What brought me here:

r/CTH refugee & I like that this community attempts to be hardline trans inclusive and shit.

What made me stay:

I didn't. Took a huge break after getting fatigued reading gleeful slur use and self congratulatory hornyposting.

And where did that bring me?

B- back to you.

it was the best successor to the subreddit (and still is)

I just kinda gravitated to the old sub in its final months because the people from there just seemed to be right about stuff and I wanted to see where they were coming from. I guess that's at the core of why I'm still here. Whether it's about politics or the kind of vibe you want, this place gets it and other places don't.

I was adrift after r/cth got shut down, Reddit got more annoying, so I bailed. It was nice to be off that hell site, but I kinda missed knowing there were like minded people out there and some semblance of community... Which I don't engage much in tbh, but I'm trying to take more steps to do so. Fact is, we need each other more every day. And y'all help me to laugh so I don't get lost in despair...

But most of all, the free cookies.

cth user ->chapo.chat lurker -> couple years of ignoring it -> wanted a sane space because of whatever garbage was going on in the world and remembered chapo.chat but it redirected to hexbear -> some alts

Where else is there to go?

This site is a great mix of shitposting, news and general events analysis, and serious history and theory effortposting. If you’re a leftist, where else is there on the internet that’s like this?

Without this place at best my connection to the left at all would be like a Monthly Review subscription, a Jacobin subscription, slowly working my way through marxists.org, and maybe occasionally reading whatever new releases from Verso looked interesting.

i could literally write all the same for my shared experience right down to wanting to go check out the "bad kids" lol

owl is wise

/r/chapotraphouse was banned and they made this place so

i watched the 2020 primaries like a particularly bloody spectator sport on the sub, and then 4 years later i'm trapped here by my reliance on our iconic selection of emotes.

like who the fuck could ever possibly need so many weird, hyper-specific, and self referential emotes? me, apparently, since i find myself missing them when i'm on any other site/discord/whatever

shitredditsays -> gamerghazi -> chapotraphouse -> this place

I mostly come here for the shitposts, and to hear normal opinions after big news events. I also like to hear about people's hobbies and stuff in an environment where I know most of the reactionaries have been purged, but there's not as much of that as I'd like.

Came here from lemmygrad for the memes and news, staying for the memes and news and whatever beanis is

I came after the reddit api exodus.

I stayed for the awesome trans community!

I have always lived on Liberal Mountain and met hexbears there.

I stay because it is entertaining, informative, and has a good smattering of people that know theory and/or irl practice. And because it's vehemently pro-trans, anti-white supremacist, and so on, although of course there is room for improvement.

Came because of a dumb subreddit I liked when I was a teenager in my Bernie to Marxist transition.

Stayed for the community and comrades. Love yall

I was on the old /r/cth (with a different username) up until the ban, then I think there were one or two discords that tried to be the successor, but I never really got the hang of discord. Then I saw the announcement that chapo.chat was launching, and I've been here ever since. I've stuck around because a lot of you weirdos seem to have the same mental illness that I do, everyone seems to be caring and empathetic, and y'all have the correct opinions on beans.

I was a lurker on cth and my like 6 accounts prior to this one keep getting banned or i forget the password

Came here from the subreddit r/shitliberalsay. The dunk tank and the memes made me stay here.

It's federated with my lemmy instance. I neither seek it out nor avoid it.

I was here since the beginning but this is not my original account. What made HB unique to me is it was that time where this is the only place that had a concretly reasonable and different view about China and other AES countries. There were some other places like Genzedong(only a lurker there) but it was banned and it since died.

I've seen a lot of struggle sessions about that, first it was China, I particularly remember some random person willing to die on a hill that China's handling of terrorism in Xinjiang was just like the state police apparatus resembling post 9/11 America.

But 2022 was realy funny, the epic struggle session over why would Putin suddenly do this to smol bean innocent Ukraine. Again this was the only place I knew which we were even discussing about having a different opinion from the western consensus.

I think the way which we handled the Gaza genocide, again one of the few places that isn't scared of the MSM narrative or afraid to fight Zionism.

I think when it comes to the real world issues we mostly eventualy found the correct majority opinion on things that matter. If at any point I felt these positions would've been different from mine I would've probably left already.

When it comes to China I think the near constant unironic Xi posting was a bit too much for me personaly specialy. 2020-22 were great years and I would be right there 100% agreeing with this as Xi is definitely a great leader, will be remembered as a key and historically important figure, undeniably.

But the decision making that led to that horrible stupid meeting with Hitler in the middle of the genocide and their similar timid stance against Israel is the closest I've come to a serious disagreement with some people here that obviously love unironic shallow pro-CPC-Xi meme posting. As such 2023-24 are horrible years imo.

But otherwise I don't see a reason why I'd ever leave. We'll see how this community handles China in the future, for both ourselves and the future of socialism I hope the CPC wont continue with this shitty timid conciliatory stance towards the west as the world continues to burn and the ropes tighten.

My political pipeline was Dem > DemSoc > Marxist-Leninist > something akin to Left Unity(currently closer to anarcho-socialism but I float)

I joke about it but I'm the meme where you go into college as a lib and leave as a socialist. But I also took a lot of econ, polysci, and history classes. They are a bit more gloves off in their history classes when they are behind a paywall.

I've been a redditor for like 13 pathetic years and gravitated towards /r/latestagecapitalism pretty early but I was still lib-brained and a reformist. Sometime during the Bernie era, I became a socialist but at that time I only heard bad things on reddit about all those tankies on /r/cth and /r/genzedong. And certainly a tankie I was not!

I kept reading theory and at some point, It sort of clicked and I was like, I'm a Marxist. It's me, the communist, etc. Basically I was radicalized at this point. Last year when reddit was killing 3rd party apps, I caught wind of Lemmy and went to look into it. I saw a bunch of horror stories about how bad the evil tankies were on Lemmygrad and Hexbear and sort of just went with Lemmygrad since it was federated with the wider server network. I hung out there for a few months, then y'all federated and I just sort of found myself on y'alls comms more and it felt more like home to me. I still love my 'grad comrades but the 50/50 split of shit posting and effort posting here jives better with my personality.

I stayed because I've never seen a more inviting place for marginalized people and leftists. I'm pretty serious about Left Unity and that include my brown, queer, trans, and fellow disabled comrades, and really everyone that just wants to see socialism realized. I hate seeing other "leftist" spaces close the door on people just because they don't fit their perfect mold.

I heard of hexbear through lemmygrad last year. What made me stay was being able to talk about when my mom died last year or being able to vent about various stuff here. That I wasn't able to elsewhere, last year wasn't, really great.

Came to be with comrades after the subreddit got shut down. Been here since then.

Why I stay though? Was for my trans comrades and the shitposts, but after getting banned today in the one shitstorm thread for defending my trans comrades, I’m probably not going to stick around much longer. I’m very unhappy about that.

r/cth refugee and I really appreciate having a trans-positive corner of the internet that is not too liberal :p I have been getting into the News mega an unhealthy amount too.

I migrated from the previous Kalpa.

2008 libertarian to 2012 socialist curious, started frequenting the Chapo sub in 2017 and came over here when it was banned.

I’ve stayed because y'all are way funnier than anyone on Reddit and your hearts are always in the right place… seriously, there’s like a utopian level of kindness here. Oh and no ads!!!

Plus someone here introduced me to Black Dresses so I consider you taste makers as well.

only caught the subreddit towards the end bc i was going to school and focused. covid rolled around so i was wasting more time on the computer. also allowed normie me (NM) more time to consider politic ideology more patiently beyond “never join the military” so NM was looking for information.

the subreddit was entertaining and also was the logical extension of the Bernie vibe which NM was on board with wholeheartedly. He made me want to go vote and give $20 to a politician.

That ended, NM was left with nothing on the computer besides a job, video games, and the desire to browse supplementary sites for video game discussion (which NM had sworn off to focus on school). The old browsing habits turned into reading about politics and the news and I honest to god think i found the subreddit bc ppl were posting on reddit in general about the donald getting banned and any left wing subs getting quarantined. Joined the discord, joined the site. This is i think my third account. the site got me to read non fiction that actually made sense. i’d always loved reading but it had to grab me. The read settlers posters were right.

stayed bc it’s the only place where the text on my phone/computer reads as sober. Everyone else where people aren’t explicitly posting as communists reads as asinine. I also like only having to open one website to get shitposts, news, discussion, and the occasional sincere blogpost about people’s lives. Oh and there was that recent fundraiser too, that was heartwarming.

Came because of CTH stayed cause of tha ppl

I came here because chapotraphouse got banned.

you are my friends

I'm gonna go with extremely proximal responses to this.

What brought me here: A casual thought, 3 months after the fact, of "they had a lifeboat Discord they were talking about, I should check that out".

Why I've stayed: Because I wasn't banned, I guess.

I started using reddit around 2013-2014. I pretty much immediately gravitated to places like r/top_minds as I still had a bit of the deboonking spirit in me from the early aughts. I also liked the other reddit critique subs. I never got into the podcast when it started, I avoided it. I also avoided the sub. It wasn't until 2019 that I started actually listening to the podcast. Of course the sub got removed. I was part of a CTH discord that sucked pretty bad and I wanted a new place. Reddit sucked. I heard about chapo.chat about a month after it started.

I stayed because it was a great reddit replacement and I felt way more comfortable posting here than anywhere else. I have gotten to watch the site grow and change. I have changed a bit too.

fun shitposts but also genuinely kind people, least internet-brained internet site where i trust ppl to engage in good faith, broadly correct abt politics and occasionally genuinely informative. i have made little internet buds. idk it's just a good site, 9/10 would recommend

(also came here from the original r/cth w/ a different username, mostly lurked there because there was a bit more caustic reddit bullshit that made posting seem unpleasant.)

Started listening to Chapo in 2019, found and was entertained by the subreddit, wound up on a lifeboat here. Excellent meme content, wonderful effort posts, and the only place on the web that respects trans people and doesn't bow down to pornography