this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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Unfortunately I agree with the person you are talking to here. You have to start at a baseline, and there is no such thing as 'true neutrality'. You are overall better off when doing a media investigation assuming that any apparatus of the U.S. media arm has misrepresented any given story, particularly when it comes to reporting about China and Chinese law and punishment. Doesn't mean it's always the correct position to take sans research, but it isn't a reactionary position for me because it comes from years of doing this kind of media backtracking. It's mostly pragmatism at this point, as they can spew lies faster than I can investigate them.
It is applied as a general rule of thumb, but also specifically in this context.
Edit: Not to contradict your experience at all though, There is plenty of queerphobia in China, as you and plenty of others I have talked to on the subject have said. It wouldn't be surprising if there was some sort of crackdown on slash-fics, but how widespread is it, is it actually a national mandate (is it 'China' or just some specific regional politicians bugaboo), is it targeting specifically queer artists or just obscenity in general, these are the kinds of questions I wouldn't put it past RFA to completely and purposefully underreport.
I don't think most people here would disagree with the sentiment of not trusting bourgeois news sources in general. This issue is that pretty much all the news we get, especially from China, is from bourgeois sources, either inside or outside of China.
In that case the difference between 'reactionary' politics and 'materialist' politics is essentially one of clarity of explanation. Which I am not necessarily disagreeing with, as I think Mao discusses that issue in 'combatting liberalism', just thinking in post.
My point is that I would guarantee that pretty much everyone here is very likely operating under something very close to my logic as it is logic generated by the experience of being a terminally online Western leftist. They just aren't generally as charitable in expressing it as I am.
In my personal understanding, the longstanding 'hexbear' (not to place words in people's mouths, but this was the sentiment in r/chapotraphouse back on reddit in like 2019) opinion is that the actual truth value of the article is irrelevant, especially if you live in the West. The point is not to raise awareness to help queer people in China, it is to manufacture consent for whatever strange foreign policy tact the government is hoping to pull. Therefore, no further investigation is even necessarily warranted. We know where it is comes from, we know why it is coming from there, what else would you have us do, does awareness of the truth even matter for us? So people just shit-post and tell others to ignore it. And you are correct, that might be a reactionary thing to do, but it has been inherent to the posting culture of these people since before hexbear was even around.
Absolutely. You are welcome.
You are more than welcome anywhere here, but there is absolutely a dominant posting culture outside the trans mega that was developed specifically to combat online Western liberal brain worms, which it is very, very good at. Posting combat is not about being excruciatingly specific and correct, it is about dunking as hard, and fast, as possible, with overwhelming force.
'Chapo-posting' shone brightest when we were essentially predators, singling out bad takes from the packs of redditors, striking fear into their hearts through things like the n-word bot. This is a reduced, if still mildly effective form.
Unfortunately, like any vestigial organ, while it occasionally has it's uses for the wandering liberal/fascist, it more often than not causes friendly fire these days. That said, it would be a shame to lose it entirely, like killing the last white rhino, and it was fighting a losing battle so I stopped advocating for less dunks on fellow posters years ago. Gotta treat a forum like a forum, no matter the forum.
Glad to be of service.