So I’m sure a lot of us have been dog-piled before, where several people are jumping down your throat or demanding things of you and even in the best of times it would be hard to keep up but now you’re in crisis, etc. It devolves into being the ‘lolcow’ for those present, especially if you’re like me and can struggle to disengage and sometimes lash out especially when spurred on so it gets funnier the more people fuck with me, how cool!
I’ve dog-piled people, too.
I enjoyed doing it many times and only regretfully recently did I realize what I was doing, and the hurt I’d caused all those times.
I realized what I was really doing once a couple of years ago when WAY too late, after the dust had already settled and all the distress had already been caused when I went back for MORE like some kind of ghoul did I realize it was just a person who, just like me, me who struggled to disengage and due to the frantic pace and number of participants in the argument couldn’t reevaluate or think or process and of course they just kept doubling down, and miscommunication on top of miscommunication to boot… it was bad, and gross, and it was my fault. I was the person who started the argument with them, in the end it had all been a miscommunication, we set up alternate definitions for central vocabulary in the argument very early on and didn’t realize we were talking past each other, and neither did all of the NT’s who joined in to dunk on the weird wrong internet loser, poke them more and laugh when they get upset and say more funny wrong things
I felt and still feel bad about my active participation, and worse the joy it brought me, I was there too, dunking on some lib with my friends, how fun! except it wasn’t fun and cool, it was trapping someone in our little arena and watching them gladiator battle for us. Most of the people who were joining in with me were NT, and I was the one who slammed the gate on them after leading them into the arena
That said, I would not have any sympathy whatsoever if this happened to a proud zionist who says the quiet part out loud, but I think its a fucked up pattern that exists broadly throughout contemporary English speaking internet, and even (gasp!) within the culture here on hexbear. It does still make me uneasy, as we all know how quick that can be used on us and not because we support genocide, but because of a faux pax or other NT social bullshit, or just a straight up misunderstandings that are perfectly reasonable to have happen to a person sometimes.
It should only be employed carefully to remove poisonous people from the community as self defense, preventing us becoming a nazi bar for example, but its use should be conscious, not wanton. People should KNOW that they are dogpiling, and what that implies, and the dangers that holds for their neurodiverse comrades who could get caught in the crossfire if they start doing it when the stakes aren’t ‘make nazis get the fuck out’ but ‘this person is dumb and fun to fuck with’
I made this post because I almost did it again, when I saw that fuckin AOC stanning loser who was arguing with dozens of people, one of which was that shared bureaucracy account that half a dozen different people were using and replying to all of their comments across the entire comment tree, and how they had been posting continuously for hours and hours in a row, like, probably not a neurotypical person here right? When I saw the thread there were people saying stuff like “lmao he’s still posting? It’s been hours!” and I’ve totally been there so it just makes my stomach twist a bit. I couldn’t help but think of the times I had hurt people and how it looked a lot like that (they weren’t nearly as wrong as this guy tho I mean cmon, AOC? That’s where I draw the line) I almost went in and started adding my own comments, dancing on the grave, but realized I was doing the same fucking thing again, reinforcing the same harmful norms and behaviors, even though this person is a loser that likes AOC. Again I wanna emphasize, wah their feelings got hurt because they have terrible politics, this case is kind of riding the line because it is really only occurring because the person has terrible politics, but I also don’t like that there’s no emergency brake or tolerance built into the system to allow for neurodivergent people who mean well and want to learn and be better, like how I like to think I did
I’m also not saying get rid of dunking culture generally, I actually kind of like it in the form of taking an incidence of someone saying or doing bad politics, and then us collectively mocking and deconstructing the bad politics and putting forth the correct, or possible, alternatives. This is politically useful, very fun, and importantly doesn’t trap the target of the mockery and arguments IN the post, getting tormented in the comments drowned between a dozen simultaneous arguments. I think that’s an important difference.
I usually feel a bit disappointed when I see a big comment tree and all the comments are removed and the person got banned pretty quickly, but I’m starting to think that’s safer as a moderation strategy. I hadn’t thought about that until writing this post and thinking about that AOC stan and how the mods explicitly didn’t ban and remove their posts so we could go to town (no shade on the mod its the expected culture and I didn’t even question it until just now either). Idunno, another adjacent thought there for ya
anyway, am I being a pissbaby about this? Is this an example of how dog-pile culture hurts neurodivergent people and doesn’t always discriminate between friend and foe, and how fostering this kind of culture is hostile to the inclusion of neurodivergent people broadly? I accidentally wrote a giant post again and I rearranged and added to things as I went so it’s probably hard to follow good luck I hope I went somewhere with it 👍
Leave a comment :)
p.s. the parts where I’m weirdly hostile and rude to that poster is just because of my username and me bein a funny bean, sorry if it had a weird tone clash, LAUGH DAMN YOU!
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This just seems like a lot. I’m tired of liberals.
As for AOC - she showed a lot of promise at first. A real member of the working class, aligned with social democracy ideas, and attractive and charming enough to get into office.
And then she - like the rest of the so called progressives - immediately focused on her career and playing insider politics.
I’d probably vote for her if she ran for president, but I wouldn’t trust her for a second. I doubt anything would change in any meaningful way under her or anyone else on the democrats bench right now. It’s beyond irritating that when republicans get into power they can do whatever they want but when democrats have power they don’t do a single fucking thing except paint rainbows in the road.
Yeah that’s the thing with the bourgeoisie electoral system is that it grabs hold of even the truly well meaning and contorts them until they fully capitulate to the forces of capital without even knowing it, and that’s in the best case like bernie
Sadly :(
I’m tired of liberals
I’d probably vote for her if she ran for president,
not tired enough, apparently
It’s not like we’ll ever get a chance to vote for someone who threatens the elite.
We can’t vote our way out of this. I would give her the benefit of the doubt since she was a bartender once upon a time but I expect nothing more than disappointment.
We can’t vote our way out, we can’t organize and unionize our way out, the only way out appears to be stochastic terrorism. The elites did this to themselves. Make reform impossible and people will resort to violence.
What makes you say we can’t organize our way out? We simply haven’t, that by no means implies we cannot and will not. It’s inevitable and it will come through the organized power of the united working class
It’s not going to happen. Not in America. Too divided, too hyped up on identity politics, too many bootlickers who betray their class interests because one day if they’re a really good boy they can be a millionaire or billionaire too. There’s a reason the elites have a whole cadre of dick riders.
And if there ever were to be the inkling of organizing, the elite owned media will manufacture consent against it. See occupy Wall Street for an example. And that happened before social media took off, occupy happened in 2008 and Facebook had just opened itself to the public in 2007. News feeds were yet to be algorithmically manipulated but instead chronological. Instagram, Twitter, tik tok - none of that existed yet. I can’t remember if Reddit existed. Now we have social media companies run by government spooks manipulating people’s minds to agree with whatever the elites want (mostly endless consumption and the status quo being upheld).
If organizing were possible we’d have already done it. Even prior to the modern era the government assassinated anyone on the left that led the movement - see MLK Jr, Malcolm x, Fred Hampton. Or the bombing of rise. Or the life sentences on terrorism charges for animal and environmental rights protesters of the 90s.
The only way through will be violence. They made all other options impossible. They have it coming.
Counterargument: That L*dditor is a guest, and as an obnoxious guest who doesn’t gel well with the locals, they are being shown the door. Nothing’s stopping them from just clicking the big “Local” button and not seeing any Hexbear posts on their front page or blocking Hexbear if the big bad tankies piss them off too much. But if they wanna start shit with us, they’re gonna get it.
I kinda feel bad for people like that AOC stan. They are genuinely close to the right answers, but can’t overcome the mountains of propaganda. It’s not an easy thing to do and almost all of us were once in a similar position. Very few people in capitalist countries become communists, even fewer get there without being a turbo lib or some kind of libertarian first.
I replied in that chain somewhere to let that person know they’d be a communist in 5 years or they’re gonna be a fascist. They’ll go down the anti communist rabbit hole or they’ll read an actual book written by a communist. Part of me thinks we should stop doing this sort of thing completely and focus entirely on good faith engagement with anyone to the left of Hillary Clinton and just ban everyone else. Should we be encouraging outright bullying of someone who genuinely seems to be an anticapitalist? Probably not. Not even just because of the danger to neurodiverse people, but also it seems like a bad strategy to dogpile.
Idk as a communist or even just a leftist in general it seems like I’m obligated to help people get a better understanding of…reality? At least the realities of capitalism, imperialism, propaganda, etc. I don’t really care if someone wants to be a communist or not as long as we can agree on reality. What is CIA propaganda? What is just something I’ve heard all my life for no reason other than to make me hate communism? Etc. Anyway, what I mean is that I think we should be more focused on getting people to agree that capitalism is bad and communism is good than we should on just being mean to random libs and baby anarchists or whatever the hell that AOC stan is
Sorry, I feel like I’m really off topic. I’m just going to post this because I’ll delete it if I think too much longer
Don’t be sorry, thanks for posting!
I totally agree with what you’re saying, it’s bad strategy to dogpile someone like this—not only because they might be reachable, but also because we should be practicing to get better at radicalizing people online and in person. Even if the person’s not receptive, it hones our rhetoric and exposes us to counterarguments.
Also, dogpiling someone like that just makes us look unreasonable and gets us defederated from more instances.
I think we have itchy trigger fingers because we don’t get that many actual chuds to fight anymore, and we miss fighting.
*edit: and by “dogpiling someone like that” I mean “dogpiling someone who is similar to that user,” not “dogpiling someone, like we did.” I think dogpiling is called for sometimes. Like if someone is not only wrong but also a shitty person.
I totally get where you are coming from and, with discipline, was able to limit myself to strictly posting PPB and no actual replies. And I also get the anxiety caused by thinking about analogous situations you may have been in before.
I say this not as a refutation of what you say but in the hope that it will make the sting you feel/felt lessen and make space between the experiences you compare: this poster was not genuinely interested in learning anything or thinking any differently before the “debate” began. If you come into a space with a mind open to receive information and process it in a way that might change your preconceived notions, people will get that and even though there may be an asshole or two, you shouldn’t get dogpiled. This is true even if you don’t send the appropriate social signals in “neurotypical” ways. Stan got dogpiled because Stan wasn’t doing any of that. Stan was going to say anything and never give an inch. And then Stan was going to do some very typically and offensive things when Stan got backed into a corner.
You’re not wrong. IMO most people here can’t really pull off the dirtbag dunking/bullying thing very well, so instead we just come across like a bunch of shitasses.
