I must admit I mostly lurk there and never quite made the jump culturally to lemmygrad, but I do respect your opinions and the last few days are making me feel a bit insane and wanting an outside perspective. I'll explain and provide links for context
A longtime user got banned for bad behavior in live chat on hextube. That part isn't all that surprising. But then we got dueling impersonators one and two making meta posts about the ban and a notorious also-banned user he had conflicted with a long time ago (melina).
This was... mostly just annoying, clearly someone was doing a nasty bit, but mods just banned them both and the site moved on which I guess is fair enough.
Fast forward to today, and we have an account (not brand new, but not a longtime account either, only a few weeks old with limited post history) purporting to be our resident China guy (and China doomer, to some extent) from the news mega, posting a long winded story about going to xinjiang and getting 1984'd or whatever. It starts to feel like it could be a bit as it gets more and more absurd, but this user was always very serious from what I recall.
If this is a troll/psyop I guess it's a good one because this garbage is giving me a fucking headache. What do you grad'ers think is going on? Were any of these real or all impersonators (and relatedly who? melina?) Am I just too autistic to get the joke? Is this a fed psyop? what else could be going on?
Idk if it is explicitly a hexbear problem, but it kinda seems like it might be. I feel like I haven't been around long enough to know.
I think a possible reason why the Xinjiang post upset people is because of the fakenews comm we have. A LOT of people hate it and it seems there's a lot of lore and drama surrounding it. I think with a lot of our autistic users, they kinda get whiplash from that stuff sometimes, especially if the comm isn't blocked and they don't notice that it's a fakenews post, a lot of people are really convincing on there. My guess is that, especially if the bits seem TOO real, and it is politics after all that very deeply impact people's lives, that it can really wear on people emotionally.
The Xinjiang bit was wildly well done. Thank God they FINALLY threw the pants pissing in at the end lol. I had an idea in the beginning that it was a bit because of how ridiculously verbose it was, but some people may not have gotten it, and to be really trusting and to see that possibly, your entire firm stance on human rights abuses and a genocide could be false??? That would feel SUPER jarring...Especially, intiutively you know that it's BS, but what if? What if you keep saying "Pfft! This is fake garbage!" but you question your beliefs because we can all be wrong on things and that can be pretty distressing. So I get why some people may have gotten really worked up about that in particular
I can't speak for all autistic people obviously (and I'm not very active in the ND comm) but I personally find it useful to have to check my skeptic skills in good fun. There's reactionaries posting fake stuff that's a lot more sinister than posts like the Xinjiang post, so it's good to avoid letting my guard completely down. Obviously it does beg the question of why it wasn't posted in fakenews but I think there's a level of artistic license you have to grant to make a really good bit work.
Yeah I definitely don't mean to speak for everyone, but I know a lot of us are very trusting or naive, I'm super naive which is frustrating because I am also a very suspicious/analytical person in some ways so when I get got I'm like....What the hell?! lol. And yeah the XHS post wouldn't have worked if it was in fakenews; I'm not particularly upset about that one at all but other impersonation accounts can be pretty malicious and that is more what I take issue with, personally.
I dislike the fakenews thing but the reason the actual fakenews comm exists is for containment. I think very few people actually “like” it. But the problem is you have some turbo nerds who will not stop posting it. If you eliminated the comm then these posters would just go and do it in other places. Having a comm allows you to block a comm when you’re logged in at least, as for whatever reason the people who post the fakenews actually do tend to stick the comm when they have it.
Yeah I know the comm has got utility, I just went off in a tangent there, I should probably block it myself
From my perspective, the morse code stuff was already unbelievable as was the 1.5 hour car ride. The first hint was probably the idea of being imprisoned for months for comparing the situation in Palestine to what Uyghurs face.
I think the bit would've been funnier without the over-the-top end in the sense of testing how much an instance that prides itself on rejecting such flimsy anti-China stories would end up believing. And maybe the internalized orientalism it played on would've been constructively self-critted out. Opportunities for friendly education!
I think badposting is a bad comm. Mostly because it's kind of annoying, usually not very funny, and pops up way too often by default. I forgot how to block comms on other instances but this is a good reminder to do that! But of course it's y'all's instance and it's no skin off my nose if that comm is around forever.
I'm not sure if I understand the full picture of the autism angle. Insincerity and sarcasm can be difficult for some people with autism to notice or process, so I see that angle. But Hexbear has a somewhat sarcastically mean and dunking culture already which I would think to be way more confusing than posts in a clearly marked "badposting" comm or a story that gets progressively silly. But maybe those who have trouble connecting with that culture are already filtered out, alienated by a decent chunk of the posts on their first day.
Having been there myself, the moderately cheap 400 yuan per night hotel comment right at the beginning immediately tipped me off. Hotels at that price point are palacial.
That and the ludicrous writing style
the problem is this: the bit was only possible because of years of crediblity that the real xiaohongshu built up over various accounts. if someone made a new account it would get discarded immediately. you could try building credibility on a bit accounts for years beforehand (which i dont actually think anyone in the world has the dedication for), but to build up your account(s) credibility to a similar level to what xhs has, would take even more effort. xhs has years of history speaking about china and things only someone who has lived in china for a decent chunk of time, and none of the other chinese users have ever called out anything xhs has said as being something from someone who has never lived in china. if whoever did the bit tried to do something similar, make all these claims about china for months/years needed to build up credibility for this post, its very likely someone would catch on. it would be unfair and not as funny if people were getting tricked by a post that while flimsy rode off the back of trust off of someone a lot of users have grown to trust over the years. it would be really fucked up to do a post thats more murky like that if you're impersonating someone else. basically, i think the only way to do a bit in a way that you're describing is it was actually coming from xhs or someone else from china who builds a similar amount of credibility
Yeah that's a fair point
For whatever reason, I flagged the post as a bit in my mind when they were talking about the old lady rotating her tea cup clockwise, then counterclockwise in her hand lol.
About the autism stuff - this is just a guess and generalization based off of how I sometimes react to posts, and what I've read from others during similar struggle sessions. With the fakenews comm I will often read the community title after the post so until I do that I get tricked so bad. I think what a lot of people take issue with is what you describes as the "sarcastically mean" culture which I guess is the irony poisoned part that gets talked about. I feel like that part doesn't come out often, at least in my experience, but when it does it's disorienting which is why posts similar to this one get made, I think.
Yeah that 100% makes sense. Also the "thought it was real for a second" can happen to anyone wrt the fakenews or badposting comm. Some of the titles are just things that could actually happen but didn't and the real joke comes later. It takes a bit of mental filing work to make sure not to remember the fake fact that you know is fake won't eventually pop back up in your mind as a tidbit.