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
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.
I agree, completely. To me it looks like there’s some feedback loops involved, and talking points that leaked out from people ideologically similar to Vaush/Maupin into the wider community. Anarchists tell each other not to trust people trying to get them to read, and Marxists are told not to take anarchists seriously cuz they’re dirty fedposters. And then their actual behaviors confirm stereotypes.
Marxists need to loosen up and not dry-dick their way into discussions (couldn’t think of a better analogy). You don’t start people on State and Revolution. You start them out with Parenti or Freire or Angela Davis or with some short digestible pamphlets that don’t require a huge time investment. I know zines are old fashioned but some kind of blog-post type thing could act as an equivalent. It feels like the libs get to hoard all the creatives because they have the money and the art schools.
