This is nothing to do with any current or recent struggle sessions, or any one struggle session/controversy in particular. This is a much broader issue and I am wondering what it holds in store for any strictly leftist social group online. I would also like to apologize to our non-American/Western users as this is going to be very centered on that.
There was a lot of anxiety about Trump’s 2nd term back in 2020. There were people afraid that Trump would be way worse than any Democrat. I didn’t personally see it that way, but I (now) empathize a little more with comrades even if their fears don’t seem deeply well founded. This made everyone a little more jumpy. Everything seemed a little more urgent.
After 2020, a light depression set in. Bernie lost and all the people who supported that were let down. All the people who knew it was going to be a let down lost their energy as well. There wasn’t much of a new thing for everyone to focus on and talk about. Basically the left, as much as it exists, wasn’t in the conversation anymore. We were even more relegated to the crank pit. The media project that had been built, that most of us here paid attention to, simply became about dwelling on history, naval gazing about what is to be done, and supporting media careers as praxis. Even the fascist infighting of Jan 6 didn’t result in anything and thus “nothing ever happens” mentality is born.
Tensions with Russia and Ukraine, and disastrous Democratic presidency gave us something to focus on and plenty of new enemies to fight. We once again could go after libs and point to how liberals are screwing up everything. We had the invention of new internet guys at which to get mad. Ultimately, the war didn’t lead to some new level of consciousness for everyone. It became normal and whatever fresh possibilities existed in Feb of 2022 didn’t exist anymore.
Once again we were looking down the barrel of another Trump term. This time the people who felt that Dems would give some respite from fascism had either been pushed past that by Biden’s term or they left the site. Jan 6 was a nothing burger, so the fear of competency was lessened. Biden had turned most into sickos who felt Trump was exactly what this country deserved, regardless of how bad he is.
The genocide in Gaza did not help attitudes. This also brought some life back to Hexbear in terms of analysis, news, and fighting genocide denial. I think it’s has also had a depressing effect as well. We all see the depravity of Zionists and Western governments every day. We see people being systematically exterminated and everyone waffles, everyone supports it, there is very little political will from anyone in charge to do something. At best it’s turned into a market issue where BDS will save us but then all the Zionists rig that game too.
As for the past few months, it’s been rough. Once again we face massive economic crisis in the US that liberal economic analysis either can’t see or refuses to see. It’s not that the jobs market is in a lull, it’s that it doesn’t exist. The largest sector of the US economy can hire cheap labor at will without having to even look at the domestic labor pool. They’re doing massive quarterly layoffs of domestic and foreign sourced labor. Food costs are still high and getting higher. Inflation can only rise at a faster rate (that won’t be reported).
It is completely safe for the worst right-wingers to espouse their views in public. They are rewarded for it with government jobs. If anyone harms them, the President sends troops to avenge them. The highest law enforcement body in the land will sue on their behalf. There are no brakes here. All those seemingly petty fears from 2020, the debates about Trump being a real fascist or not, are all valid. Jan 6 2029 could be way more serious than the other one. First as a farce, second as a tragedy, so to speak.
The increased popularity of AI has already changed the internet. AI, whether it’s just tulips or the next industrial revolution, is here to stay. The US economy has all but dedicated its entire economy to AI and AI companies.
As others have pointed out, doesn’t the internet feel a little off? The discovery of content has been completely dominated by increasingly fine tuned algorithms that make sure you stay on the correct rails. Podcast media is no longer subversive, if it ever was, it is a real tool of the state and is actively being used as such. Podcast popularity has flooded the market with an increasing amount of superfluous content that buries everything and makes it easier for propaganda outlets to hide. Youtube is nothing now. It’s almost a Skinner box that doesn’t even reward you and produces incomprehensible slop. You can watch short videos that range from roblox rp to nazi propaganda to cooking videos to some 13 year old making guns in his garage within 30 seconds. Everything else, including the best material, is just a gig for people who don’t want a “real” job.
Also thanks to AI, it’s going to be increasingly hard to understand what’s real. The distinction between advertisement and content won’t exist. Everything will be monetized and you will not get a cut.
Just as an anecdote, I have also noticed a slow down on the internet. Not in speed, but in the refresh rate of content. Hexbear seems to get fewer posts, existing posts stay in position longer, fewer comments. I have noticed this on reddit too. It simply feels like there are less people engaging in the internet and are instead just passively scrolling, or the algos have reached a point of tuning to where they are completely busted. But since Hexbear’s algo doesn’t get tuned like reddits, I don’t think it’s the issue.
To bring this back around, I am not sure we are going to make it to 2029. As things get worse materially and the right wing cracks down, everyone will be more on edge. This is going to lead to more and more infighting. People are going to draw harder lines in the sand and be less forgiving of one another crossing it. Now, none of this will be super obvious and to most people it will seem like everyone is being more principled and that’s why it will be accepted. In fact, it will feel good and make us feel like we’re cleaning up the community. This will lead to a series of major struggle sessions that will only break down the user base. Some people will get banned and just leave. Some might come back. Users will leave if no action is taken. Users will leave because they disagree with whatever action is taken. The result is less users.
The internet as a whole is not friendly toward sites like Hexbear. We will begin to run the risk of being targeted. All it will take is some fork of grok at Doge Corp to crawl us and flag us. Then some 14 year old chud prodigy will call his dad at the AG’s office and get us taken down. Or it’ll just be death by attrition from AI agents and reduced engagement. We will be cut off from fresh users from the outside. Federation with other instances will just result in net zero because they’re going to be in the same situation. The difference is they might be more friendly to liberals and live a little longer.
I’m not suggesting any action really I just wanted to share my fears. There is no coalition we can form, no concession we can make. It seems inevitable that our future is offline. We made it, what 5 or 6 years now? I don’t think we can do it for 5 more. If the site is still up, it’s going to be like 20 people at most.
We were less idiosyncratic on the sub, but we engaged in other communities more which got more people interested. I think our idiosyncracy is probably only a factor insofar as we jump down the throats of new people who don’t really know how we communicate, but that’s definitely not the main issue.
Excuse the doublepost. I think that something like Hexbear/Chapochat would/could work great on Reddit. The problem is/was always the fact that its a corporate site and Hexbear goes WAY to hard to be allowed anyway near anything corporate…which is a bit of a shame since I promise you we could grow a fuckton I feel and reach a fuckton of folks.
I actually have been thinking that maybe the problem isnt Hexbear but Lemmy ? but I dont know enough about the tech side of things
I mean, it demonstrably did work great on reddit, it was a large sub that was only snowballing harder as time went on until the admins crushed it. I think it wouldn’t be as meaningful, but we could still do agitating in the “fediverse” to get more people on a similar basis, but without admins being able to delete our forum this time.
Lemmy has its challenges, but I don’t think it’s unworkable.
And if we tried to go back and start again we would get crushed before the ball got rolling. /r/genzedong was a fraction of the size /r/cth was when it got taken out, and related subs like /r/acidmarxism and /r/blackwolffeed have had to essentially crush themselves to avoid being crushed by the admins.
…and it’s not like we could do it elsewhere either. xitter? We’d all get banned. Bluesky? Think again. Facebook? lmao.
This website is the way it is because of the current material condition of the internet. The masses aren’t coming to niche websites, and communities that challenge the status quo aren’t welcome on the big corporate ones. The place for leftist recruitment is in the real world, and the place for leftist agitprop is on twitch and tiktok.
With that in mind, I say we try to enjoy Hexbear as it is for as long as it lasts, and if and when it ends we gotta have a Buddhist mentality about it.
I wasn’t suggesting we return to Reddit, that would be absurd, and those other websites aren’t forums so I don’t think they even apply. I was there for the banning, I remember that even tangentially-related subs with too many r/cth users got banned in the fallout.
As I say in the very comment you were responding to and elsewhere, my suggestion if people wanted to avert OP and also maybe just make a better impact is to agitate across instances. I’m not invested in this idea and am in fact quite confident that Hexbear doesn’t want to, I’m just saying that’s the best way to do it that is available to us.
Im not saying its the main issue but it certainly is true that you already need to be a radical of some degree to fit into Hexbear and to use it. Im not saying we need to turn our powerlevel down or conform to liberal ideas but I kinda wish we had comms for newcomers or people who are curious. Basically like a bring your liberal to Hexbear day
It doesn’t help that 99% of the liberals on lemmy can never see us because of mass defederation
I agree, though I think there are also plenty of people who are in a position to be radicalized immediately (or re-radicalized in a more positive direction) if only a decent communist group came to them, because they are already so alienated from society and have seen many ways in which the current system is unacceptable.