Asklemmy

I can't speak about lemmygrad since the instances I'm on all defederate from it, but Hexbear users have a reputation for being generally aggressive, grating, and immature. It's like that kid in class who keeps interrupting the teacher because they think they're funny and clever. e.g., some were screaming at me that I can't be an anarchist and I know nothing about anarchism since I'm married, replying with third-grade tier memes for some confusing reason

Political views aside, the way they promote their political views is unappealing.

Look through any of their popular threads. Everyone piles on any comment which doesn't align perfectly with the agreed perspective.

They are hardline Marxist-Leninists, something that is very rare in the western world even amongst those who identify as leftist or socialist. If their views make you uncomfortable, then you're not a ML, which is okay.

Left-wing politics is a very broad spectrum, and a lot of Lemmy users lean towards the more moderate end which brings them into conflict with the more radical communities that are Lemmygrad and Hexbear.

That's all there is to it.

Lemmygrad is filled with the American patriot version of communists. You will excuses for the Uighur genocide and acts of repression against ethnic minorities for the good of the nation as a whole. You also get into weird cases of trying to redefine words because the words don't match their narrative. For instance, I was in one discussion trying to argue that China was a democracy because the government worked for the people, even if there was never any official method of communicating the public will.

Hexbear seems more geared towards being angry and bitter at liberals for not doing what they see as the right thing. There isn't any discussion on political theory, talk of political organization outside of violent revolution is frowned on, and the focus seems geared on one small part of the political spectrum while ignoring other parts entirely.

If anything, solarpunk may be the healthier leftist sub because it is geared in part towards solutions instead of focusing on problems.

Lemmygrad and Hexbear aren’t “leftist” in the confused sense that Americans usually mean “leftist.” They’re actually leftist in the original sense, meaning that they want to abolish private ownership of the means of production. To the extent they’re “widely hated,” it’s largely because the Anglosphere has been indoctrinated against real, actual socialism their entire lives.

Just take a look at this question, all of the answers are from lemmygrad and hexbear users. You are not going to get a good answer from them because they're the people you're asking the question about.

They are not hated they're just annoying, no one really cares about their opinions the problem is is that they try and push their opinions on everybody else.

I believe you've answered your own question.

Lemmy isn't Marxist-only. The majority of Lemmy users are what the more vocal Lemmygrad and Hexbear users deride as "libs." As a thought experiment, imagine that you are one of us for a moment and then browse Local on one of those.

Lemmygrad isn't "hated" by most of the wider lemmyverse. There's just a loud and obnoxious minority of people that will rail and rant about lemmygrad. They loudly rant about lemmygrad because they aren't used to seeing their worldview get challenged and by its very nature as a radical leftist community, lemmygrad is a challenge to the typical background liberal perspective.

It's no surprise we all end up seeing a lot of threads about "those mean tankies at lemmygrad" (and hexbear too) made by people who can't take their worldview getting questioned, or even shown to be flawed, or just not standing up to their own scrutiny, and who get mad when that happens. There are also of course people with ideological reasons to demonize leftwing politics and will spread shit for that reason alone. But overall, I don't think most people care enough except to think "oh yeah that's that instance with those radical lefties, they're weird but they do make some great memes sometimes."

I haven't seen or maybe haven't noticed much of lemmygrad. But hex bear has a culture of spamming the same handful of images, using them like punctuation in their posts. And they show up huge in my reader at least (I just found out they look small to them.) So it's like you're trying to have a discussion and someone comes parading through with like five crappy drawings that take up all the space. Also I don't mind having Marxists around but they tend to want to steer every discussion toward it, regardless of its relevance. Can't wait to be able to block the instance.

Because they are populated by some of the dumbest people on the planet.

So, as others mentioned, they're tankies. They circle jerk about how "the west" is entirely responsible for every bad thing that ever happened. They blame the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the West, they deny the oppression of the Uyghur people as pure western propaganda...

Any time you cite something horrible Russia or Iran or China or North Korea does, they say "the west is just as bad," draw some false equivalencies, and then proceed to explain why that means that the West is the only bad thing and there's nothing at all wrong with Russia or China.

And... they're so aggressive about it. It's not just that their opinions are so detestable, but that they brigade other threads and insist that everybody who isn't actively bombing US government buildings is evil.

They're annoying. On the fediverse, that might be the highest sin.

They're both good instances. People have been heavily propagandized to hate communists. You could make the kindest most welcoming space on the internet and if you put the label "communist" on it, it will be hated.

Lemmygrad I can't comment on. As far as I can tell they basically just talk politics and I'm not interested in microwaving my brain by obsessing about politics online. Haven't seen them out in any of the threads I've been on.

Hexbear I've enjoyed honestly. They've got nice hobby communities and it's all I'm here for. Quality of discussion is usually pretty good. My take on people hating Hexbear is people have made their personality getting mad about politics and Hexbear don't share their views. People screaming "tankie!" just seemed deranged to me, literally who cares what a handful of nerds in the US think of China. Neither of you have any influence on what China does at all.

I could tell you, but the last time I responded to a thread like this I got banned for a couple weeks because toxic political personalities aren't very tolerant.

I'm the only person I've ever seen on Lemmy running an instance from a nominally communist country (maybe there are others?). You can come hang out with me I guess. I'm not qualified to be a proper communist though -- I've read very little of the literature, and leave politics to the Party. Which I am not even actually a member of. I'm basically Boxer from Animal farm, but ended up happily married and with a decent standard of living instead of shipped off to the glue factory.

I'm am a mercenary science hermit though, so my instance is very quiet! There are three people on my instance, two are me and the other is a bot I wrote doing I-Ching divinations using physics.

Well it's because they are Marxist.
In the Lemmy culture Marxism has a very bad name because almost religious overtones of its adherents.

Which is of ironically very much what Marx was warning against. But that's how it works right now.

Haven't seen any lemmygrad users in a while, but honestly the vitriol towards Hexbear is overblown. They're fine. Bit trolly, and they shitpost a lot, but it's kinda fun.

Im not in alot of communities but I've never seen the heavy handed claims everyone makes about seemingly any lemmy user to the left of Biden. I've seen occasional snark, but nothing out of line for standard internet snark/trolling that those same people never mind when the right does it. 🤷

With how much anticommunism goes down in the federation I sometimes wish the developers would hide some code that would kick people who do this off the entire federation. Don't use a fucking communist platform to get away from the failing capitalist one and then spend all your time being McCarthy's left nutsack. I know that's never going to happen because that goes against the developer's values, but god damn would it be justified as fuck if it happened, and it would stop like 99.9999% of the toxicity and CSAM that gets posted here.

I wouldn't be a fan of a nazi or islamist instance either. One for communists is hardly any different as far I'm concerned. They're all groups of extremists that I don't want anything to do with. Just look at the modlog of this instance for example. Exhibit B is the fact that this message will get deleted in couple hours and I'll likely be banned.

tankies are not bastions of logical and rational thought. hexbear is way, way out there - about as divorced from reality as is humanly possible

It should probably be a hint of sorts - while the idea might be tolerable, once people enter the mix - it all goes to shit.

ITT: offended lennygrad and hexbear users giving good examples to answer the OP