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Christopher Poole is a modern day Warhol. Not in the sense that he is an artist himself, but because he has been so important and influential for modern culture

Christopher Poole is a modern day Warhol. Not in the sense that he is an artist himself, but because he has been so important and influential for modern culture. Nearly everything that you identify today as 'internet culture' originated on 4Chan. And as this culture is quickly becoming mainstream culture now. He needs more recognition for this. And for all the vile hatred on 4Chan, I also know it is a big source of support for a lot of people otherwise left behind by the mainstream

rue 11y ago
> Nearly everything that you identify today as 'internet culture' originated on 4Chan That’s an… uh… bold claim.
- sageabilly 11y ago
  Go check out Know Your Meme and just browse around a bit. A vast, vast, vast majority of content that started exploding across the internet back when we were all young and innocent either originated on 4chan or was quickly picked up and shared on 4chan. I'm not saying that 4chan is the be all end all- Something Awful can probably be said to be even more influential as a whole- but I think 4chan was the very first example of the modern anonymous internet watering hole that spawned international media attention and completely changed how information was disseminated across the world.
  - morganvachon 11y ago
    I think the point was that "Internet culture" is much more than just image memes. Internet culture as a whole has been around as long as the Internet itself and it's constantly evolving, like a living thing. And I'm talking back before the Web; BBSes, Usenet, and e-mail all had their own cultures that stayed around and evolved as the Web was born, and their influence can still be felt today. That's a concept that I feel is lost on anyone born in the 90s or later.
    - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
      the online "culture" predates the "internet"
      - ska 11y ago
        You are confusing the "the internet" with "the web". The internet has been around for about as long as it's been sensible to describe an online culture. While in the early days (e.g. 70's, 80's) the internet certainly wasn't the only network to be influencing culture (c.f. FidoNet) it was a primary source, particularly via university campuses.
        spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        Lol how old are you young man :-) I have been online since the early 80's I used to work for Telecom Gold and Prestel back then. I even get a dedication (to my handle) in one of the books (written by a booker prize nominated author) covering the early online culture in the UK. There has been an online culture at least the 70's - and that is not counting precursor tech like telegraph and radio hams
        ska 11y ago
        Exactly - the internet had been a big contributor to online culture through the 70s. Of course this stuff all had precursors in things like ham radio, model trains, etc. but it's not really sensible to identify those as "online". Nothing springs from the void. Nice to get called "young man" though, it's been a while :) [edited, after parent was]
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    either originated on 4chan or was quickly picked up and shared on Your very definition makes it impossible to deny you. Either originated or was shared by. That covers everything. That's how memes work.
    - mhurron 11y ago
      > Either originated or was shared by. That covers everything Everything made sometime after 2003.
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      I believe the meaning there is that even if something didn't start on 4chan, it would typically reach a mass audience through 4chan. In other words, most of the sharing was dependent on 4chan quickly picking it up and spreading it.
  - benihana 11y ago
    it must be summer. You think there weren't memes on the internet before 4chan? All you're doing with this comment is showing your age. I'm you first started using the internet in the early 2000s. The internet and places for people to gather and fool around on it existed long before 4chan.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Today is Friday, September 8032nd, 1993. I love the idea that a site dedicated to explaining image macros is somehow a comprehensive repository of "internet culture." A ton of "internet culture" is not image-based because it originates from a time when downloading images was so slow and difficult that you'd only do it for content that was truly worth the effort, like pictures of Neptune taken by Voyager 2, or photos of naked ladies.
      - astrange 11y ago
        Is there really much connection from modern Internet culture to back then? Do you really remember any of those memes? James "Kibo" Parry may have invented trolling, but nobody knows that guy now. By the way, here's the only Usenet joke I remember: * <- Perth
        mikeash 11y ago
        It makes me sad to see culture equated to simply a collection of catchphrases. Some of the stuff is still around, and embedded so deeply it probably doesn't come to your mind just because it feels like part of the environment. For example, do you ever use emoticons? :D That's a fundamental part of Internet culture that originates from long before it was practical to send images around as part of casual conversation. Another example would be acronyms like LOL or ROFL. Some have died out, but LOL is still extremely common. How about this one. Ever see people quote parts of other people's comments by leading them with a > character, then reply bit by bit? It's pretty common, and is enshrined in the markup support of sites like Reddit. That's ancient Usenet culture. Heck, the very use of the word "trolling" as a way of describing someone who deliberately antagonizes people online is a piece of internet culture from that time. The originator may be forgotten, but nearly everyone knows what a "troll" is. Long after all the current "memes" are forgotten, I wager people will still know what emoticons are or what LOL means. That's culture too.
- puranjay 11y ago
  I still stand by it. Something Awful, Fark, et al were influential, but whatever they created remained confined to the internet. What 4Chan has managed to create has permeated the mainstream. My non-geeky friend sent me a Pepe yesterday. That is entirely 4Chan.
  - morganvachon 11y ago
    The Internet existed before 2000. It also existed before the World Wide Web was created in 1993. And so on, and so on. Each generation influences the next, but after a couple of generations have gone by, the newest generation comes to think of the one directly before theirs as "the original". I say that as someone who was on Usenet in the late 80s/early 90s as a teen, and that was when that particular corner of the Internet was in decline. All 4Chan has managed to do is recycle the same level of inanity that permeated the Usenet and BBS spaces before it. You are "standing by" a rehash of a rehash of a rehash.
panic 11y ago
I think you're misinformed: the real source of all internet culture is and was ebaumsworld.com. Seriously, though, internet culture is more than just /b/. The Something Awful forums (where 4chan was born, after all), Fark and YTMND contributed a lot. More recently, sites like Reddit, Instagram, Vine and Twitter have become much more relevant than any 4chan board.
- sentenza 11y ago
  Also, what about Slashdot? The Jargon file? Usenet? I've been on the Internet since the mid-90s and have purposefully avoided 4chan since I first heared of it. At no point has it been difficult to avoid 4chan. I gather it has been very influential in the niche of image memes and I vaguely remember something about teenagers calling everybody a "fag" a few years back, but otherwise I couldn't say what the influence has been.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    You'd have to make special effort to get some of the Usenet references. meow? snuh? McQ sigs? borkborkbork? yEnc sucks! None of these had much lasting impact. There's a bunch of stuff from 4chan that you have heard of, even if you don't know it came from 4chan.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - gozo 11y ago
      The legacy of mediums like Usenet isn't jokes but companies, applications, organisations etc. If you grew up during the heyday of Usenet (or BBSes, IRC, some forums, mailing lists) you had a pretty good chance of going on to do something in computing. Joke can help people come together but they doesn't form the substance of a culture. I guess people from 4chan could go on and be the next generation of marketers or something, but I doubt it.
      - 9872 11y ago
Spooky23 11y ago
Poole or somebody close to him is good at PR. I'm kind of shocked he hasn't figured out a way to cash in.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
werid 11y ago
> it is a big source of support for a lot of people otherwise left behind by the mainstream do you think it's healthy to stay in an echo chamber for long periods of time?
mark_integerdsv 11y ago
I agree with you to a certain extent. I also very much enjoyed his thoughts on privacy/anonymity and the multi-faceted nature of human personalities. You can find some quotes here: http://observer.com/2011/10/4chans-moot-facebook-and-google-dont-understand-that-were-all-like-diamonds/ http://observer.com/2011/10/4chans-moot-facebook-and-google-... Those concepts are more important in my opinion, to the gestating human identity that we will all be part of via technological evolution.
tootie 11y ago
I remember people "trolling" on usenet back in the 90s. It was way more tame back then however. Usenet and even BBSs were frequently full of pretty horrid material (gore, child porn and the like) as well as predators hiding behind a terminal.
benihana 11y ago
>He needs more recognition for this. He alone didn't influence the culture. He just created a place with very few rules and let people do their thing. It was the users of 4chan who created and spread that culture.
typon 11y ago
If that's true then that's really sad state for Internet culture considering everything that comes out of 4chan is stupid

rue 11y ago

> Nearly everything that you identify today as 'internet culture' originated on 4Chan That’s an… uh… bold claim.

sageabilly 11y ago
Go check out Know Your Meme and just browse around a bit. A vast, vast, vast majority of content that started exploding across the internet back when we were all young and innocent either originated on 4chan or was quickly picked up and shared on 4chan. I'm not saying that 4chan is the be all end all- Something Awful can probably be said to be even more influential as a whole- but I think 4chan was the very first example of the modern anonymous internet watering hole that spawned international media attention and completely changed how information was disseminated across the world.
- morganvachon 11y ago
  I think the point was that "Internet culture" is much more than just image memes. Internet culture as a whole has been around as long as the Internet itself and it's constantly evolving, like a living thing. And I'm talking back before the Web; BBSes, Usenet, and e-mail all had their own cultures that stayed around and evolved as the Web was born, and their influence can still be felt today. That's a concept that I feel is lost on anyone born in the 90s or later.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    the online "culture" predates the "internet"
    - ska 11y ago
      You are confusing the "the internet" with "the web". The internet has been around for about as long as it's been sensible to describe an online culture. While in the early days (e.g. 70's, 80's) the internet certainly wasn't the only network to be influencing culture (c.f. FidoNet) it was a primary source, particularly via university campuses.
      - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        Lol how old are you young man :-) I have been online since the early 80's I used to work for Telecom Gold and Prestel back then. I even get a dedication (to my handle) in one of the books (written by a booker prize nominated author) covering the early online culture in the UK. There has been an online culture at least the 70's - and that is not counting precursor tech like telegraph and radio hams
        ska 11y ago
        Exactly - the internet had been a big contributor to online culture through the 70s. Of course this stuff all had precursors in things like ham radio, model trains, etc. but it's not really sensible to identify those as "online". Nothing springs from the void. Nice to get called "young man" though, it's been a while :) [edited, after parent was]
- mattmanser 11y ago
  either originated on 4chan or was quickly picked up and shared on Your very definition makes it impossible to deny you. Either originated or was shared by. That covers everything. That's how memes work.
  - mhurron 11y ago
    > Either originated or was shared by. That covers everything Everything made sometime after 2003.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    I believe the meaning there is that even if something didn't start on 4chan, it would typically reach a mass audience through 4chan. In other words, most of the sharing was dependent on 4chan quickly picking it up and spreading it.
- benihana 11y ago
  it must be summer. You think there weren't memes on the internet before 4chan? All you're doing with this comment is showing your age. I'm you first started using the internet in the early 2000s. The internet and places for people to gather and fool around on it existed long before 4chan.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Today is Friday, September 8032nd, 1993. I love the idea that a site dedicated to explaining image macros is somehow a comprehensive repository of "internet culture." A ton of "internet culture" is not image-based because it originates from a time when downloading images was so slow and difficult that you'd only do it for content that was truly worth the effort, like pictures of Neptune taken by Voyager 2, or photos of naked ladies.
    - astrange 11y ago
      Is there really much connection from modern Internet culture to back then? Do you really remember any of those memes? James "Kibo" Parry may have invented trolling, but nobody knows that guy now. By the way, here's the only Usenet joke I remember: * <- Perth
      - mikeash 11y ago
        It makes me sad to see culture equated to simply a collection of catchphrases. Some of the stuff is still around, and embedded so deeply it probably doesn't come to your mind just because it feels like part of the environment. For example, do you ever use emoticons? :D That's a fundamental part of Internet culture that originates from long before it was practical to send images around as part of casual conversation. Another example would be acronyms like LOL or ROFL. Some have died out, but LOL is still extremely common. How about this one. Ever see people quote parts of other people's comments by leading them with a > character, then reply bit by bit? It's pretty common, and is enshrined in the markup support of sites like Reddit. That's ancient Usenet culture. Heck, the very use of the word "trolling" as a way of describing someone who deliberately antagonizes people online is a piece of internet culture from that time. The originator may be forgotten, but nearly everyone knows what a "troll" is. Long after all the current "memes" are forgotten, I wager people will still know what emoticons are or what LOL means. That's culture too.
puranjay 11y ago
I still stand by it. Something Awful, Fark, et al were influential, but whatever they created remained confined to the internet. What 4Chan has managed to create has permeated the mainstream. My non-geeky friend sent me a Pepe yesterday. That is entirely 4Chan.
- morganvachon 11y ago
  The Internet existed before 2000. It also existed before the World Wide Web was created in 1993. And so on, and so on. Each generation influences the next, but after a couple of generations have gone by, the newest generation comes to think of the one directly before theirs as "the original". I say that as someone who was on Usenet in the late 80s/early 90s as a teen, and that was when that particular corner of the Internet was in decline. All 4Chan has managed to do is recycle the same level of inanity that permeated the Usenet and BBS spaces before it. You are "standing by" a rehash of a rehash of a rehash.

panic 11y ago

I think you're misinformed: the real source of all internet culture is and was ebaumsworld.com. Seriously, though, internet culture is more than just /b/. The Something Awful forums (where 4chan was born, after all), Fark and YTMND contributed a lot. More recently, sites like Reddit, Instagram, Vine and Twitter have become much more relevant than any 4chan board.

sentenza 11y ago
Also, what about Slashdot? The Jargon file? Usenet? I've been on the Internet since the mid-90s and have purposefully avoided 4chan since I first heared of it. At no point has it been difficult to avoid 4chan. I gather it has been very influential in the niche of image memes and I vaguely remember something about teenagers calling everybody a "fag" a few years back, but otherwise I couldn't say what the influence has been.
- DanBC 11y ago
  You'd have to make special effort to get some of the Usenet references. meow? snuh? McQ sigs? borkborkbork? yEnc sucks! None of these had much lasting impact. There's a bunch of stuff from 4chan that you have heard of, even if you don't know it came from 4chan.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - gozo 11y ago
    The legacy of mediums like Usenet isn't jokes but companies, applications, organisations etc. If you grew up during the heyday of Usenet (or BBSes, IRC, some forums, mailing lists) you had a pretty good chance of going on to do something in computing. Joke can help people come together but they doesn't form the substance of a culture. I guess people from 4chan could go on and be the next generation of marketers or something, but I doubt it.
    - 9872 11y ago

Spooky23 11y ago

Poole or somebody close to him is good at PR. I'm kind of shocked he hasn't figured out a way to cash in.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

werid 11y ago

> it is a big source of support for a lot of people otherwise left behind by the mainstream do you think it's healthy to stay in an echo chamber for long periods of time?

mark_integerdsv 11y ago

I agree with you to a certain extent. I also very much enjoyed his thoughts on privacy/anonymity and the multi-faceted nature of human personalities. You can find some quotes here: http://observer.com/2011/10/4chans-moot-facebook-and-google-dont-understand-that-were-all-like-diamonds/ http://observer.com/2011/10/4chans-moot-facebook-and-google-... Those concepts are more important in my opinion, to the gestating human identity that we will all be part of via technological evolution.

tootie 11y ago

I remember people "trolling" on usenet back in the 90s. It was way more tame back then however. Usenet and even BBSs were frequently full of pretty horrid material (gore, child porn and the like) as well as predators hiding behind a terminal.

benihana 11y ago

>He needs more recognition for this. He alone didn't influence the culture. He just created a place with very few rules and let people do their thing. It was the users of 4chan who created and spread that culture.

typon 11y ago

If that's true then that's really sad state for Internet culture considering everything that comes out of 4chan is stupid