On this day 2 years ago, Hexbear was launched. Originally known as chapo.chat , hexbear.net has grown into a veritable juggernaut. Some believe that Amazon discontinued the Alexa website rankings in May 2022 to prevent hexbear.net from claiming the top spot.
Despite weirdly intense attention from wreckers over the years, hexbear.net is going strong on her second birthday, with excellent engagement numbers, and a wholesome, caring community. My sincere thanks to everyone that continues to be part of it, whether as a lurker, sporadic poster, or terminally-online power poster. On this second Hexday, I would also like to give a special shoutout to the many users who have been here since July 25th, 2020 and remain active to this day.
I’d also like to recognize emeritus site developers @ScreamoBMO and @DashEightMate for their countless contributions to the site. They retired from active development and moderation last year after many, many hours of volunteering, and we absolutely would not have this site without them.
We are, of course, also grateful to our current moderation and development teams, but I’ll refrain from tagging anyone by name as contributors may have different levels of comfort with public acknowledgement. I will say that, of all the team members, I contribute the least (I 'm just comfortable with “public speaking”), so there are many other people out there who deserve a ton of credit for keeping this site going.
Furthermore, I am pleased to reveal that, amidst all the liberals, we have–at long last–determined that the One True Leftist is also a user of this site, and it’s you.
Finally, on a serious note, I will say that while this site is many things to many people, it has never been a movement; it’s a place for people who are part of a movement. So, to the extent that you are able, go outside and do your praxis, then come inside to hexbear.net for a comforting cup of virtual tea. Be excellent to each other and viva la hexbear.
Does that make sense? I think it does.
With communist greetings,
Quimby
(posting on behalf of myself; views may or may not reflect those of the rest of the moderation team)
Announcements & Information
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
❤️ Come listen to music with your fellow Hexbears in Cy.tube
💖 Come talk in the New weekly queer thread
🧡 Monthly Neurodiverse Megathread
💛 Read about a current topic in the news
⭐️ June Movie Thread ⭐️
Reminders:
💚 You can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments and discussions over upbears
💜 Sorting by new makes your comrades happy
🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can go here
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
spoiler
Aid:
💙 Comprehensive list of resources for those in need of an abortion -- reddit link
💙 Resources for Palestine
Theory:
❤️ Foundations of Leninism
❤️ Anarchism and Other Essays
❤️ Mega upload with theory for many tendencies
No, it runs vanilla Lemmy. Lemmygrad was created by the devs (Dessalines and Nutomic) simultaneously with the flagship site. It’s meant to be a silo to draw marxists away from the main server Lemmy.ml, but give them a space to post, as the devs are ideologically Marxist.
Both servers can communicate/federate with one another, so people on the Lemmygrad server can post, comment and vote on the flagship server and vice versa, along with any other server that federates with them (beehaw, mander, perthchat, etc.). There is currently a struggle session happening because GenZedong users absolutely flood the federated timeline (an aggregate of everything from all the servers) with commie shit. All the libs are getting super buttmad about the sanctity of free software proselytism (they never comment on posts and only post tech news) and the 5 lib-adjacent anarchists are calling everyone who disagrees with them authoritarian and would prefer to go back to not talking to each other and commenting once a week.
Somehow they think the Marxists are going to destroy the site when they’re the only ones actually using it as intended. They really could work on their sectarianism/people skills though.
All the libs are getting super buttmad about the sanctity of free software proselytism (they never comment on posts and only post tech news) and the 5 lib-adjacent anarchists are calling everyone who disagrees with them authoritarian and would prefer to go back to not talking to each other and commenting once a week.
lmfao
Somehow they think the Marxists are going to destroy the site when they’re the only ones actually using it as intended. They really could work on their sectarianism/people skills though.
Very funny but also extremely true. If only some GenZedongers put as much effort into finding unity and collective purpose with their fellow leftists as they did posting shitpost dunks on anarchists. And this is coming from someone who leans ML
I’ve been trying to read theory on both sides. What’s frustrating is anarchists who don’t read their own gosh dang theory. It only emboldens their opponents to lean into tankie vibes for teh lulz and talk circles around them. I think hardline MLs could learn a thing or two from anarchists, but they have to actually meet one they can respect as having a fleshed out worldview. Imo it would do them some good to encounter some hexbears.
I do agree that the distaste so many MLs have for anarchists often comes from a lack of formal and well-developed anarchist theory. After all, MLs generally see theory as the absolute foundation on which all discussion should be built, and they have trouble crossing this ideological divide. Still, I really feel that we leftists do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which leftists are “leftist enough” to collaborate with. The odds are against us, especially in the west, and we need on our team every good-faith leftist that we can find. Uniting to fight against capitalism, neo-nazism, imperialism, and fascism is infinitely more important than fighting with each other over ideology.
