/leftypol/

About

Leftist Politically Incorrect, typically referred to as /leftypol/, is a board dedicated to discussions of political events from the left-wing viewpoint on the imageboard site 8chan and its successors. Similar to 4chan's counterpart /pol/ (Politically Incorrect), the board is known for its radical viewpoints on a wide range of current events and issues.

History

/leftypol/ was founded in 2014 on the imageboard website 8chan as a leftist general alternative to its predecessor 8chan counterpart /pol/.

In response to the takedown of 8ch.net in 2019, /leftypol/ officially migrated to a backup site known as Bunkerchan, before administrative issues led to a split in December 2020^[1], with the site's users migrating to the current /leftypol/ home, leftypol.org.

Features

/leftypol/ consists of users who sympathize with socialist ideologies and viewpoints, such as communism and anarchism. Although many of the memes are centered around the USSR and Albania, almost all the users are opposed to both the USSR and Hoxhaist Albania. The board is also the home of left-wing discussion of ideology and culture, according to the board's FAQ^[2]. The Board is also associated with the USSC (Union of Soviet Socialist Chans).

Identity Politics

One of the things that distinguishes the views of /leftypol/ from other "leftist" philosophies is the rejection of what has been termed "Identity Politics," or idpol (based on the /pol/ board) for short, is a form of political action based around groups of people with a common culture, ethnicity or preferences, which generally base their political action and organization on an in-group/out-group basis and make a hard friend/enemy distinction, usually involving a 'vast conspiracy' against their interests. Therefore, both 'right-wing' groups like Nazis or White Nationalists and 'left-wing' groups like feminists or LGBTQ*IA tolerance are forms of identity politics. Both require an adherence to strong in-group loyalty (e.g. the German volk, women etc) and recognition of a mortal enemy (eg. Jews, Men etc) who are involved in a conspiracy against the in-group (eg. The Protocols, The Patriarchy etc).

Flags

Just like old 4chan's /pol/ board, /leftypol/ features a system of flags which are meant to indicate the poster's ideology. The flexible nature of 8chan's boards has permitted an ever increasing number of flags on /leftypol/, representing most of its posters' ideologies. However, some other flags are used with the sole purpose of shitposting (for example, the Spurdo flag and Groucho Marxism flag), or as a way to identify a poster (for example, the Satan posters who uses the Satanist flag).

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek (or Zizkek for /leftypol/ users) is a Slovenian Marxist, and the protagonist and narrator of several films, the best known of them most likely being "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology", in which Žižek analyses what he believes is ideology (which in Marxist literature refers to any idealistic view of the world). His extensive use of the term, combined with his thick accent and frequent sniffing, has made him one of /leftypol/'s favorite figures.

Related Memes

Porky

Porky is a cartoon used to derogatorily depict a man of the Bourgeoisie (which, in Marxist literature, refers to people who own means of productions, and are thus usually at the upper part of the economic spectrum), similar to /pol/'s Happy Merchant. Variations include Porky hiding behind a mask, signifying the Bourgeois influence behind a movement or ideology, or Porky being pictured as some historical figure, accusing such person as being a Bourgeois himself. The image originates from old pro-Soviet propaganda of the "POCTA" that has been appropriated by /leftypol/ as many of the memes are.

This Post Was Made By X Gang / Nazbol Gang

This Post Was Made By X Gang refers to a series of satirical image macros which are tagged to make them appear as though they're sponsored by a collective of memers. Images in this meme tend to feature an image macro describing one object in a negative light in impact font, accompanied by a watermark which is an image macro for a "gang" centered around an object opposed to the image's subject.

The watermark trend started on 8chan among left-leaning posters who stylized themselves the Nazbol Gang. Early posts from the group date back to November of 2016.

Max Stirner's Spooks

Max Stirner was a German philosopher that theorized egoism, a philosophical standpoint that influenced nihilism, existentialism, postmodernism, and anarchism. He created the notion that common social institutions (the State, property rights or society) were "spooks" or ghosts in the mind which are ultimately a bad thing to base entire philosophies or economic systems on. On /leftypol/, people commonly use the phrase spook and often when bringing it up will post one of Friedrich Engels' drawings of Max Stirner.

Bunkers

This meme is central to /leftypol/ and is often considered one of its symbols. It comes from the 700,000 bunkers built in Albania under Enver Hoxha's rule, due to his fear of an invasion from Warsaw Pact countries. It is featured on several banners, and on a few of the board's flags. The meme itself is of course /leftypol/ laughing at itself in a way

Classcuck

Classcuck is a term used in /leftypol/ and it refers to someone, a member of the working class, who is not class conscious and therefore is in support of capitalism and its oppression of them. For example, a police officer is a classcuck because while he is a proletarian he protects the property of the bourgeoisie, betraying his own class. The term comes from cuckoldry, the act of watching someone have sex with your partner.

Traffic

Ever since it's founding and debut in 2014, /leftypol/ was become one of 8chan's top 20 boards, ranked at #4 site wide at the time of 8chan's takedown in 2019^[2], with almost 3,000,000 total posts. The bunkerchan.net site had over 1,300,000 posts^[3] and the current site, leftypol.org, has over 350,000 posts as of July 2021. On average, the /leftypol/ board receives more than 1500 posts per day.

Search Interest

External References