I’ve come to two realizations recently:
One
The sudden tankie willingness to believe that Trump cares about a cease-fire in Gaza, and got tough with the Israelis and then they capitulated which Biden could have done at any time, sheds some interesting light on how the tankies think. They accuse anyone who disagrees with them of shifting their realities around, such that anything Biden does is good, anything the State Department says is always true, even if it contradicts itself or basic common sense or reality. I always thought that this was just a lazy reality-free arguing tactic, but in retrospect, I should have realized that it’s a tell about their own thought process. Just like it’s a warning sign if someone constantly suspects their partner of cheating, or is constantly on an absurdly hypervigilant lookout for scams and people trying to cheat them out of money, this is a key revelation about the way Hexbear itself looks at reality.
Trump is a capable diplomat, if believing that lets them trash Biden. Trump cares about Palestinians, if believing that lets them trash Biden. The cart is firmly in its place in front, and everything else including the horse can follow along depending on what the cart dictates.
Two
Hexbear’s censorship, and wild hostility to anyone who comes to “their” place and tries not to toe the party line, really does do a pretty effective job of distorting the view of reality and consensus that their users are able to experience.
Take a look at these and compare:
If you want to understand and observe there is the podcast ‘Chapo Trap House’ which you can look into. Hexbear quite literally originated from its fanbase, and makes their antics make a whole lot more sense.
I don’t know… I appreciate the suggestion but that sounds a little closer to the sun than I want to fly.
You don’t really need to listen to the podcast itself, but knowing about it is really useful. Essentially the whole schtick is being vulgar to trigger those who are unable or unwilling to challenge the status quo.
The podcast does it better than the derivative of its fanbase.
The other Hexbear thing is they don’t have downvotes and encourage dogpiling in disagreement, which is a big cultural no-no for the redditor.
So the antagonization forms a feedback loop, understandably.
Hm. I have had people do that to me on Lemmy, quite badly. They’ll argue in bad faith, and then I’ll get irritated at them for it, and then they’ll say they’re just being wrong on purpose, so they can challenge the status quo, and if I’m irritated then they are succeeding. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I just have never heard of a people’s powerful movement that used that as the tactic, and had that type of thing be instrumental in its success.
There are plenty of people who’ve been extreme or shocking in their presentation to attract attention to the cause, without being abrasive cocks about it. The Yes Men did it, the Yippies did it. I did look a little bit into Chapo Trap House, and I definitely did like what little bit I read, so maybe you’re right. I’m just so skeptical based on see what their fanbase is like.
Of course, I think almost anything effective on the American left at this point is going to get assailed by all kinds of glowies trying to divert the conversation into hostility, infighting, and impotence. Maybe the podcast format lets the authentic stuff speak, and anything online and anonymous with mass participation is just too porous a medium to keep those efforts out, and so it’s inevitably doomed to collapse into Hexbear over time.
It is about breaking the default mindsets and forcing critical thinking into areas unallowed in most discourse. On one hand it does help people begin to dispel narratives people have been raised on. On the other hand it can just harden people against it and foster prejudices.
Most people I know in America willing to use the C and S word in politics know they will never achieve honest discourse in the current culture and climate. But that’s been changing more in the last 10 or so years than I have ever seen, for what it is worth. But, like, Luigi has done more than a podcast, Hexbear or any instance in that regard.