I first was on Lemmy, now on kbin. Kbin is just a much more nicer experience. Also it's not developed by tankies who glorify f*cking Mao Zedong. Simple as that.

The tankie thing keeps pushing me away from lemmy, but lemmy seems to be the only software getting clients at the moment. So I'm torn. I want an iOS client badly, but I don't want to support tankies.

I suppose I shouldn't sell out for a nice app though.

what is a tankie?

Stalinists. It originated in British left-wing politics, in reference to British communists who supported the Soviet Union when they sent tanks in to crush the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 (in contrast to those British communists who broke away from the Soviets over this), but nowadays it's used more generally to refer to that brand of authoritarian leftists who act as apologists for Putin, the Chinese Communist Party, North Korea, etc.

Has there been conducted any studies into where these people come from? Both geographically, generationally, and ideologically. Is it just random people with a fascination with the Soviet Union who somehow end up reading a bit too much Russia Today? Are they brainwashed from birth?

I struggle to believe how any well meaning leftie could take a look at Putin and think "yeah, that's what I'm talking about".