this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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MeanwhileOnGrad

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"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"

Welcome to MoG!

Meanwhile On Grad

Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!

What is a Tankie?

Alternatively, a detailed blog post about Tankies.

(caution of biased source)

Basic Rules:

Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.

Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.

Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether it be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.

Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users, as it handwaves their extremism.

Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post, rather than engaging in arguments that lack mutual agreement.

Brigading — If you're here because this community was linked in another thread, please refrain from voting, commenting, or manipulating the post in any way. This includes alt accounts. All votes are public, and if you are found to be brigading, you will be banned.

Tankies can explain their views, but may be criticised or challenged for them. Any minor infraction of the rules may result in a warning and possibly a temporary ban.

You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically last only 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction doubles the duration. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.

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Tankie Bingo! (media.kbin.earth)
submitted 2 weeks ago by unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth to c/meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Had some fun with this. Rules:

  1. When a tankie post comes up, post a legitimate, fair argument. Do not argue in bad faith. No matter how nasty the post may be. Legitimately combat the disinformation there by going into their bubble and posting a sane response.
  2. Watch the responses come in. Especially if the post is on the tankie triad.
  3. Don't feed the trolls. Don't respond to anything, unless there is actually a legitimate attempt to have a legitimate discussion. Otherwise, start a game of tankie bingo to help prevent yourself from responding to the madness.

Suggestions for expansion welcome.

EDIT: well, to the surprise of no one, it's made its way to the slop community at Hexbear. Aaaand again, they totally miss the glaringly obvious point.

EDIT: since some can't access the link: https://bingobaker.com/view/9956948

(Sorry for the double post, sometimes I'm too stupid to use the internet)

all 31 comments
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[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

aw this is lovely

though praising Kim and NK is not a dictatorship seem pretty similar

and praising Xi and then the CCP one are pretty similar too

Tankies don't operate on the basis of parties. They are authoritarians, so when they mean CCP, they mean Xi. When they mean Russia, they mean Putin.

Some suggestions maybe:

  • using shit sources, like redsails or prolewiki or state media.
  • Posting the comment chain or thread elsewhere. I've noticed Tankies like to post threads they need help with to their social spaces. Though that's harder to determine and otherwise would be a rough space. So maybe not? Maybe just call it a dogpile? But I love dogs
  • Can't make the argument without mentioning the US. Tankies operate entirely on a West Bad thought process. They can't make any argument for communism or any of their views without first mentioning the US or the West.
  • Calling for conservatism without realising it. Tankies are almost identical to conservatives. Check out these posts
  • Imperialism/Colonialism is actually good when it's the kind I like (such as China, Russia or other historic cases)
  • Lib-slur
  • You're a fascist!
  • That's hasbara! (Or any variation of "nuhuh")
  • Posting fake or misleading statistics.
  • 'Have you read theory bruh?'
  • MALFUNCTION -- You can see this all the time when you ask Tankies why their favourite authoritarian countries don't allow same-sex marriage or queer recognition. It stops them completely in their tracks, and they immediately move on to something else. It's incredible to see.
  • Mentioning Zionism randomly -- Israel and Zionism are really on their mind, and they tend to bring it up whenever they can
  • Encouraging or defending violence
  • 'That wasn't real communism' -- Or blaming the failure on some outside force, usually the US
  • Antisemitism -- Related to the zionist thing. They usually use Zionist as a dogwhistle, much like neo-nazis, who do the exact same. Horseshoe theory and all that
  • Some jolly consumerism -- You'll rarely see this when arguing with a tankie. But they love their slop, their marvels, their triple-A video games, their microtransactions, and gachas. Yum yum yum. Quite ironic for them to so readily consume corporate media.

I can go on. pleasant people.

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Fair point. I'll replace that and add some of the other suggestions.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

added a few more :v

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Other suggestions:

  • Before we talk you have to watch this YouTube video
  • You're a transphobe!
  • "already been debunked"
  • You just hate leftism!
  • "NATOpedia"
  • Bad sourcing (in particular citing a source that says the opposite of what they say it says)
  • Ignoring inconvenient questions
  • Controlling the conversation (ex. insisting that a counterpoint is "not what we're talking about" so refusing to address it)
  • Changing the subject
[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Added some of them. What's NATOpedia? Wasn't able to find what that's referring to.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If there can be a catchy way to make it happen, maybe "Uses a terrible source" could be paired with "Uses a source terribly." The thing where they cite a real source while insisting it says the opposite of what it says is really notable when it happens.

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 3 points 2 weeks ago

Unfortunately no way to pair them, at least not on that site. But I've added uses a source terribly.

(By chance actually just had both)

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

https://lemmy.ml/search?q=natopedia&type=Comments&listingType=Local&page=1&sort=New&titleOnly=false

Having an objective source of truth undoes their way of doing things, so they have to dismiss anything from Wikipedia out of hand. As is tradition, their way of doing that is to assign it an insulting nickname so that anyone who brings it up is subject to bullying.

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 5 points 2 weeks ago

Ah, it's a belittling name for Wikipedia, got it. Added!

[–] FunkyStuff@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well that's interesting, tankies call you a transphobe unprompted? For no reason?

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Tankies labels are largely meaningless considering their views

It's like a nazi calling someone a shitlib, it's meaningless because of who's saying it. Funny how you guys say the same.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ho ho ho. This seems like fun! Wondering if the mod(s) can pin this so we can update daily on our progress.

Also, you should've added one for Venezuela idolisation. "Maduro did nothing wrong!" and Kremlin simps—although that is essentially free

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 4 points 2 weeks ago

image

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That Slop post already has 172 comments, more than any other on that community's front page. Must have hit them straight in the heart.

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Holy shit lol. And one of the comments calls it rage bait, as if I had posted it in their community. WTF lol.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're famous dude, keep it up lol

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

For a fucking bullshit bingo game lol.

At this point I could play the game with the hexbear thread. They've already misquoted me by cutting off a part of my sentence to make it look like you should never even talk to them, lest they be right. My God, learn to fucking read lol.

Oh, and they're discussing the difference between putdowns and insults. I dunno, I learned that shit in school. In a school in the West even! Oh, the horror!

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

i think you should make bingo boards an active thing here, it'll be fun!

[–] FunkyStuff@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

At this point I could play the game with the hexbear thread. They’ve already misquoted me by cutting off a part of my sentence to make it look like you should never even talk to them, lest they be right. My God, learn to fucking read lol.

You're right! Someone did cut off your quote! Then I responded with your full quote and said the following:

Hey, they actually said

Don’t feed the trolls. Don’t respond to anything, unless there is actually a legitimate attempt to have a legitimate discussion.

We often fail to provide well-meaning Lemmy users with legitimate arguments and good faith discussion. You know, like yesterday when @unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth was telling us about how Tank Man was executed and we started responding really unfair things, like

Why do you think tank man was killed?

You got any sources to ground that assertion in reality, or are you completely full of shit?

And Joe Biden wwas replaced by a body double halfway through his term <- a statement with the same amount of proof and the same basis in reality

In the future, we should be better and try to have a legitimate discussion. I think it would be nice if we instead said something like, "Gee, I hadn't thought about it that way! I guess you might be right, and if I imagine that China has executed any given person hard enough, it becomes true!" or something along those lines.

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Except that's the thing: I never claimed tank man was killed (at least, that we know of). I mean, that was the fascination of the whole thing, that he wasn't just run over by the tanks, especially considering what happened afterwards. Which is the reason, at least as far as I can tell, that the video got so popular.

[–] FunkyStuff@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You said both Renee Nicole Good and Tank Man were murdered.

[–] Funkler@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

They didn't reply and my first account got banned, so just in case some smart-aleck is reading this thread in the future and they think: "Well they didn't say the tank man was murdered, they just said that some civilian was murdered after that picture was taken"

  1. That's a picture of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square after it had been evacuated. No one was killed at Tiananmen Square before or after this picture was taken during the 1989 protests. People were killed in other streets surrounding Tiananmen Square.
  2. @unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth did imply they believe the tank man was later tracked down by the government and killed., just after the video ends.

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 1 points 1 week ago

I wasn't implying that tank man was killed. Again, I knew he wasn't killed by the tanks (which is the whole point of that video), honestly I didn't even know people thought he was killed by the tanks. I was countering the implication of the meme that there was no bloodshed in that time. Because even if nothing happened to him (although I have yet to see evidence either way), the smallest legitimate estimate is the number of people killed was in the hundreds.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

New accounts get automatically banned if they trigger spam prevention. You'll have to use your main alt account, which I don't know why you don't use.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

yo can you post the link to the updated bingo?

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's still the same link. I'm just not sure how often it shuffles it. If in doubt open it in an incognito tab or other browser, that will do the trick. Or somewhere I think there's also an option to link card PDFs, that should also shuffle it.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

nah i mean the link isn't even in the body message anymore

[–] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 1 points 1 week ago

I didn't have it in the body, but I've added it there in case there are any problems.