It’s fundamentally the long-tail problem coupled with the low bandwidth nature of message boards. In real life, pretty much everyone you meet is kidding, and th

It’s fundamentally the long-tail problem coupled with the low bandwidth nature of message boards. In real life, pretty much everyone you meet is kidding, and the whackos usually send many additional red flags. On 4chan, you collect the more extreme humor, plus the nuts, minus the additional information that you would use to distinguish them in real life. The internet has in some ways damaged my sense of humor: I’m so much more prone to taking people’s extreme comments at face value than I used to be, because at some point, the Internet has introduced me to a more extreme view genuinely espoused.