It's a wakeup call for a lot of young people when they start to recognize the absurdity of anti-communist propaganda, but a lot of kids swing too far the other direction and figure all the bad things they've ever heard about history's worst communist leaders are lies.
It doesn't mean that Communism is uniquely bad, but these men were violent tyrants who don't share values with most mainstream western leftists today.
Some never grow up and say dumb shit like that radical gender expression was common in the USSR or something...
Larping as a tankie is definitely a thing of immature, terminally online kids, but I wouldn't throw Lenin in the bunch. While Stalin is mostly condemned as a reactionary psychopath by pretty much everybody except a few leftist basement-dwellers, Lenin is still read and taught throughout the world. Nothing edgy in reading Lenin.
Edgy kids on the internet worship other psychopaths like Pol Pot or Hoxha.
Stalin maybe. Lenin? He was a hero to the working class. I'd really like to see your sources on how Lenin was one of "history's worst communist leaders".
I suppose there's not a lot of communist leaders to choose from in general, but Kronstadt happened on Lenin's watch and it would be a bit disingenuous to pretend this was controversy free amongst the left and working classes.
It was always a thing, had a tankie friend in high-school. Though you're right, most people grow out of it. But I don't think this guy did last I saw him