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.
Eh, never really interacted with TC69 or the cult around her, except once during the post-pronouns shitstorm. A friend, who is trans, ND, long time user and friend to many, asked if the daily “I love my trans comrades” felt “a tiny bit rote/performative” and got fuckin murder-dogpiled and banned instantly. Called terf, chud, etc., by the TC69 adjacent crowd. Was pretty upsetting and she never came back even after the ban was lifted :(
Part of the reason I really don’t like the power user/celebrity culture on HB
After I saw the one or two posts TC69 wrote I could immediately see they’re not a good person. TC69 is an insufferable jerk, being part of a marginalised community doesn’t give them the right to behave like a shitty person (in fact, they should know better).
I am like, actually baffled by the ridiculous hostility this generated! Glad I already had this acct in the back pocket, guess I’m full migrating to the grad >_>
to be fair that is pretty much textbook concern trolling. And understand the context of this was the height of the red state rush to pass anti-trans laws. There’s no harm in positive affirmations like that
Right, but as in this exact situation, no matter how long a person was a known poster with no such opinions, horrible shit got leveled at them when they crossed the clique culture. I can understand why someone would think it’s concern trolling, but again: known trans, autistic user asking a question. Transparent discussion is what was needed 4 years ago and not all that rabid shit, and here we see it repeated with the same culture today.
Removed by mod
“Did you hear? In eeeevil socialist Hexbear, people have to praise trans people in every comment or post, or they are sent to gulag on sight!”
Lmao are you for real?
Did you have to reference your Hitlerite Orwell-slop to compare showing support for trans people to praising a dictator?? If you say it’s just the principle of being expected to “profess their love” of something, the principle doesn’t fit either, as clearly shown below. You’re such a fucking idiot.
Luckily for you, you won’t be seeing me on hexbear.
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.
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.
You’re right tbh
It rarely came up and ofc this being Hexbear it’s tangled in like 7 layers of irony and sincerity, but the vibe I always got was that “TC69 thought” was beyond criticism and everyone who did have something to say in response was either in the group of transphobe wreckers who got purged by her (based, good (that they got purged)) and anyone left from that time who still remembered it, besides the “”““legends””“” about her making everyone read based books, had stopped challenging it cuz of the aforementioned dogpiling
Until today, now it seems TC69 has stepped down again, deleted her account, and her partner has been banned and people are talking about it and criticising her in the YET-ANOTHER megathread
Wild day in niche bear-themed web forum history, the TC69 cult of personality has fallen?
I hope all this shit is entertaining to the Lemmygradians at least lmao
I just hope you get a resolution that is to the benefit of hexbear users. 🙏 I know for some people, these places are a serious part of their lives, no matter whether it involves some shitposting too, and I wouldn’t want that to get messed up by mismanagement or irony poisoning or whatnot.
Same here, ty
Had one of our just-unbanned users drop a rly heartfelt reply about how the site helped her realize she was trans and get through some rly bad times in her life and it upset her a lot to see the behavior of some of the admins
It’s rly silly drama but the site has legit helped people
Okay I gotta log off fr now, am tired and this is starting to loop back around from upsetting to hilarious lol, bad state to be in for sincere talking and I spend enough energy on this
Edit: Post I mentioned is here if you wanna read: https://hexbear.net/comment/5618885
Rest well!
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.
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
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.
Thanks for reminding me why I don’t frequent hexbear much.
Elaborate
Next paragraph
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 get the feeling they want to engage negativity
Yeah as much a shitshow everything today has been the way people talk about or criticize TC69 speaks volumes about their intent.
Like mfers we are all very well versed in reactionary dogwhistles. Yall can’t just try to slap red paint on them and think you gonna fool us.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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!!!
Luckily you don’t have that power. phew
Please don’t feel embarrassed.
keyword: daily. I already compared it to another social situation where something is also not mandatory, but it is expected.
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.
It’s true I didn’t say “I love my trans comrades” today and got banned 20000000000,0000,00,00 trillion times! 😱😱😱😭😭😭😭
spoiler
I am joking and it’s hilarious that I even have to clarify that
Hexbear went woke 😞
Wow, another cult member.
Below pedantry.
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.
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.
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 :\
Well, I wouldn’t know.
This is true.
Not a daily ritual then, but a ritual nonetheless.
Yes, it can be all those things and still be a ritual
“to show support”
“to make the site’s position clear”
“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.
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.
Yeahhhhhh wth
Yeah this struggle session has me questioning if this is the community for me.
It may be, this stuff is definitely not indicative of the hexbear day-to-day; I think that the return of a “celebrity” poster (for what niche forum e-celebrity is worth), the American election, and the discourse about the tanks, happened to coalesce into the perfect storm. You’ve been around a while though, you probably have a good idea of the current culture and whether or not it’s worth it for you to stick around through this silliness.
Personally, the mod drama convinced me to just eat the ban amidst all this noise and dip. I never really had any personal connections or friendships with hexbear users (that didn’t already happen to be friends elsewhere anyway), and I wasn’t some “notable”. It wasn’t worth the drama and stress arguing about hurt feelings and transphobia caused by mod squabbles.
We prefer Knight-Warriors of TC69 rather than cultist thankyouverymuch
👌
edit: for all the “I love my trans comrades” from y’all you’re suuuper quick to axe any trans person who questions TC huh
What did you catch a ban and thought “if you die on hexbear you die in real life”
I feel like this is exactly the irony poisoned toxic attitude that has led to this getting so bad :/
I wasn’t around during the early days, heard lots of good things about TC69, purging transphobe wreckers and making people read is based :3
But is kinda wild and not a good look that she showed up again one day, the biggest struggle sesh I have ever seen kicks off, Carcosa steps down, half-steps back up, then while they’re on break probably cuz of this whole stressful ordeal on this site they steward for us, she becomes head admin(?) again and immediately she and many of the new admins get so deeply involved in an obviously bad-faith way in this struggle sesh to the point of like 20 or 30 people getting bans where even the Lemmygradians are noticing that the site is exploding lol but ohhh this is all a joke ofc :) but it’s also not a joke and this site needs to get serious and we need more mega-purges but also reply here and I’ll use an RNG to decide how long to ban you, and also other random people with the same reason in the modlog
Now idk anymore, maybe this is what TC69-thought is
My main takeaway was that I still find pervasive irony just…so…tiring. My main concern was with the misgendering of people and weird accusations. People were upset, and I was concerned. I feel like I missed the humor (which isn’t unlikely I suppose, I miss jokes all the time) when all these bits started to pop off. Just felt mocked for caring by the people who were supposedly famous for caring for their comrades. This is why we reject irony and embrace sincerity
I feel exactly the same way tbh, I can go to a trillion other sites if I wanna do endless
“actually, it’s kinda cringe that you care tbh” bits that also aren’t a bit where “you win” if you can pretend to be the most cool and detached i’m-not-online-i’m-just-here-to-observe-the-onlineness type person (I am also missing the joke here), I like Hexbear cuz of the sincerity
The misgendering ableist wrecker alts were rly exhausting tbh, especially when it seems like it’s someone here doing it who has been banned for the same shit before multiple times but is still allowed to do it (as of now, I’m not in the admin chats so ofc idk for sure)
An admin has confirmed it wasn’t the one who we all assumed
Ironically it was the attempt to tamp down the irony poisoning that actually led to this whole shitshow in the first place.
Admins fucked up TC69 fucked up especially, but the userbase also failed itself by deliberately misreading a good faith attempt to address how toxic some of the site culture has always been and how rising cynicism had made it worse.
I will say this though if I hadn’t stepped down as an admin a while a go I would have either made things much worse or just purged a shitload of people and let the appeals sort it out.
The way I see it, it was more that there weren’t really any attempts made at explaining what the last part of this sentence actually means. Plenty of people did sincerely ask for clarification, and got basically nothing beyond “this is bad because we’ve decided it’s bad” or “go look at the modlog”.
And when you say that things have actually gotten worse, I genuinely do not understand that because I don’t share that impression. It’s perfectly possible that I should, but it would have to actually be explained to me why.
Well I am not an admin anymore but from the CTH modlog alone I see a lot that most people don’t unless you obsess over the modlog.
I agree that the communication on part of the admins wasn’t great for sure. My main point was that everyone kinda failed eachother here outside a few stalwart persons that helped reign it all in.
Appreciate the honesty Nako. Wouldn’t have expected you to fly off the handle but you know you better than I do. The whole thing is really just kinda silly and very regrettable.
Understatement of the year lol
Yeah most are pointing at the failure of admin and mods but feel like the wild speculation and bad-faith interpretation of every response from admins contributed in the struggle spiraling out of control.
Then there was someone (perhaps arouge mod)? making alts and harassing users that was adding fule to fire. The ban-bit which might have been intended to release some pressure got a mini-blowback.
Schödinger’s joke gets the special hell, the one for insufferable adult tweens.
why are you shitting up their space like this? it’s rude.
Nah, just that you’re acting like an asshole to comrades for no real reason? Seems to be the theme of this whole debacle.