197
I was a sh.itjust.works user
(hexbear.net)
We can be radicalized
Granted I only used sh.itjust.sucks because it was the first instance recommended to me. However, it was during the brief time when hexbear was a boogeyman to all that I was exposed to true leftist thought. It took about a month or two of reading yogthuos memes before I read theory
Anyway I thought I'd give a hopepost, I genuinely was a turbolib
I oppose all defederation except where opposing admins have blatantly been racist/homophobic or protected racists/homophobes in their teams.
Unfortunately that means SJW is always gonna be a "keep it defederated" from me. Just the acronym alone should tell you what that hellhole stands for.
BUT, right wingers are radicalisable. A lot of people that have fallen into that rightwing pipeline genuinely are just ignorant. We have a lot of people who have been rehabilitated from the far right pipelines. I will always engage with people that seek to engage in good faith.
Sometimes it takes a little while for them to open up to that kind of engagement though. Like you said, a few months of engaging with memes before finally trying to learn properly.
I fell into the youtube antifeminist mysognist pipeline as a kid, I grew out of it pretty fast thankfully but I definitely hurt some people with my words in those times. I've worked to make it up to them where I can but it fucks with my head pretty often. I was still very liberal after I grew out of it but not bigoted (as much as a liberal can be). Shockingly it was actually reddit that pulled me out of that pipeline; after I realized I was bi I sought out queer communities on reddit (which I had only just downloaded like a month before this) and found 196 which was pretty far "left" for me at the time. Then I used lemmy and found hexbear. Fuck I really have been raised by the internet, dammit.
I was gonna go somewhere with that but I am high and lost my train of thought. Basically I'm glad y'all exist and post as much as y'all do, genuinely helped me grow as a person.
Hexbear as a haven and rehabilitation of problem childs is a good bit
I am glad that you found your way comrade. One piece of advice, never stop learning. Never feel "finished".
lmao i could have written this about myself and it still would be true
I too have questioned my gender, still haven't really figured it out tbh
This seems to be a trend I've noticed
Glad to hear about your growth, shark fucker.
Holy shit were you shark fucker on 196 too, or like the "I follow shark ladies" account? Bcs I think I saw your posts and comments iirc and that account followed me I think
Lmao i was in fact sharkfucker on reddit as well ๐
If i followed you its bc i thought you were funny
Similar enough to my own story. I was never conservative outright, but definitely had my own biases being raised in a heavily conservative environment, then started identifying as liberal until I learned more, grew up, and read more.
I had a similar story to some of comments chaining off this comment - atheist 11 year old debate bro adopted by the Dawkins/Yianopoulous/Hitchens anti-religious anti-feminist islamophobe pipeline, then growing out of it as fast as I got sucked into it.
I think right wingers that are truly commited to the 'facts and logic' shit can be especially susceptible. I found myself on the right in part because of my western chauvinist upbringing, but also because my main feeling was that society was lying to me. Everything felt so fake. The visible solutions were half assed 'left' parties like Democrats/Labour, who seemed to speak in jargonous platitudes, whose policies resembled faux-progressive slam poetry. Nothing ever seemed to get better under them. So I fell towards the 'tell it like it is' crowds. And yet, even within that crowd the contradictions are severe - I was still atheist, pro-choice, loved nature and hated climate change...
Then I discovered 'dirtbag leftism' - with all of its hidden truths, undeniable facts of intervention that 'say it like it is' right-wingers had concealed, explanations that finally 'felt' right, with a scientific (logic-centered) approach to politics. Leftism also has all of the spikes and barbs and anger that the feelgood progressives deny. It all just felt right.
Here I am, 4 years later, feeling like I've finally cut through all the bullshit, writing my dissertation on Western intervention in South America.