Editing Lore (section)

=====Origins=====
Infrared began in 2015 as a research and study collective of five people (eventually growing to twelve), which was not public or outward-facing in any way. The original group included [[Haz Al-Din]], who was a young autodidact in the fields of history, philosophy, and politics. Some of the group's members were also members of the [[Democratic Socialists of America|DSA]] in 2016, and most (if not all) supported [[Bernie Sanders]] in the 2016 presidential election. 

After the 2016 election, the group, having been influenced by [[Reza Negarestani]], the [[New Centre for Research and Practice]], and [[Accelerationism|accelerationist]] Twitter groups, decided to take up the torch in the aftermath of the Sanders campaign. Having read religious texts, the entire Western canon of philosophy, the classics of [[Marxism-Leninism]], much of the influential historical and fictional literature that exists worldwide, and postmodern/accelerationist theorists, the group returned to [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]'s works and gained a "new conception of the masses", from which Infrared (and it's worldview, Infrared Vision) was born.

It wasn't until the summer of 2020, during the [[COVID-19|COVID]] lockdown, that Infrared decided to go public as a media group, with Haz as their public face. Haz started streaming in late 2020, while he was still in law school and trying to write a book summarizing his political views. Due to insomnia, Haz decided to stream to fill his nights with productivity, reasoning "if these online media personalities are going to keep me awake at night, I will face them head on". This was when Infrared coined its tagline and defined itself explicitly as a political tendency: "[[Marxism-Leninism]] in the age of [[Multipolarity|multi-polarity]] and the post-[[COVID-19|COVID]] world."

Infrared soon made a miniature video essay series called "Infrared Vision" and featured serialized pre-recorded Infrared episodes with some of the groups members and contemporaries, such as [[Fan Wennan]], [[Xiangyu]], and [[Ilya Medvedev]]. During this early (public) period, Haz and the Infrared collective were focused on clarifying theory and philosophy to the public and the American "Left". Unfortunately, some early viewers became deranged haters because they couldn't understand it, and Haz eventually had to declare: "We cannot clarify forever." During the pre-Twitch period, Haz debated some of these haters, [[Leftism|leftists]], and whoever else would debate while streaming using StreamYard. All of these YouTube videos would be uploaded on February 21st, 2021, the same day the IGG Discord server was founded.

Following this came the Twitch period in the winter of 2020-2021. Haz aimed to conquer Twitch by continuing to debate streamers and others on the platform, agitating twitchpol and garnering clout. Haz said he needed to "pump the garbage to get the economy going" -- he had to do more debates and dramatic, controversial, inflammatory stuff to get attention on Twitch.

During the Twitch period, Haz first debated smaller leftists who were easily dispatched. Soon, though, Haz debated [[Xanderhal]], [[Vaush]], and [[Destiny]] all in one weekend, crushing them all. He and Infrared saw these and other "left-wing" influencers as the degenerators of the authentic [[Left-wing politics|left-wing political tradition]] and audiences who otherwise might have been drawn to such historically constituted left-wing politics.

The Infrared (IGG) Discord server, a hub for discussion and debate, doubling as a library, and tripling as a venue for sharing all sorts of art and culture, was started on February 24th, 2021. This would grow to become the publicly accessible body of Infrared, and thus we also chronicle its development in its manifold interconnections. The leadership (moderators, showrunners, etc.) made the important decisions behind the scenes, especially at first. People were allowed to say whatever they wanted both in the server and on social media. This led to a lack of discipline which gradually became corrected over the following three years, especially due to Discord's restraining terms of service.

In the early Infrared Discord server, there was a small population and people were interviewed when they joined, and the server was invite-only. The original mod team was comprised of [[RedLib|redlibs]], and so was most of the server. During the first five months of the server, old-guard [[Tankie|tankies]] and leftists comprised the server, generally. Then, from July to August 2021, the "esoteric ideological jungle" broadened the server's scope, which then spanned the entire political spectrum. This era is sometimes seen as the Early Golden Age of Infrared as a period of genuine "mob rule". No one ideology or tendency was dominant; Infrared was also not being targeted yet. The server in it's embryonic stage-- as a microcosm of all politics-- was freer to debate with few server rules, ToS, and little oversight of server activity by the core/high-ranking server members. Such an all-encompassing stage was possible in the first place because the IGG Discord server was not designed to be an echo-chamber like DGG or other leftist circles online; it was designed to be a place for debate and development, which is why the official positions of Infrared often juxtaposed people in the Discord server, whether they constituted a majority or minority.

By the time Infrared was banned from Twitch, Haz had built a following of a few thousands, with a regular live viewership of 100. Moving solely to YouTube streaming and video production, Haz continued to debate streamers and [[BreadTube|Breadtubers]], and put his book on hold.

Haz started his rise by debating Breadtubers and Destiny orbiters who were defending the establishment. In a single weekend, after only a short time streaming, he debated Xanderhal, Vaush, and Destiny all in one weekend, garnering tens of thousands of views overnight.