I think there's a difference between a "hexbear user" and a typical "leftist."

A lot of their stuff reads like leftist versions of 4chan circlejerk insanity.

If you came from Reddit, it’s chapotraphouse. When they were banned they made a Lemmy. Same vaguely violent meme content.

I didn’t understand them either, at first. The best way I can describe them is genuine, honest people who are passionate about leftist ideas of all kinds, that got caught in their own little socialism shitpost bubble for a time, and have now emerged. Again alive to the world of federated forums, they are either changing minds or pissing people off because they don’t pull their punches, and will argue for extreme action. They do this because they feel there’s no reason to play fair in a system so rigged against the masses.

I, for one, am glad my instance stayed federated with them.

Because they want to sow apathy, accelerating the collapse of society. At least that has been my experience whenever I have to engage in debate with them.

They're essentially a Chapo Trap House fanbase whose main political discourse is antagonizing liberals. Outside of their instance they are probably being sarcastic, trolling, or flaming some generically lib take.

Naturally they're hated by libs and many a story and mythology has been spun about them as the boogeyman.

So: they're intentional assholes on the internet, and people resoundly find themselves shocked and surprised by that.