I think a little clarification is needed. No. I don’t actually think everyone there is insane. I don’t care about the bans so stop trying to use that. HB enthusiasts coming here and trying to call me out achieves nothing besides proving my point

Edit: Feel free to keep trying to brigade me. It’s not going to scare me to take this down

  • Blizzard@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    You are correct. Do your mental health a favour and block that instance along with lemmygrad.

  • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    Thank god for hexbear and lemmygrad though. Imagine the effort needed to block them all individually if spread over all the other instances.

    • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      Yeah, it’s actually helpful to have safe spaces for hateful assholes so they can be corralled away.

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
    1·
    6 months ago

    Childish? Kinda. Insane? No.

    There are three relevant things to say about hexbear.

    1. It is not a serious instance. Or at least not completely serious; they’re mostly there for memes, funposting, “I know that feel” etc.

    So they’re less like the meeting room of a communist party than like the bar where those communists hang out and drink beer, after the meeting is over.

    I feel like this is often misinterpreted, as HB users say something that is mostly a taunt and others interpret as actual argumentation. And it also tends to attract younger users, who… well, behave like young people?

    2. Even if not a serious instance, they’re serious about their views. Your typical HB user is communist, antifa, vegan, anti-cop, and interprets things in a very specific way. They’re rather transparent about it.

    And, because of #1, they aren’t really willing to spend their time entertaining anyone’s counterpoints. It’ll be interpreted as sealioning or similar.

    3. Hexbear was already its own thing before federation. As such it developed social norms that often conflict with the norms typically found in the rest of the Threadiverse (Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed etc.)

    For example, even if Lemmy as a whole is prone to intrusive political discussions, HB users tend to do it far more. Because they’re used to an environment where this is typically taken as OK.

    When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users:

    • if you don’t like what someone is saying (because it’s idiotic, obstrusive, or whatever), block the person for some peace of mind.
    • if you’re consistently uninterested on the content coming from an instance, block the instance.
    • Pandantic [they/them]@midwest.socialEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Thank you for saying this in a more detailed way than I have been. This is exactly right. They built their own leftist haven and became a whole culture of their own, and then became federated. There is bound to be an initial clash, but honestly I think most of the people who hate on them never gave them a chance. All they saw were the shitposts and the in-jokes and you closed the door.

      When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users

      • if you don’t like what someone is saying (because it’s idiotic, obstrusive, or whatever), block the person for some peace of mind.

      • if you’re consistently uninterested on the content coming from an instance, block the instance.

      I see a lot of leftists (and leaning leftists), even on .world, who would be better off interacting with the users there (maybe blocking the shitposting comms). And outside of those most-seen comms (chapotraphouse and dunk_tank), there is genuine conversation and less shit talking and in-jokes. I believe, with more instances coming in that are federated with them (mine, .ml, and lem.ee? are a couple), some of the Hex-natives are understanding how to interact with curious left-leaning people with unintentionally wrong-headed ideas.

      Downvote me all you want, I stand by Hexbear. o7

    • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialEnglish
      01·
      6 months ago

      This is the most reasonable response.

      A lot of people here have long since made up their mind about hexbear based both on repeated meta posting on the topic and possibly a bad experience or two with them on a topic they assumed was uncontested but is a landmine topic for communists of a particular bent

      I’ve personally never had a bad experience with hexbears, possibly because I’m more empathetic to their perspective, but more likely because I know when it’s time to disengage. There are users on lemmy who feel strongly about a certain topic that’s abrasive to hexbear users and dig in their heels when jeered at (or maybe feel a personal responsibility to stand them down) and are usually the users here who have the most complaints, because the standard reaction from hexbear users is irreverence (both the users and the mods).

      Unlike a lot of liberals coming from reddit, communists often don’t have delusions about the neutrality of moderation and so they’ll ban you on a whim if they think you’re there to stir shit. They use the ban hammer judiciously even with users on their own instance. That’s often the biggest complaint both with hexbear and with lemmy.ml.

  • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Not really. They have a lot of bits and in-jokes which are going to seem incomprehensible to anyone from the outside, but most of them are pretty chill if you engage in good faith. It’s like a lot of tech communities; if you don’t do your research and ask intelligent questions, you’re likely to get told to RTFM.

  • TerkErJerbs@lemm.ee
    0·
    6 months ago

    idk, I’ve seen all the hype around hexbear users being obnoxious around Lemmy (including our own instance debating blocking the instance, followed by several of their members brigading the thread true to form)… but I’ve explored the communities on the instance itself and even subscribed to some of them like mutual aid, gaming etc, and those that I’m watching are actually just normal people doing normal things if more left than some other similar groups. In my experience it isn’t “all” hexbear users, because that would be a dumb generalization.

    There are some assholes on that instance to be sure. Show me one that this isn’t true of. I’m glad our instance didn’t block them because I now get to decide for myself. I block communities and/or users if they’re a problem for me. I think that’s a good way.