Funny to think I wasn’t here in these 2020-2023 years

As much as I have read many struggle sessions here, I believe the current atmosphere is much more chiller compared to the previous period (note to self- I’ll prolly elaborate later)

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    47·
    11 days ago

    You think that’s bad, you should’ve been there during the early days of the Chapo subreddit

    Summer 2017 “Are Native Americans ethnonationalists?” that was the struggle session that nearly destroyed the sub and led to the creation of stupidpol

    And the big march 2018 struggle session; when a famous power user claimed Marx is outdated because he “couldn’t account for marginal utility theory” and that’s why “the future of socialism is marginalism” that shit got hundreds of upvotes believe it or not

    Or the summer 2019 struggle session about whether a Palestinian woman living in the West Bank was “racist” for trolling a thirsty Israeli on a dating app, first time I was downvoted into the hundreds for pointing out basic facts about Israel/Palestine and the nature of settler colonialism

    I’ll take vegan debates and yelling about cats over that shit any day

  • Moss [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    28·
    11 days ago

    I was here since day one, it took a long time to purge the toxicity. Sometimes I had to log off for a few days because people were being needlessly mean to each other. The current mods are a lot better, the old mod team used to clash with the user base all the time. I got banned for arguing with a mod and that made me think the site was doomed.

    It’s so much better now. The vibes are a lot nicer, and the purpose of the site has settled on a place for communists and anarchists to talk about silly things and discuss politics with people who aren’t thirsty for the blood of workers.

  • ToxicDivinity [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    24·
    11 days ago

    You missed a lot. We found video proof from forgotten USSR vaults that Kubrick faked the moon landing. We don’t have it anymore, the dirty owl lent it to a friend and that friend gave it to John Kerry in exchange for the heinz ketchup recipe.

  • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    23·
    11 days ago

    Been here from the beginning, honestly I feel like the big arguments and drama were mostly for the best. We wouldn’t have the community we have today without them.

  • ButtBidet [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    22·
    11 days ago

    Wow this is so bullshit. I can’t believe you’d support outdoor cats.

    spoiler

    /s

    Honestly, though, I lived through those times and I don’t feel that it was so terrible. Granted I’m old, but one can just like click “read” on a reply and move on with their life.

    That said, I do appreciate the “no debate bro” rule/vibe here now. Pedantically arguing small things to death isn’t fun. There’s probably a few issues that deserve large arguments, but also heaps and heaps that do not.

    • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
      English
      18·
      11 days ago

      I lived through those times, and even though I didn’t partake in the struggle sessions, I kinda learned stuff from them? Even if it’s just to understand why people hold certain opinions so strongly. And the trans struggle session helped me crack my egg.

      I agree with you though. Even if I find myself disagreeing with someone on here, the vibe is much more constructive than argumentative. Like it’s not arguing for the same of owning whomever across the screen, but out of curiosity and a need to be clear in your speech.

      • ButtBidet [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        3·
        11 days ago

        Some instances on Lemmy don’t have the disengage rule, and debate bro behaviour is just OK. I’m not complaining, for some people it’s a freeze-peach issue. But if I was talking over something in a pub, and some guy was like “can we please change the subject”, I think it’s a normal level of politeness to do that and not go “DA FUCK, Y U no admit you wrong”.

        It might just be an old man thing, but I’ve never gotten a legit “disengage” in my five years here.

  • regul [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    191·
    11 days ago

    It’s “chiller” because the number of posters keeps going down.

    I drastically preferred the old sub because it was a lively and well-populated leftist space that preferred dunking to scolding.

    Here is not that. There just aren’t enough posters. I don’t think a place like that really exists anymore.

    • Hermes [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      24·
      11 days ago

      It’s “chiller” because the number of posters keeps going down.

      ? we peaked at ~950 DAU in late 2024 down to a little over 850 now, in 2023 there were only 550ish. This is based on the wayback machine giving numbers so it may be a little off. From what I remember, most of the drop from 950 to 850 was a single drop after the election (maybe the USAID cuts costanza-maoist )

    • CARCOSA [mirror/your pronouns]@hexbear.netEnglish
      18·
      11 days ago

      Do you have numerical proof of it going down or is this vibes based? Based on the average number of active users we have generally been slowly growing (around 2%) for years with large activity spikes around major events. We are easily in the top 5 most active lemmy instances (lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, lemmynsfw, lemmy.ml and hexbear)