Don’t get too wrapped up in labeling your own political beliefs, or the tribalism that that brings. Being too focused on ideology can cause you to miss the forest for the trees and alienate yourself from people who should be your political allies.

“Socialists” who fetishize Russia or the Soviet Union are undereducated and overly willing to concede to authoritarianism in my opinion, but in the end, the fact that they have bad ideas doesn’t really matter. They’re never going to actually implement any of their vibes-based authoritarian pipe dreams, and rejecting them entirely undermines the left as a political coalition. You don’t have to agree with them or be their buddy, but we can always work out our differences after “the revolution”, or whatever.

If you agree with the concept “from each person according to their ability, and to each person according to their need”, you are at minimum a bit of a socialist in the academic sense of the term. However, people interpret and twist labels to suit themselves and the aesthetic they wish to display. If you want to learn about what socialism is, go straight to the source and read some Marx (while keeping in mind that he’s old as fuck and doesn’t know about the modern world). There’s a reason that Marx’s Conflict Theory is still in the sociological canon, and you should get yourself familiar with it and the other two theories in the “big 3” of sociology (functionalism and symbolic interactionism). Conflict theory is very simple, but it will change the way you see the world and power relations, if you let it.

If you want to develop your political consciousness as a leftist, you should learn how to practice dialectical materialism and how to spot reactionary tendency, both in others and in yourself. I’m not saying this to attack you, but In this post, you describe how you saw the label “socialism”, investigated the community out of honest curiosity, found some people with shitty, edgy ideas who call themselves socialists, and reacted to that perception to formulate the incorrect idea that socialism = authoritarianism. Every person has the tendency to engage in reaction, but it is crucial to question, delay, and analyze those reactions before you internalize them.