WTF is happening on Hexbear?

Hexbear's new head of operations just dropped, and their way of dealing with the fallout of their last struggle session is to hand bans out like candy to their concerned and disillusioned users while throwing out "epic" quips like insecure teenagers along the way coupled with their communication (and seemingly contempt) towards their own userbase which isn't helping their allegations at all and the revelations that were learned about Hexbear's moderators and admins from their most recent struggle session.

The last few days have honestly shaken my faith in Hexbear and their team and I hope the mods and admins at Lemmygrad are monitoring the situation closely.

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Isn't there? What about people who don't want to engage in 2 Minutes of Hate or profess their love for Big Brother?
The fuck are you on about? We're not talking about sieg heiling, we're talking about affirming that a space is not only friendly to trans people, but vocally so.
but because they feel weird being expected to publicly affirm something
Fuck off! No one forced anyone to ever post in those threads! Why would you feel imposed upon?? Why would expressing acceptance of your trans comrades make you feel weird??
This shit is why we had those threads too. It really fucking makes the weeds stick out. And maybe friendly fire happened sometimes, and unfortunately for Gribbli's friend it was a strongly negative experience, but look what happens when some comrades are confronted with it. That's why TC69 had a cult of personality. Because she has a point.
- That’s why TC69 had a cult of personality. Because she has a point.
  Look, I don't really have a stake in the particular disagreement here about affirmations, but the one thing does not follow from the other here. People don't deserve a cult of personality because they are right about things sometimes. That's how you get literal cults. Even figures who have contributed an enormous amount to the global struggle of liberation, such as Mao, Lenin, Castro, they still don't deserve a cult of personality. They just deserve respect for their contributions and it makes sense to look at what they did that worked to see how it can be applied to a modern day context, within a person's specific locale. And depending on where you live, it might make sense to honor them as a representation of liberation and the ongoing revolutionary struggle. But no one, living or dead, is above criticism and people who are right some of the time are also wrong at times too. Some of the most effective revolutionaries can still make terrible decisions.
  Resist putting people on a pedestal in "great person theory" style. People can in very rare cases be symbols of an example to live up to, but in the day to day, they are still normal human beings. It's healthier to elevate a process or technique as exemplary and maintain people's humanity as something realistic and grounded. A cult of personality perspective would have us rejecting hand-washing if it came out that scientists who figured out germs were terrible people. I think of that satire article "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point". Whether someone has good ideas sometimes or does good things sometimes, does not necessarily mean anything about what they will do going forward. We are human, not a computer program. There are computer programs that can predictably do the same thing each time they run. Humans just aren't built that way and we will never be industrial factory-grade machines, no matter how much we get dehumanized and portrayed that way.
  
  Pal that was a joke.
  
  Huh? What about the context of that post sounds like joking to you?
  
  The cult of personality thing is a joke, there is nobody here with a cult of personality around them. The point they’re making is that this isn’t just a ritual where you turn your brain off and praise __, like multitotal’s 1984 comparison, but that praise comes because the thing is correct and people are understanding that on their own.
  
  I'm gonna need the original poster to confirm it's a joke, not a secondhand read because I don't see anything joking in the tone of it and I've seen at least one other comment that also implied putting this person on a pedestal.
  
  I think it was my comment, and no it was not a joke. You can kinda see the results of this...idk following? Reputation? here in this thread. I don't know why a not insignificant amount of hexbears seem to believe TC69 is beyond reproach. Legit all the people I saw arguing with her and getting banned were upset about the apparent transphobia in the mod team.
  
  It wasn’t your comment.
  
  My apologies then.
- On hexbear people must record themselves clearly and loudly proclaiming "I love my trans comrades" before posting. This recording is checked automatically to make sure it's new and it's a bannable offense to use the same recording twice. It is then verified manually to make sure the recording is clear and loud enough. This is done for every post or comment that is submitted. There are petabytes of storage used just for all the "I love my trans comrades" recordings.
  
  Great tagline potential tbh
- Thanks for reminding me why I don't frequent hexbear much.
  
  Elaborate
- Yeahhhhhh wth
- Fuck off! No one forced anyone to ever post in those threads! Why would you feel imposed upon??
  Next paragraph
  This shit is why we had those threads too. It really fucking makes the weeds stick out.
  LMAO!
  Thanks for proving my point better than I ever could.
  
  I scrolled past those threads without interacting and faced absolutely no consequences or criticism for it. There was no expectation to engage, just that you don't engage negatively.
  
  I compare it to "mandatory fun time" at work. Many workplaces have a Friday outing where people go drink with their bosses at a bar. It's not mandatory, yet everyone feels like they have to go. They feel that way because going to those events shows you're a team player, because if a round of layoffs/redundancies comes, the bosses will pick those people who don't fit into the "work culture". So despite it not being mandatory, one's presence or absence is noted.
  That is what I have a problem with. That and the insistence that it isn't mandatory when it obviously is.
  
  I aired my complaints about TC69 and her fans here but don't get it twisted, the posts weren't mandatory. The original issue I mentioned was a misunderstanding resulting in a dogpile of a cool person who didn't deserve it, and the causes are not unlike what occurred in this most recent struggle session.
  
  I never said you said it was mandatory, and I didn't mean to imply it. I was merely stating how a daily thread on "I love x" (whatever x is) is a bit weird, that's all. If the hexbear people had a daily "I love communism" thread I'd still think it's weird and I would still think it's mandatory. The pledge of allegiance isn't mandatory, yet the vast majority of kids/students/people in America do it. Why? Standing up for the anthem is not mandatory, yet everyone does it. Did you see the reactions when people didn't stand for the anthem in America? For me it is the same thing. Many things in life are not mandatory but as I have come to find out, they are expected of you.
  
  There is no daily thread, there is no expectation, and unlike the pledge of allegiance, you can’t look around and see people sitting down. Someone not posting in a thread doesn’t necessarily mean anything and I dare you to give me one example of anyone facing anything for not posting that they “love [their] trans comrades” ever in the history of the site.
  
  I dare you to give me one example
  That is exactly the same argument people use when one tries to explain to a native of a colonialist/imperialist country what it is like to experience discrimination in their country. Btw, I am not making any assumptions about you, I am talking about your argument. They always ask "well, can you prove it? give an example!" and it's like, you can't really prove it because it isn't anything written down or a physical thing you can take a picture of. It's a feeling among people and one that people have, it's what you feel hanging in the air.
  Let's ignore the "daily trans thread", here's a different example.
  If you see a username on a website for months, that username sometimes writes things you agree with etc., and then a new username comes. You're more inclined to trust the username you have seen around for months, aren't you? If someone asked you who should be a mod, you'd pick the username you know better. If someone asks you why, you'd explain it "I just know that person" or "I know them better". And that is what it is about, knowing someone better.
  As you, correctly said, not posting in the thread gives no information at all. But posting in it, signals to you that that person is pro- whatever you are pro-, and from then on you know the person a bit better (we're assuming honesty and genuine expression here). So if ever a time comes when you have to choose, either vote for, or take a side in an argument, or help, or whatever, and all things being equal, it comes down to the fact that you will choose the person who you've seen posting in that thread over a person who you haven't.
  
  It wasn't mandatory. I was there.
  
  Except it isn’t. This is all spun out of your head. Try giving the slightest bit of evidence for your point that participation is de-facto mandatory.
  
  Try giving the slightest bit of evidence for your point that participation is de-facto mandatory.
  The fact that you're behaving like an unhinged zealot who just heard a random person on the street say something negative about their cult leads me to believe that your cult-like practice is in fact cult-like.
  
  I’m not behaving like an unhinged zealot, I’m asking you to give evidence of what you’re saying, because what you’re saying is wrong.
  Me not pointing out that your arguments are nonsense is proof you’re right because nobody is arguing against you, but if I do so I am showing the cult-like tendency of attacking disbelievers. It’s all very simple really.
  You’re deflecting. And no, saying something is “cult-like” doesn’t prove it’s “cult-like.” Actually a pathetic attempt to flip the conversation.
  
  Your whole attitude towards me from the start was negative and confrontational. I expressed an opinion and you said I should delete my account, called me an idiot, questioned my mental faculties, and then shouted at me in all caps. what kind of response did you expect?
  I’m asking you to give evidence
  For what purpose when you know I don't have any? I don't go on hexbear, I did just recently to see all this drama, so I'm not gonna be able to give you any evidence because I am basing my impression on posts that may not be indicative of the wider community and on the comments of others.
  what you’re saying is wrong.
  OK, I'm happy to accept that. I am wrong, you are right. But it is all right, everything is all right, the struggle is finished. I won the victory over myself. I love Big Brother.
  
  Your whole attitude towards me from the start was negative and confrontational. I expressed an opinion and you said I should delete my account, called me an idiot, questioned my mental faculties, and then shouted at me in all caps. what kind of response did you expect?
  Just one response with the semblance of a correct point. What did you expect when you got a response to your original comment explaining why it was wrong and decided to smugly misunderstand it and continue digging your hole with awful arguments and bad info?
  Can you get out of your Orwell irony for one second? You admit you know nothing about the site, and yet use irony to deflect from admitting you’re wrong. I’m not asking you to submit to anything, you’re not in a dystopia, you thought there were daily threads where users were expected to say something and there weren’t. There never were. And no “we were always at war with Eurasia” nonsense. Just stop.
  
  What did you expect when you got a response to your original comment explaining why it was wrong and decided to smugly misunderstand it and continue digging your hole with awful arguments and bad info?
  Not to be insulted for one. I made a general comment about a whole website, and here you are insulting me personally. Did I insult you? Did I say "hexbear, and especially robinn_"??
  decided to smugly misunderstand it
  I decided to misunderstand it? Misunderstand implies one didn't understand something, saying I decided to misunderstand makes no sense because you're saying I understood the point but chose to interpret it incorrectly, and that's a different accusation entirely.
  use irony to deflect from admitting you’re wrong.
  I said I was wrong. Wrong about it being a daily thread.
  
  My insults are actually very straightforward and not revenge for being insulted in the first place. I insulted your intelligence because your replies are unintelligent.
  I think your misunderstanding is a product of your needing to be right alongside poor reading comprehension. You decided to be cemented in your beliefs rather than take a closer look.
  Lastly, check the chronological order and what comments you’re replying to. Please don’t keep replying to me, it’s the same thing over and over again.
  
  Hi. As someone that is no longer on the admin team but was in favor of TC69 stepping down after all this, you just sound like you're trying to mask transphobia behind a critique of a single user. The memes about TC69 come from the fact that she was the one that spearheaded the pronoun tags and the removal of downvotes to combat transphobia, both of which resulted in massive struggle sessions and ban waves that ultimately made the site better, now this situation is different but no more volatile than any previous upheavals. No investigation no right to speak.
  People were literally downvote brigading any tans-positive post anonymously before we made it so that admins could see who the driveby downvotes came from to take action. That led to the removal of the downvote altogether which has had a majorly positive impact on the site as a whole, so there is a reason she was trusted and well liked when she returned.
  
  you just sound like you’re trying to mask transphobia
  You wouldn't accuse me of being transphobic if I posted in that thread. Why do you have to assume that just because I don't engage in your liberal performative rituals that I am against whatever that ritual is about? And then you also say "posting in those threads isn't mandatory". Yeah, if you don't want to be considered a transphobe.
  IRL, I've both educated people on trans issues, pronouns and advocated for removing transphobic people from spaces. So that's why the accusation feels like an insult rather than a judgment on me or my behaviour. Feel free to go through my entire post history on lemmygrad and find something that can be construed or interpreted as transphobic.
  so there is a reason she was trusted and well liked when she returned.
  I read her 1-2 recent posts on hexbear and she doesn't sound like a good person to me, she sounds egoistic. I wasn't there to see the hexbear cultural revolution and start of the golden age, I am not claiming to know everything. I gave my impressions on Hexbear in a thread on Hexbear. Or wait, was this one of those "I love Hexbear" ritual threads? Dammit! I'm terrible at reading social cues.
  
  Which person are you talking about because I was referring only to the I Love My Trans Comrades posts that you seem to have some sort of issue with hence the accusation.
  
  Which person are you talking about
  TC69
  I was referring only to the I Love My Trans Comrades posts that you seem to have some sort of issue with
  I don't have a problem with that thread in particular, I have a problem with a "I love x" in general. As an autist my whole life I have been outside looking in. I see social rituals as exclusionary, because I could never pick up on the cues or know which "non mandatory" things are actually mandatory. So when I see an expression of a shared micro-culture online (like a forum) it makes me weary because from my experience 1) people who develop a "shared culture" often expect you to not have any other cultures, 2) group goes through purges and "purifications". Can you take a wild guess who'd be one of the first ones to be purged?
  And why? Look, people have accused me of being transphobic because I don't use the same language, same signifiers and symbols or ways of talking/thinking, and because I went against what is apparently established canon or whatever. Do you see now why I might be weary of joining any group where I think that some sort of wink-wink signaling to one another might be necessary?
  
  I have a problem with a "I love x" in general
  That is your problem not ours or our comrades who feel validated by such posts.
  established canon or whatever.
  Wtf do you mean by this? What language do you not use and why don't you simply adopt new words into your vocabulary? As an ML surely you have done so in the past. All this just comes off as excuses for bigotry. Hell every single one of us is always adapting our language as we learn new words and concepts this is a really weird and honestly sus argument.
  As an autist my whole life
  Also quite fuckin insulting to use being ND as a shield.
  
  This shit is why we had those threads too. It really fucking makes the weeds stick out.
  LMAO!
  Thanks for proving my point better than I ever could.
  That doesn't prove your point though, if anything this proves his point...
  Those threads never FORCED you to post in them, but they sure did bait a lot of people to poke their heads out to out themselves. It was like flytraps for misogyny and transphobia.
  
  I would genuinely delete your account. Your smugness is so embarrassing. How did you miss the point this obviously? To reiterate what they said, people are not “expected” to publicly affirm anything. They aren’t told to do anything. There is no requirement to post that you “love your trans comrades” like in your Orwell slop. But all this really is no clearer than:
  No one forced anyone to ever post in those threads! Why would you feel imposed upon??
  What they are saying is not that not posting about “loving your trans comrades” is some indication of treachery, because that isn’t a statement in itself, but that people voluntarily enter these posts and go off against trans people and this weeds them out.
  THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION, IN FACT THE SECOND POINT YOU QUOTED FOLLOWS FROM THE FIRST!!!
  
  I would genuinely delete your account.
  Luckily you don't have that power. phew
  Your smugness is so embarrassing.
  Please don't feel embarrassed.
  There is no requirement to post that you “love your trans comrades” like in your Orwell slop.
  
  keyword: daily. I already compared it to another social situation where something is also not mandatory, but it is expected.
  that people voluntarily enter these posts and go off against trans people and this weeds them out.
  So the thread was a ruse, feigning a daily ritual to provoke those who don't belong in revealing themselves, all the while the ritual's true purpose was obvious for those in the know. Totally not a cult. You're so knee-deep into it though that you don't see it, I'm trying to give you an outsider's perspective. Forums that aren't run on the logic of a cult just remove transphobic posts and warn/ban the person who made them.
  
  Please don't feel embarrassed.
  Below pedantry.
  keyword: daily. I already compared it to another social situation where something is also not mandatory, but it is expected.
  It’s not expected. There is no expectation that you must post daily, or ever, that you “love your trans comrades.” You compared it to another social situation, I asked for evidence posting in these threads is taken into account somehow like with that example and you said I was in a cult.
  You’re quoting Gribbli for the daily point, but they didn’t literally mean daily. This doesn’t happen daily on like a schedule where you’re expected to post this, or even where anybody posts this. It happens often but if that’s your keyword, your argument is washed. You can access all posts on Hexbear, so tell me where this is posted daily.
  So the thread was a ruse, feigning a daily ritual to provoke those who don't belong in revealing themselves, all the while the ritual's true purpose was obvious for those in the know.
  It’s not a daily ritual. You know nothing about Hexbear and yet you feel like you can critique the site culture. You’re actually embarrassing yourself. No, the point of people posting that they “love their trans comrades” is both to show support and to make the site’s position clear and turn away/root out any anti-trans users. These aren’t mutually exclusive.
  I'm trying to give you an outsider's perspective
  You’re an outsider times two. You’re going off the word of another outsider and extrapolating that to spin up this idea that users saying they love their trans comrades is some daily ritual that users will be rewarded for or punished for not completing. You have no clue what you’re talking about.
  
  Now I feel kinda bad for airing old hexbear semi-drama. Really didn't mean for anyone to try to make a point with it, just wanted to state my own experience :\
  
  they didn’t literally mean daily.
  Well, I wouldn't know.
  You know nothing about Hexbear and yet you feel like you can critique the site culture.
  This is true.
  It’s not a daily ritual.
  Not a daily ritual then, but a ritual nonetheless.
  to show support and to make the site’s position clear and turn away/root out any anti-trans users. These aren’t mutually exclusive.
  Yes, it can be all those things and still be a ritual
  Rituals are meaningful actions marked by rigidity, formality, and repetition.
  "to show support"
  Group rituals promote cognitive, affective, and behavioral group commitment.
  "to make the site’s position clear"
  Group rituals not only signal commitment (external) but enhance it internally.
  "turn away/root out any anti-trans users"
  Rituals are a normal part of human life, we have all sorts of rituals. That said, rituals on websites are weird.
  that users will be rewarded for or punished for not completing
  I never said that. But I will bet you that people who are regulars in those sorts of threads look more favourably on each other. Why are we pretending like I invented the concept of feeling belonging to a group? What I am saying is not controversial. You claim I got it wrong, but then confirm my assumptions, and then you get angry about it.
  I am sorry if the word "cult" rubbed you the wrong way, it was hyperbole, I didn't mean to insult anyone. Much like "daily thread" doesn't mean literally daily. I don't mean that you are literally in a cult. Hexbear seems to engage in rituals that strengthen group belonging, I am not making a value judgment wrong or right, I think it's weird and I don't like it.
  
  You know nothing about Hexbear and yet you feel like you can critique the site culture.
  This is true.
  No investigation, no right to speak.
  
  Fair. That could have been the first response. But I guess you all had to get the insults out of you, I hope it was cathartic.
  
  You are one smug piece of shit you know that right?
  It is almost impressive.
  
  Typical bully response.
  
  Alright, you wouldn’t know anything about this. Then there’s nothing else to say.
  I didn’t confirm your assumptions, I already responded to this. Call it a ritual if you like, I don’t care. Genuinely just semantics. The argument comes in when you say that it’s weird and you “don’t like it” (welcome back Kamala!!).
  I never said that. But I will bet you that people who are regulars in those sorts of threads look more favourably on each other.
  So? You could say that for any thread. People interact with each other and share viewpoints and form connections. How sinister!! This is not the same as what you said before. You now this.
- TC69 got a cult (which is overstating it given how rarely it came up) because she left and could become whatever people wanted her to be. Evidently didn't hold up to the real thing, she already deleted her account.

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