I grew up apolitical but always lib-leaning due to background radiation of California and then became a 4chan edgelord borderline fascist and became really disillusioned when I realized the majority of the people around me believed some stupid ass shit (nofap will not give you super powers, wtf?) and were generally just stupid, cruel people
like my older brother has been posting on 4chan since like 2005 and he always was kind of conservative (which I always found strange) and slowly became more and more fascist and around the Trump election was always talking about how awesome Trump was going to be and all that edgy Nazi shit and talking about how there is hope because of "Gen Zyklon" and he used to wear a Nazi hat and stuff around the house and he kind of bullied me into adopting some of his more extreme views and I went through a period of pretty severe introspection a little while later and started to drift back to some of the stuff I believed a little bit in highschool (one of my friends is from Finland and constantly bludgeoned me about how socdem is best and how USA is shit, it always kind of stuck with me) and my older brother became extremely abusive in response (though he always was, I just didn't really pick up on it) and it just caused me to become lost and search for answers
Over like the next two years I slowly started to lose some of the stupid ass brainworms I gained from spending all day jacking off and browsing /pol/ (also I generally started to realize that yes, me not being white is a hindrance) and eventually I joined group that just happened to be leftbook and I usually got ratioed when I said some stupid shit and most people there were genuinely nicer than most right wing douchebags
I eventually got in touch with my friend from Finland after not talking with him for ages and I tried to act like I used to before I got brainworms and he was like, "election is coming up, who are you voting for? I'm watching this one because it looks crazy, Americans are so dumb" and he eventually linked me to the JRE episode with Bernie and I really liked what Bernie had to say (esp. with regards to when he started going on about deaths of despair because I was pretty close to becoming one of those lmao) and I kinda wrestled with that for a while and became more and more disgusted with fascists and everything around me and then when the Floyd Riots kicked off, I don't even remember how or why but I wound up watching the livestreams (I think it's because I had seen an anticapitalist meme on FB and was like "hey that's true", and then started following that page) and it really radicalized me like crazy, I used to think antifa were crybabies but I saw some insane shit on those livestreams and I was like "holy shit if they're right about police brutality what else are they right about?"
I had actually read Marx as part of a class I took for general ed a few weeks before that and I loved it but I didn't really think "wow, I'm on the left now" until I was watching those livestreams like 10 hours a day
I think I probably always would have wound up like this, I have always hated bullies, and I have had experiences in my life that humanized lots of people who are normally demonized. One of my only friends in elementary school was a foster kid (who opened my eyes to classism, I remember he told me the other white people didn't like him because he was "trailer trash" and that while the Mexicans didn't fully accept him because he was white at least they didn't look down on him for being poor) and I had another friend who was a very sensitive and intelligent person who fell into multiple drug addictions along with having been in tons of remedial classes and interacting with all the black kids who got constantly harassed by the school police and realizing most of them were fucked up but also really fucking funny and for the most part normal people
I grew up apolitical but always lib-leaning due to background radiation of California and then became a 4chan edgelord borderline fascist and became really disillusioned when I realized the majority of the people around me believed some stupid ass shit (nofap will not give you super powers, wtf?) and were generally just stupid, cruel people
like my older brother has been posting on 4chan since like 2005 and he always was kind of conservative (which I always found strange) and slowly became more and more fascist and around the Trump election was always talking about how awesome Trump was going to be and all that edgy Nazi shit and talking about how there is hope because of "Gen Zyklon" and he used to wear a Nazi hat and stuff around the house and he kind of bullied me into adopting some of his more extreme views and I went through a period of pretty severe introspection a little while later and started to drift back to some of the stuff I believed a little bit in highschool (one of my friends is from Finland and constantly bludgeoned me about how socdem is best and how USA is shit, it always kind of stuck with me) and my older brother became extremely abusive in response (though he always was, I just didn't really pick up on it) and it just caused me to become lost and search for answers
Over like the next two years I slowly started to lose some of the stupid ass brainworms I gained from spending all day jacking off and browsing /pol/ (also I generally started to realize that yes, me not being white is a hindrance) and eventually I joined group that just happened to be leftbook and I usually got ratioed when I said some stupid shit and most people there were genuinely nicer than most right wing douchebags
I eventually got in touch with my friend from Finland after not talking with him for ages and I tried to act like I used to before I got brainworms and he was like, "election is coming up, who are you voting for? I'm watching this one because it looks crazy, Americans are so dumb" and he eventually linked me to the JRE episode with Bernie and I really liked what Bernie had to say (esp. with regards to when he started going on about deaths of despair because I was pretty close to becoming one of those lmao) and I kinda wrestled with that for a while and became more and more disgusted with fascists and everything around me and then when the Floyd Riots kicked off, I don't even remember how or why but I wound up watching the livestreams (I think it's because I had seen an anticapitalist meme on FB and was like "hey that's true", and then started following that page) and it really radicalized me like crazy, I used to think antifa were crybabies but I saw some insane shit on those livestreams and I was like "holy shit if they're right about police brutality what else are they right about?"
I had actually read Marx as part of a class I took for general ed a few weeks before that and I loved it but I didn't really think "wow, I'm on the left now" until I was watching those livestreams like 10 hours a day
I think I probably always would have wound up like this, I have always hated bullies, and I have had experiences in my life that humanized lots of people who are normally demonized. One of my only friends in elementary school was a foster kid (who opened my eyes to classism, I remember he told me the other white people didn't like him because he was "trailer trash" and that while the Mexicans didn't fully accept him because he was white at least they didn't look down on him for being poor) and I had another friend who was a very sensitive and intelligent person who fell into multiple drug addictions along with having been in tons of remedial classes and interacting with all the black kids who got constantly harassed by the school police and realizing most of them were fucked up but also really fucking funny and for the most part normal people