this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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How do people actually fall into the "Tankie" mindset? (anarchist.nexus)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by stinky@anarchist.nexus to c/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying "99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in 'Tiny Man Square' [...] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda [...]," I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn't change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.

I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.

Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This goes for almost any obnoxious behavior on the internet. It's about 5-10% of people who are just assholes (of whatever description), and everyone else is fine. It only seems like the whole place is jerks because of how noisy the jerks are, and how skilled they are at amping up the normal people into noisy arguments that go nowhere.

Any time you're in one of those comments sections, take a step back and look at the number of people who are actually initiating the dickishness and you'll see that it's a tiny tiny minority.

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

not really my experience now that they have legitimate fash instances. getting Sybil downvoted is pretty hilarious though.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"Communities"

Top community: 15 subscribers, 5 users/month

I rest my case

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

the jerks also go around... harassing and insulting people. and like take a personal quest to ban/report you because you upset them.

normal people who disagree with you don't do that. like i read internet comments i don't like, laugh, and move on with my life. and if i engage in reply I'm not insulting/harassing the person, going into their comment history to report old comments, etc.