Thank you for saying this in a more detailed way than I have been. This is exactly right. They built their own leftist haven and became a whole culture of their own, and then became federated. There is bound to be an initial clash, but honestly I think most of the people who hate on them never gave them a chance. All they saw were the shitposts and the in-jokes and you closed the door.

When it comes to dealing with HB users here, my advice is the exact same as dealing with other users

• if you don’t like what someone is saying (because it’s idiotic, obstrusive, or whatever), block the person for some peace of mind.

• if you’re consistently uninterested on the content coming from an instance, block the instance.

I see a lot of leftists (and leaning leftists), even on .world, who would be better off interacting with the users there (maybe blocking the shitposting comms). And outside of those most-seen comms (chapotraphouse and dunk_tank), there is genuine conversation and less shit talking and in-jokes. I believe, with more instances coming in that are federated with them (mine, .ml, and lem.ee? are a couple), some of the Hex-natives are understanding how to interact with curious left-leaning people with unintentionally wrong-headed ideas.

Downvote me all you want, I stand by Hexbear. o7