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When I want to know which way the wind is blowing I take a trip down to 4chan. Not because they know anything about the outside world, but because there are man

by hyperion2010 10y ago

When I want to know which way the wind is blowing I take a trip down to 4chan. Not because they know anything about the outside world, but because there are many who frequent the site who have an almost intuitive understanding of how to manipulate the presentation of information on the internet for maximum effect. Why? No idea, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that the only way to keep your thread for vanishing into the realm of the overlooked and 404ed is to post just the right combination of words and pictures to draw the attention of hundreds of different brains. Adverse selection at its finest.

deleted 10y ago
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tnones 10y ago
It's also a great place for motivated actors to pour gasoline on some minor embers and turn them into a wildfire, allowing an irrelevant minority to seem like a representative majority.
samstave 10y ago
>When I want to know which way the wind is blowing I take a trip down to 4chan. Meta: I love this sentence. Is there a term/understanding of how digital culture navigates all the shit we think and talk about online? We know that reddit has a "reply archetype culture" that is unique to reddit, HN has its own, other sites have theirs - but between HN and Reddit - they basically have the best pulse on the understanding of how people reply to whatever info they are sharing/receiving... If we climb a bit higher, who is the thought-leader in understanding the modes of and presentations of how humans communicate/participate/comment in a world where we have such extensive access to information and can comment/teach/interact/criticize/etc a VAST array of topics with SMEs in most areas and garner the research of tons of people on a single topic with just a few moments online? Truly the information age - but do we have an agreed upon lexicon of how to describe such matters?
samstave 10y ago
I came up with a phrase: "The internet litmus"

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tnones 10y ago

It's also a great place for motivated actors to pour gasoline on some minor embers and turn them into a wildfire, allowing an irrelevant minority to seem like a representative majority.

samstave 10y ago

>When I want to know which way the wind is blowing I take a trip down to 4chan. Meta: I love this sentence. Is there a term/understanding of how digital culture navigates all the shit we think and talk about online? We know that reddit has a "reply archetype culture" that is unique to reddit, HN has its own, other sites have theirs - but between HN and Reddit - they basically have the best pulse on the understanding of how people reply to whatever info they are sharing/receiving... If we climb a bit higher, who is the thought-leader in understanding the modes of and presentations of how humans communicate/participate/comment in a world where we have such extensive access to information and can comment/teach/interact/criticize/etc a VAST array of topics with SMEs in most areas and garner the research of tons of people on a single topic with just a few moments online? Truly the information age - but do we have an agreed upon lexicon of how to describe such matters?

samstave 10y ago

I came up with a phrase: "The internet litmus"