4 ms·

I would disagree. 4chan was the nucleation point from which our modern lives sprung. It was the start of a very fundamental shift in the way people live. 4chan

I would disagree. 4chan was the nucleation point from which our modern lives sprung. It was the start of a very fundamental shift in the way people live. 4chan was the place where regular people and high bandwidth internet became married, and where the consequences of that union first materialized. I remember people would find online obituaries and organize raids on the family of the deceased, in one instance tormenting the parents of a deceased child with prank phone calls. People would live stream their suicides and other people would watch them and actually egg them on in the chat. The consequences of total anonyminity was a completely new concept back then, completely new territory. It’s something we have become accustomed to now. Meme culture was totally new, seemingly silly but underpinned by a fundamental arbitrage in communication that proved to be very important. You were not only experiencing these new things, but experiencing them as a part of a relatively small and exclusive group of people. 4chan was a microcosm of the future, and that is what made 4chan so amazingly potent. Pokémon go doesn’t even hold a candle to that in my view.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xenihn 8y ago
Something Awful did all of that before 4chan did (well, sans the suicide livestream). 4chan was to SA what Reddit and Imgur are to 4chan.
- fourstar 8y ago
  Came in here to give a shoutout to SA and the goon squad. Also Offtopic housed a lot of creativity in the early days. After all, that’s how I co-created the 2g1c website.
  - Dramatize 8y ago
    Shout out to Offtopic. Plenty of original memes came out of that community.
- planktonite 8y ago
  Yea I agree. I included “high bandwidth” very deliberately. Could you give an account of what went on at SA?
- pessimizer 8y ago
  Not quite; reddit and Imgur are normie-4chan. 4chan was definitely not normie-SA, it attracted the sleaziest of SA from the start; it was more an anonymous refugee camp.
  - xenihn 8y ago
    It's not really about normie or not, but amplification (through number of users) and ease of access. Not just as a reader, but also as a contributor. SA had a paywall. It had an elitist community that was unwelcoming towards new users, with strict etiquettes shaped by moderators and users alike, and users that were predisposed to forming cliques, along with strictly enforced rules that made it easy to get banned and forced to pay money. One ban was enough for most people to not return, even if they were able to pay. All of these combined to form a significant barrier for new users. 4chan dealt with all of these issues. It was free. It was anonymous, so no one could tell if you were a new user or not, and cliques weren't an issue. There was almost no moderation outside of illegal stuff. The SA community was also very anti-anime, which meant you weren't welcome to be a weeb anywhere other than the dedicated subforum (ADTRW). So then 4chan gets huge. It's overwhelming for the average person. There's just too much content to sift through. Some of that content is too shocking for the average person. Posting/contributing can be harder for some people who don't want to risk being insulted when they think they are following the informal rules. Early-mid Reddit ends up being a sort of middle-ground between SA and 4chan. It's free. It's somewhat moderated. It's curated by users through the upvote/downvote system. You need to register an account to post, but you can make new accounts whenever you want (old Reddit didn't require an e-mail), so you can basically be anonymous if you want to. You can further curate and filter content with subreddits. The shocking content is still there for those who want it. Then Imgur ends up becoming Reddit for people who primarily use mobile devices and don't like Reddit's UI. But the communities exist alongside each other. A bunch of old SA posters go to Twitter, because it turns out the average Western internet user finds SA posting and humor funny, and the biggest motivation for FYAD shitposting was always attention and building up your "brand". They inadvertently start what becomes known as "weird twitter". SA-style shitposting has now become the standard posting style for people who "get" Twitter. Between Reddit, Twitter, and Imgur, there's now enough ease of access for your average internet-savvy person to be exposed to a unified Western internet culture, with the flow being 4chan -> Reddit/Imgur -> Twitter, and then Twitter leading to exposure through media like TV, online "journalism", etc..
uhhyeahdude 8y ago
Your comment hit me like a brick to face. Nostalgia panic. Your writing style is great, btw.
- planktonite 8y ago
  Thanks very much
pjc50 8y ago
> I remember people would find online obituaries and organize raids on the family of the deceased, in one instance tormenting the parents of a deceased child with prank phone calls. People would live stream their suicides and other people would watch them and actually egg them on in the chat It must have been extraordinary to watch sociopathy being mainstreamed in real time. And surprising that the hammer has not yet been brought down on its origin.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

xenihn 8y ago

Something Awful did all of that before 4chan did (well, sans the suicide livestream). 4chan was to SA what Reddit and Imgur are to 4chan.

fourstar 8y ago
Came in here to give a shoutout to SA and the goon squad. Also Offtopic housed a lot of creativity in the early days. After all, that’s how I co-created the 2g1c website.
- Dramatize 8y ago
  Shout out to Offtopic. Plenty of original memes came out of that community.
planktonite 8y ago
Yea I agree. I included “high bandwidth” very deliberately. Could you give an account of what went on at SA?
pessimizer 8y ago
Not quite; reddit and Imgur are normie-4chan. 4chan was definitely not normie-SA, it attracted the sleaziest of SA from the start; it was more an anonymous refugee camp.
- xenihn 8y ago
  It's not really about normie or not, but amplification (through number of users) and ease of access. Not just as a reader, but also as a contributor. SA had a paywall. It had an elitist community that was unwelcoming towards new users, with strict etiquettes shaped by moderators and users alike, and users that were predisposed to forming cliques, along with strictly enforced rules that made it easy to get banned and forced to pay money. One ban was enough for most people to not return, even if they were able to pay. All of these combined to form a significant barrier for new users. 4chan dealt with all of these issues. It was free. It was anonymous, so no one could tell if you were a new user or not, and cliques weren't an issue. There was almost no moderation outside of illegal stuff. The SA community was also very anti-anime, which meant you weren't welcome to be a weeb anywhere other than the dedicated subforum (ADTRW). So then 4chan gets huge. It's overwhelming for the average person. There's just too much content to sift through. Some of that content is too shocking for the average person. Posting/contributing can be harder for some people who don't want to risk being insulted when they think they are following the informal rules. Early-mid Reddit ends up being a sort of middle-ground between SA and 4chan. It's free. It's somewhat moderated. It's curated by users through the upvote/downvote system. You need to register an account to post, but you can make new accounts whenever you want (old Reddit didn't require an e-mail), so you can basically be anonymous if you want to. You can further curate and filter content with subreddits. The shocking content is still there for those who want it. Then Imgur ends up becoming Reddit for people who primarily use mobile devices and don't like Reddit's UI. But the communities exist alongside each other. A bunch of old SA posters go to Twitter, because it turns out the average Western internet user finds SA posting and humor funny, and the biggest motivation for FYAD shitposting was always attention and building up your "brand". They inadvertently start what becomes known as "weird twitter". SA-style shitposting has now become the standard posting style for people who "get" Twitter. Between Reddit, Twitter, and Imgur, there's now enough ease of access for your average internet-savvy person to be exposed to a unified Western internet culture, with the flow being 4chan -> Reddit/Imgur -> Twitter, and then Twitter leading to exposure through media like TV, online "journalism", etc..

uhhyeahdude 8y ago

Your comment hit me like a brick to face. Nostalgia panic. Your writing style is great, btw.

planktonite 8y ago
Thanks very much

pjc50 8y ago

> I remember people would find online obituaries and organize raids on the family of the deceased, in one instance tormenting the parents of a deceased child with prank phone calls. People would live stream their suicides and other people would watch them and actually egg them on in the chat It must have been extraordinary to watch sociopathy being mainstreamed in real time. And surprising that the hammer has not yet been brought down on its origin.