turned into them attacking anyone who disagreed even slightly with their views. Hexbear were making sure that anyone who isn't a tankie had no reason to be on Lemmy because they'd be haunted every time they'd share their opinion.
  I'm all for having a normal exchange of thoughts, but this is like sitting in a room with 90% extreme leftists and getting swarmed and called a stupid lib the moment you dare to introduce some nuance. I'm still more left wing than probably 70% or 80% of the Netherlands and yet I'd relate better to the average center-right voter than to these nuts
  
  black and white thinking
  What is an example of Hexbear "black and white thinking"?
- What a crock. They're "leftists" in the same way that MAGA people are just "free thinkers." I can't say I've ever even see a hexbear user make any leftist comments or points of view. From what I've seen, they mostly push Chinese and Russian government propaganda under with the facade of being 'communist' (again never have I seen any mentions of actual communist economic philosophy from any of their users just anti-western, pro Russian/Chinese government talking points). I don't even have any issue with anti-western sentiment but when you're trying to pretend to be the 'good guy' while being Putin's mouthpiece, similar to Trump, I'm going to call you on your bullshit.
  
  .
  
  Hexbear oppose Putin while frequently talking about theory and communist philosophy. There's barely a single popular post that doesn't at least reference leftist theory. You clearly are just talking 100% rubbish.
  My bet is on you having been banned there for being some form of ass. Just because that seems to always be the case.
- The problem I have with hexbear leftists is the same that I have with all the other ones and it is because they are all talk and no action.
  
  They are the only instance I know of with an active mutual aid comm.
  
  .
  
  How the hell would you even know if they're "no action"?
  
  I know for a fact that they've housed many trans people. They also had a shipment of grain with with their logo on it in Gaza. Pretty dope.
  
  Me and some other hexbears meet weekly and provide free food to our community but we never post about it online. Idk, just feels wrong to brag about it or constantly bring it up so this is the first time I've ever mentioned it on lemmy
  You have no idea what people get up to on the otherside of the keyboard. It's silly to think people would chronicle everything they do on a Lemmy instance
  
  is the same that I have with all the other ones
  If I'm included in there, I don't post online about actions I take because I can legally get fired due to my volunteer work in a socialist political party, and some of the community actions I have taken involved dozens of arrests. So I have good reasons to avoid disclosing info and getting dox'd.
  I suppose this applies to many others.

I'll repeat a comment that I said once about hexbear:
I can feel a deep fire burning in almost all of Hexbear’s comments, quite different from most communities that just whine without purpose.
They are more of community than the rest of Lemmy.

This account's instance federates with hexbear. Outside of politics and topics du jour, there's little difference between them and you or me.

Yeah I like some of the hexbear comms and sometimes participate. Vegan Theory Club is an offshoot of Hexbear after the great vegan struggle sessions of 2021 when my account there got banned. We're mainly a two discord servers called Vegan Theory Club and Vegan Home Cooks and we launched the lemmy more recently.
- Just wanted to say, I like the posters from Vegan Theory Club, it's a cool place.
  
  Thanks! We're trying to do something that isn't just open source reddit clone by making it about the things we are interested and our own content instead of just spamming vegan blog links and filling the instance with fluff articles like a glorified RSS feed. I'm glad you like the posts!

I have an account on Hexbear, I also mod their !parenting@hexbear.net community, which has been growing steadily. It's always wild to me to read what people think goes on at the site because, in my engagement with folks, it's clear that everyone is just someone trying to get by in this crazy world we live in. All this talk about "tankies" or whatever, is pretty "online" behavior, and Hexbear often appears to me the least online by comparison. Sure, we're active on the site, but I don't get the sense that many people are wildly active outside the site, many people have negative views on most social media and have no interest in it.
The other thing that people never seem to notice is just how active our !mutual_aid@hexbear.net community is, and just how generous the users can be. There is a real sense of community on Hexbear that I struggle to find on the wider internet. That probably has a lot to do with the relative size of the user base.
- The term “tankie” exists independently and prior to the popularization of the internet
  
  The resurgent use of the word "tankie" is a very online anti-communist pejorative, akin to "commie," "pinko," etc. I have heard the word "tankie" maybe once in real life.

they're pretty fun and very queer (both strange and rainbow)

I have a Hexbear alt. I use it, ironically, when I don't want to talk politics, or if I want to keep up with the news, as the News mega is very useful.
A lot of people hold contradictory views about it, or think it's some hyper-toxic space, but in my experience its less toxic than most other instances on Lemmy and gets into far fewer arguments. I love using the games comm and other hobby comms.
I also run a Capital weekly reading thread there, though momentum was hurt by the debacle a few months back regarding domain name.

I'm subscribed to their tech, gaming, and news communities. They're fine, I don't care to make an account on their instance but nothing wrong with the Hexbear communities I subscribe to.

They're just fine. Our views don't always align but I've found suspending disbelief is very different from believing.
https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2019/05/01/famous-misquotations-it-is-the-mark-of-an-educated-mind/

I have a lemmygrad acct, possibly. but I just browse via this one mostly anyway.

I love hexbear, have an account there too. They are nice and I've never had a problem.

My other account is on an instance that federated with them, this one does not.
I've never had any major problems from them, just bad takes and occasional belligerence from specific users. But I also don't seek out their communities.
- I wish we were federated with slrpnk.net honestly. The integrations you have over there are really cool (dokuwiki, etc), and you're all comrades in making, IMO.

I had a burner account back years ago before it was federated with the rest of Lemmy.
I'd already well-passed the stage where I was spending more time online than doing actual movement building on the ground so the low-content and causal comms are too chatty for me to even bother. There's also some underlying abusive moderation (at least there was a couple of years ago), but that's something I've seen on everywhere from .world to .ml, this is volunteer work and beggars usually can't be choosers, there's nearly always someone on a staff team who just deletes things they don't like. Purging that behavior is tough without a healthy mod culture and mods who care enough to start a fight.
On the other hand, there's some good comms among the slop and they keep liberals from coming in every minute with dumb questions they could have checked with a single web search or just reading an FAQ, so that's a huge plus (tourists can go to lemmy.ml or lemmygrad.ml with any good-faith questions). Their dev work is commendable. For the place that it is, it's done alright for itself, there's a decent foundation from what I can tell, which is especially hard for a big-tent socialist site to build given the conflicting worldviews and values that arise.
If so, what are some misconceptions or seldom known facts?
It's pretty hilarious how many of them seem repulsed by /leftypol/. They're remarkably similar cultures, just less PDFs and "read a fucking book" culture, less catgirls and no ironic slurs.

I have some hexbear communities turned off in my feed, but I have subscribed to some also. Lemmy is growing but it’s still a small community. Sometimes, I want to see posts on a niche topic and I’ll take what I can get.

I do browse. I agree with them on many political issues, and yet I can't seem to get along with any of them. Why does it seem like they are all such assholes?

Huh. First time I saw this post, I figured it was bait. I'm pretty sure I was subbed to a couple communities on hexbear. Occurred to me today when I encountered this post again that I'd not seen any hexbear content for a while. Turns out my instance has it blocked. Not sure if it's for technical reasons or moderation reasons. Does that go in the mod log or somewhere?
- My instance also blocks both Lemmygrad and hexbear, even though Lemmygrad doesn't really do trolling

I used to have an account. I was an old /r/chapotraphouse user before it got shut down.
A dipshit admin got mad when I referenced ridiculous drama that reflected badly on how the site was (and probably still is) being run, insisted to me that it didn't happen, banned me before I could even post a link or screenshot demonstrating it happened, purged my entire comment and submission history (mostly news and longer pieces I found interesting, nothing even remotely rule breaking or controversial) then proceeded to monitor the creation of new accounts to ban any usernames similar to mine as soon as they appeared.
All of the exact behaviour that would have been endlessly made fun of for being so extremely online and extremely pathetic on the old subreddit.
That admin/mod who did that is now also banned and their posts also purged lmfao. Hexbear in a nutshell.
- You have 4 removed comments before the ban, the rest of your history is still very visible in your profile, so they didn't purge your account, they removed a few comments, which is why it says, "removed by mod". It's funny reading your removed comments. The downvote removal is looked back on as a pretty good change. I've not used the site when it had downvotes, but frankly, I like that they're gone. I don't even know what the "main" issue is, and I've never heard anyone talk about it. The site has never struck me as a "Chapo" site, even though I know that is its origins. I've listened to the Chapo pod before, not for me, honestly. Frankly, seems that separating from the Chapo brand was the right choice.
  Anyway, 4 years is a long time to hold a grudge.
  
  You have 4 removed comments before the ban, the rest of your history is still very visible in your profile, so they didn’t purge your account, they removed a few comments, which is why it says, “removed by mod”. It’s funny reading your removed comments. The downvote removal is looked back on as a pretty good change. I’ve not used the site when it had downvotes, but frankly, I like that they’re gone. I don’t even know what the “main” issue is, and I’ve never heard anyone talk about it. The site has never struck me as a “Chapo” site, even though I know that is its origins. I’ve listened to the Chapo pod before, not for me, honestly. Frankly, seems that separating from the Chapo brand was the right choice.
  Yes, it's been few years and I hadn't checked. I thought it had been purged entirely.
  The main issue at the time was the general way admins/mods approached every issue, often in the most aggressive and hostile way imaginable and causing lots of unnecessary drama. Downvote removal and the name change of the site were part of a larger, fantastically absurd saga in which nothing was being handled well. With downvotes for example, where it was announced that any opposition to them being removed was innately transphobic, then trans users criticising this approach, only for said trans users to be banned for pushing back.
  Anyway, 4 years is a long time to hold a grudge.
  Not really "Holding a grudge" when I mention something directly relevant to the thread that asked about Hexbear accounts. It was just a bunch of absurd bullshit that's part of the very dumb lore of hexbear.
- When someone is banned, their posts are automatically deleted, it's not some crazy admin obsession to 'purge your entire history'.
  This story does appear to be "an admin abused their power to ban me, then that admin got banned for being caught abusing their power". Which is not uncommon in online communities.
  
  When someone is banned, their posts are automatically deleted, it’s not some crazy admin obsession to ‘purge your entire history’.
  Nope. That's not how it worked at the time. I even still have screenshots of being able to see banned users posts still there from around this time. My comments specifically showed "removed by mod". I just checked and I can still see a post by an alt I made shortly after being banned (which was then also banned shortly after). So no, banned users did not have their posts automatically deleted.
  Proof right here even.
  This story does appear to be “an admin abused their power to ban me, then that admin got banned for being caught abusing their power”. Which is not uncommon in online communities.
  That is not remotely what happened. The person in question continued to be a mod for some time. Their eventual banning had nothing to do with what happened to me or others.
  There were multiple mods and admins acting this way around this timeframe against many users on the site, so they'd all have had to ban themselves for the same behaviour.
  Edit: Actually, now checking again, and the mods account in question doesn't even have the banned indicator, so I think they may have just deleted their account.
- Damn what a shitty admin
- There was recently an incident where a dormant admin account came back, took one side in an argument, and banned everyone who disagreed. And banned everyone who called that out. And tried to hide the bans behind some stupid "they all asked to be banned" smokescreen. Wrecking with admin access.
  Purge your dormant admins, instance owners. You'll never know whether someone comes back years later with a grudge.

I think they’re fine except for their more ridiculous vegan coms

I accidentally subscribed to one and it was filled with tankies acting like they were the true and righteous moral bastions of society while espousing blatantly ableist ideas and pure wishful thinking rewrites of history. I left and blocked that community.
- Ableist ideas? Where? Report those, ableism is a bannable offense on Hexbear. Yea, there are a lot of Communists on Hexbear, same with a lot of Lemmy, so that makes sense.

i used to. they're terrible. i couldn't stand the infighting and dumbassery.