this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
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Meanwhile On Grad
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I never heard of tankies until I got to lemmy.
The first thing that I ever saw from them was a meme about how Joseph Stalin had very little in the way of material things when he died, despite the position he held.
And I was like Bitch, I care about Stalin's earthly possessions in the exact same way that I care about Hitler's painting with watercolors skill set.
This got me thinking about my western canadian upbringing through the back half of the Cold War. A steady stream of western indictrination and perspective. I recall zero words spoken about Joseph Stalin's personal life or spending habits.
So who the fuck was that meme aimed at? Who is out there, just wanting to love Stalin, but can't on account of thinking he lived in opulence? Who is out there heaping scorn on Stalin for what he owned or didn't?
That's when I realized that tankies are just a combination of Flat Earthers/Sovereign Citizens. It’s all bullshit, and the point is to be exceedingly difficult to talk to.
There are actually plenty of tankies on Reddit, but with Reddit you have to pretty much seek it out because of the massive user base
Legend goes that dessalines actually started Lemmy because their Reddit main got perm banned because he went a lil too tankie
I remember a huge dustup maybe 4 years ago where tankies infiltrated and tried to take over a bunch of left leaning subs within a few weeks. They do it regularly too. I've noticed quite a few db0 accounts that are around 9 months old spewing the usual tankie shit.
We've been noticing the same. your thoughts?
Pretty sure it's just an attempt to normalize their talking points by worming them into discussions. Spreading to different instances is a reaction to grad and hex being largely defederated and ml names being a huge red flag for a bunch of people. I think the reality is that even if everyone defederates every tankie instance, they'll keep creeping in through different instances. I don't see a solution beyond simply keeping an eye out and tagging/moderating individuals as they pop up.
2017 killed LateStageCapitalism, all those mods got replaced with bad faith actors
I got permabanned for suggesting people assert their civil rights and learn about civil rights
I too, have never heard of tankies before joining lemmy.
Imagine my surprise, when i, a guy from a post-soviet country, where the fans of soviets are endangered species, see them all fanboying over dictators of the past century over here lol
The best part they're from countries that never even remotely experienced soviet horrors. The lead tankies are from Netherlands and many other appear to be from flyover states of the US lol
and obvious it's invaded by ruzi bots
sorry you have to experience that
It's interesting how almost all Tankies come from the US
This is so relatable. I'm from a former communist country. The first time I encountered a large group of tankies was on Reddit around the TikTok ban. It was stunning. It had me thinking "My god, the far-right will put us all in the same boat as these weirdos and sink the boat"
There is a funny story about the real currency of power that involves Stalin. The story goes that Stalin and his party officials came upon a beggerwoman on the side of the road. She asked them if they could spare some money. In a rare moment of generosity from Stalin he went for his wallet, only to find it empty. He asked the officials if they had any money, but all of their purses sounded empty.
Those in power do not need money, as everything they ever want will be given to them.
Same here, never heard of them before Lemmy. I was shocked by their illogical statements and behavior. I couldn't believe anyone could hold such inconsistent beliefs and not just melt their brain, by so many mental gymnastics and plot holes. I still can't. It just makes way more sense that they are all done kind of weird Russian ai experiment.
They kind of betray each other a lot of the times where some say that tiananmen square massacre didn't happen and others saying that they are color revolutionaries and absolutely deserved it.
I personally know a born-and-raised Chinese person who's loyal to the regime. Not even he denies the Uyghur genocide. He just admits that he thinks china should be an ethnostate. I think about that every time I see some keyboard warrier say the genocide is western propaganda.
I've found it very curious how Tankies will apply a coat of liberal paint to authoritarian states like China, Iran and Russia. They don't realise that diversity and the freedom of self-expression they so love are all largely suppressed in these states.
very much a chickens for KFC scenario.
I've seen them saying it was fine because the students wanted to be killed. Insane
I was willing to listen to them until I was the target of completely unfounded censorship. I figured, meh maybe they have a few nuggets of wisdom. They called me a racist and a xenophobe for a meme I made that neither contained racism or race.
That's all they do, is engage in name-calling. Nothing actually productive. They're just a bunch of name-callers.
NPR did a story on this, most bots are actually human slaves in giant networks working together
i wish all the stupidity i see in the world was the result of russian misinformation, but that's almost too optimistic a position to hold in my eyes...guess we'll see if/when russia collapses from fighting ukraine, if it all just dries up.
It's not just Russian troll farms now. Russia, China and Iran have combined their troll farms, and it's just steamrolling through social media.
And India and Iran, all BRICS countries. You can follow via the crypto tickers sometimes, as crypto is intrinsically tied to these bot (human slave) farms - it's their funding.
lol lusty argonian
putin is funding the troll farms personally, i think it will be the last to collapse before russia does unfortunately.
Yes, and he uses slave labor for them as well
I envy you. I live in Hungary, and for a long while the only leftists I knew about were tankies. They're just as annoying offline as online.
Kind of likewise; coming from Reddit the political weirdos were American conservative types, "Jesus needs more guns to shoot the gays and the poor and the blacks" sort of folks. The idea of fervent fucking Soviets on the English speaking internet was new and instantly boring.
My first interactions on lemmy here were with a large pod of tankies on memes of all places.
It was not clear to me they were anything but super politically correct Americans so I argued with them for like a hundred different replies before one of them told me, then they kept brigading me and following me on to other posts and such.
Then my phone started acting wonky and I got afraid I was getting hacked by them so I made a new account, I do not know if they can find you from Lemmy but I still have both.
Here's my 2¢ on how that kinda post might've been effective propaganda on me if I just saw it in the background long enough.
I grew up in America in a conservative area and everyone saw wealth as success and legitness. I now find myself beliving that if you live in excessive luxury that you are part of the problem. I can see how learning Stalin didn't have much when he died would appeal to a certain leftist in me and changes the emperor tone I originally picture him with.
I have other issues with Stalin, but maybe if I'd've lived on .ml long enough those kinda posts could've slowly changed what comes to mind when I think of him.
Conservative estimates state that Stalin was directly responsible for twenty million deaths.
There is no charm offensive that will "slowly change what comes to mind" when thinking of Joseph Stalin.