this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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Hexbears tend to have an added level of cringe because we start assuming our takes on media are politically meaningful, significant, and more astute. It's the difference between saying The Godfather is boring vs The Godfather is capitalist striver propaganda that glorifies anticommunist mobsters who did counter-revolutions in Italy. You may look at the latter and say that it's completely correct but it's also a way to launder shallow criticism. If you don't have anything particularly insightful to say about media (and you must post anyways because the internet demands you have a take), then just vaguely attach it to some political stuff that is agreeable.
Then there is the urge to be obnoxiously maximalist on a take. "This media is garbage and I low key don't respect anyone who engages with it" kind of stuff. Which goes beyond simple media criticism into drawing real lines between people and groups over media consumption. Online leftists have a long history of being overly concerned with media consumption. It does get to a point, at the most extreme, where people think you can't be a good leftist if you consume a piece of media.
there's something insular around an assumption that characteristics identified by surface level political readings are not insightful. people on this site (and not everyone on this site) are familiar with lots of shit the general public are more ignorant of. it's fine for folks to beat a dead horse now and then on here-the horse might be alive in irl social encounters
They're not insightful if used to avoid delving into the artistic content, or any other aspect of the specific content in question. What I'm saying is that surface-level political readings are used to elevate or hide otherwise bad or specious opinions. A motte & bailey, if you will. Retreat from a weak opinion on a piece of media into a safer political opinion that most would agree with. There are exceptions for works that are created with nothing but political content. Like low budget, terrible right-wing movies that exist just to complain bout a culture war issue. Those things technically have artistic content but it's so unremarkable that you can only focus on the political content.
I use two real examples. One is Pluribus. There was a sentiment shared several times over the past week that it's more interesting to discuss the show than watch it, or there is more to discussing the show than watching it just to see people's takes. I think this shows that discourse does overshadow content on this site. The other example is Avatar. While there are fewer discussions about it, I think it shows that people will defend questionable artistic content due to surface-level political readings being agreeable.
Also this ties into media literacy. The point of commentary isn't to accurately decipher intention or subtext, it's to provide content for social media. It's taking the conversation you and your friends would have after a movie 20 years ago and commodifying it. Mass producing it on an industrial scale. Stripping away the need for friends or going out to see the movie. You don't even need to watch the movie so much as be hyper-aware of what other people think about it. That happened before Hexbear but it's baked in to the idea of a content aggregator and curation platform. We do it but with our own Hexbearian character.
The hyperawareness of what others think comes from the affordance of other takes being shoveled into your face for consumption by the same forces that mass-produce opinion. The takes have boundaries that somewhat reflect society at large, in-groups and out-groups, cohorts and demographics. Competing interests turn into competing takes and a game of meta-commentary forms. People purposefully provide exaggerated or aloof commentary for kicks or spite. Again, we do this too.