u/Falasti

A little bit of context about me, I only recently started using reddit again after a long hiatus from it (last time was about 2022 iirc) and I fondly remember this sub from a while ago. At the time I was about 14 and I was just starting to get involved into politics. I gravitated very heavily to the edgy left and in that early stage of my political development, r/196 was there to serve as a sense of community before I had many leftist friends.

Back then, this sub was in kind of a transitional (no pun intended) phase. It was shaking off a lot of the 4 Chan-y internet culture and moving into a more progressive phase. But at the time it didn't feel like that, it felt much more like a genuine anarchy. Back then there was only one rule, if you visited the sub you had to post something before you left. It could've been a tweet, a meme, some art, a selfie, whatever, but it could really be anything. Yes the mods would delete the egregious shit at their own aggression, but it never felt like you were being monitored, and still the sub was considered a leftist haven. It didn't feel like a place for leftists, it felt like a place for everyone that just so happened to miraculously be leftist. Yeah it was progressive, but not sensitively so, it had a damn edge.

4 years later I come back to this website and check in on this sub. Now it's a damn shell of it's former self. What used to be one rule became several, what used to feel like a place to fuck around became a place to find out. It's basically another r/traa and I mean that in a derogatory way. AND HOLY FUCKING SHIT IM NO PURITAN BUT THE HORNYPOSTING IS UNREAL, I CANT SCROLL FOR 2 SECONDS WITHOUT SEEING A DAMN FETISH POST IT'S GROSS.

I hate what fucking happened to this sub, I hate the fact it got neutered and declawed into being just a giant human centipede of unfunny tumblr screenshots, hornyposts and "yeah dude thats a totally normal thing for a guy to say" memes. It doesnt matter all that much to me at the end of the day because I have much more leftist friends now both online and offline, but it's always a shame to see another leftist community get reduced to this.

Like yea i’m still a lil nerdy but I thought ppl liked that. Im progressive, Im kind, Im altruistic, I have a nice body. The only thing that’s really holding me back is that Im 5’6”, but surely it can’t be that big of a deal. Did I just get unlucky? Did god simply look upon me and proclaim “no, he will not feel the loving embrace of another human”?

I have to buzz my hair so it doesn’t all fall out, is there a way i could style my hair to make it look more alt? I also do want piercings eventually but I have to wait another 2 years until i can move out of my religious parent’s house.