4chan, like all chaotic temporary autonomous zones, was a catalyst more than anything else. It was nihilistic sure, but with a silly side. It took a brief moment of real optimism dashed by a corrupt, broken world to turn it full on toxic.
Like all things internet, context and speech recognition are nearly impossible to convey. I type one thing in a silly voice, but that voice in not recognized. We try to use emoji's, but there is no consensus. Instead, what i typed is seen as an angry voice. Completely changing the meaning...
...but I dont know that. I dont know you read it differently. But now you hate me. You see everything I say as hate.
This was 4chan (at first). A place where kooky people got together and joked constantly. Then the jokes got super across teh line. But what was the line? who drew it?...
... Now, it becomes a haven for those that just hate. Because its filled with "hate" but really, it was filled with just a bunch of random stuff and people molded that into their own ideas.
Its like this everywhere on the internet. We need to evolve communication if we are to remain here.
I have a long standing feeling that 4chan and some offshoots are the primordial soup for many of our current societal issues. It sounds ridiculous—how can an anon img board be that influential? But so many things like school shootings and crypto scams stewed there.
He breaks it all down, yeah by year, from partybus to rotten dot com and somethingawful, to the idea of otaku catching hold with terminally online American boys, to incel culture and, well, 4chan and its contribution to this shit show.
Im tired of people saying 4chan is dead.
It's not dead, its simply down.
Not everyone frequented /pol/ and I wish people would stop equating the whole site to one of it's boards simply because of how unfiltered the userbase was.
It'll be back up.
Reddit is still garbage.
Nothing has changed.
Why is it so easy for humans to break things rather than make things?
How do we persuade breakers to become makers?
(When I was a middle school teacher, a small number of students would stomp on mayonnaise packets to splatter it down the hall. Gross to see, mess for custodians, why?)
Better to think of the mainstreaming of 4Chan as an undermaintained sewage pipe finally bursting, forcing society to confront what they long ignored and devise new ways of cleaning up the outpouring filth, making sure it never reemerges again.
It's likely there will always be sites exactly like 4chan again. Will there be the anti-thesis sites, secret and proactive and exacting for human rights?
Why do people speak with so much authority on things they know nothing about? You really think the people who maintain 4chan are going to just shrug their shoulders and go "welp guess the site is dead forever" over a hack?
"Twitter became 4chan, then the 4chanified Twitter became the United States government. Its usefulness as an ammo dump in the culture war was diminished when they were saying things you would now hear every day on Twitter," @bencollins.bsky.social told WIRED.
Note: Daniel Immerwahr asks the first question after her presentation, and a good one. Ebner-Landy considers the people on 4chan as people and charts their evolution. This is worth watching!
Yeah, I saw someone saying "but we kept them isolated in 4 Chan, now they will go everywhere." Me, seeing some of the most homophobic, racist, juvenile leaving on FB, Insta, Pinterest, YT, etc. for the last few years "Um, I think the roaches are also under the dishwasher, fridge, etc..."
It wasn’t 4chan. It’s never been about “the platform.” 4chan has simply revealed the dark soul of the Americans that had been lurking around, waiting for a venue to explode in all its ugliness and chaos.
It all started with the Oklahoma City bombing. It gave white nationalists a moment of courage. They formed groups. Skin heads, proud boys, etc. domestic terrorists. They connected and built relationships and networks on 4Chan and brought those ideas into reality. That should have never happened.
They're going to be vomiting that all over all the remaining social media. That's kind of the point of the article. 4chan didn't "die" so much as it infected everything else with its fascist nihilism, including the US government.
Comments
This was 4chan (at first). A place where kooky people got together and joked constantly. Then the jokes got super across teh line. But what was the line? who drew it?...
Its like this everywhere on the internet. We need to evolve communication if we are to remain here.
Thanks for writing about it.
He breaks it all down, yeah by year, from partybus to rotten dot com and somethingawful, to the idea of otaku catching hold with terminally online American boys, to incel culture and, well, 4chan and its contribution to this shit show.
It's not dead, its simply down.
Not everyone frequented /pol/ and I wish people would stop equating the whole site to one of it's boards simply because of how unfiltered the userbase was.
It'll be back up.
Reddit is still garbage.
Nothing has changed.
How do we persuade breakers to become makers?
(When I was a middle school teacher, a small number of students would stomp on mayonnaise packets to splatter it down the hall. Gross to see, mess for custodians, why?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nRVtCXqtvA
https://www.whitehouse.gov/