4 ms·
Also lending strong support for the infinite number of monkeys theorem.
by CPLX 8y ago
Also lending strong support for the infinite number of monkeys theorem.
- huntie 8y agoNot at all, 4chan has* quite a few very smart people who for various reasons might not have "made it" in life. This type of thing used to be called "weaponized autism" or "autism" on site. This usage of autism really means something closer to "extreme obsession". * or at least had. I think that a lot of people left the site over the last few years as the site changed quite dramatically.
- volkisch 8y agoUnder the anonymous veil is hard to know if some poster is an accomplished person IRL. For all we know one of the anons that contributed to this problem is a Fields medalist whom is also a closeted weeb.
- huntie 8y agoThat's true, and in this specific case it seems hard to tell. I guess my idea of the average 4chan user of old is a college dropout shutin. That might be because when I started browsing being a shutin/NEET was the "cool" thing. I think this quote sums it up nicely: "In my online persona I pretend that I am ironically pretending to be a NEET living in my parents’ basement, but I am one in actual fact."
- throwaway27940 8y agoPretty much all my sort-of-nerd friends and I left the site some time between 2012 and 2015. I think it all went downhill when Obama got his second term and the 'libertarians' became dislodged by full-blown Nazis. There used to be quite a few prominent academics on /sci/'s early days.
- huntie 8y agoMaybe? I've always attributed the fall to a combination of the fappening, Moot's departure, and the 2016 elections. The huge influx of new users combined with a change in moderation absolutely destroyed the site. My memory isn't so good, but I don't think there was much political content outside of /pol/ and /b/ until 2015 or so. Might be dependent on what boards you browsed though. I think you're right about Nazis coming in, but I think that it was much more contained when Moot was there. I guess maybe that provided the setup for the 2016 elections.
- kipchak 8y agoFor what it's worth the increase in traffic from 2010 onward was largely mobile users, with desktop users staying around 50M, while total users grew to a peak of about 133m at the start of 2018.
- huntie 8y agoYeah, I still see people suggesting that phone-posters should be banned. I wonder what the site would be like if it had been implemented. I didn't know how large the numbers were though, that is nuts. Looking at the general quality of the site though, it makes sense.
- kipchak 8y agoIt seems like it would be a great case study for someone interested in social psychology or Social Norms Theory or something similar. I remember when I first came across the site 13 year old me being worried if I posted something too stupid people would trace my IP and hack me. With new users being added in at such a rapid pace it seems like it was impossible to on-board them in terms of generally accepted practice; a eternal summer echo of the "Eternal September" of the usenet days which involves many of the same complaints.
- huntie 8y agoI had a pretty similar experience, so I didn't post much at first. You used to see people getting called out for not following site norms, being told to "lurk for 2 years before posting" but you don't see that anymore. I think that type of self-moderation is really good for maintaining a quality community, but it selects for a certain type of user so most people don't like it.
- Notorious_BLT 8y agoI think you misunderstand the population of 4chan. Across its diverse boards, there's all kind of people, and they don't fit into a single mold. For example, all kind of skilled laborers and handy homeowners, many with families, frequent the /diy/ board. The technology board /g/ is host to a lot of talented, high-earning programmers mixed in with tinkerer types. /toy/ is full of all kinds of folks, from teenagers with a few anime figures to parents with children, the only commonality being liking some kind of toys. A lot of people who use it simply like the lack of filters or reputation that anonymity provides. A post doesn't come with the baggage of a username that people can hunt through, so it can really only be judged by its content, not by the reputation (good or bad) of its author. Just because 4chan shows up in the news when its users are stirring up trouble doesn't mean its all a bunch of edgy teens. Even if thats how it began, an edgy teen from 4chan's inception is now old enough to be a part of the adult workforce.
- throwaway27940 8y agoYeah, what you said was true maybe five years ago. There used to be quirky geek types being ironic all the time and making cool stuff. When I left though it was all Nazis and people who somehow stand Nazis 'interjecting' every few comments about the IQ of black people or evil SJWs. This can drain even the kindest, strongest soul. Even moot got tired of it and sold it to that Japanese con man.
- VLM 8y agoI would both agree with and disagree with the claim that anonymity provides higher quality conversation, free of virtue signalling. On one hand, there's /out/ focusing on outdoor hobby/lifestyle discussions which only has a minor infestation of Mora knife meme. Admittedly I own two Moras and those are excellent outdoor knives so the boundary between meme and reality is fuzzy. Other than that, /out/ is very civilized and contains extremely high quality content. On the other hand, there's /fit/ which seems to consist entirely of lifting broscience despite being anonymous. It is possible I'm missing the point because this discrepency reflects actual reality in that there is a useful objective opinion of, for example, proper medical foot care for long distance hiking or burn care, but there really is no one size fits all simple magic recipe for power lifting gains or "the" correct body building diet.