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I want to argue that there are some rose-tinted glasses at play. /b/ (which is what most people think of when they think about 4chan) has been considered "no lo

I want to argue that there are some rose-tinted glasses at play. /b/ (which is what most people think of when they think about 4chan) has been considered "no longer good" since at least 2006 [1], probably earlier. And even by that time they were already organizing raids and causing real harm to communities, both online and offline. I'm not sure that it's 4chan the one who has changed but rather that the world got a lot more connected [2]. A 2010 edgelord may say "pool's closed" while a 2025 edgelord may say "it was a Roman salute", but the spirit behind is probably the same. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:4chan/Archive_4#Death_of_/b/_due_to_fame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:4chan/Archive_4#Death_of_... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
All of this 100%. And on a more personal level, while I had a grand old time as a 3edgy5me t(w)eenage boy on the early, "free" internet, that time has left me with numerous mental scars I carry with me every day. - Thanks to shock sites, for showing me things a 13 year old kid really should not be seeing, and I wish I meant something as banal as pornography. I'm still occasionally haunted by images I've seen to such a degree where I have to take short breaks at work to compose myself. - Thanks to political discussion boards, which turned important, real life issues and global problems that have genuine life or death stakes for people who weren't me into an alternative to sports that also let me pretend I was in any way intellectually superior to my peers for simply being willing and able to regurgitate conservative political propaganda that I barely comprehended. - Thanks to the entire thing, for helping me nurture a shut-in mentality, that other people were too much work to be worth it, that my peers were dumb and not worth my time, that they wouldn't understand me at all and so involving myself in school was completely pointless, ensuring I would have no social life or skills whatsoever when I graduated high school and later college. Instead you gave me an entire other world of similarly uninformed, loud assholes to live in that would completely dissolve by the year 2009, leaving me 20 years old with no idea who the fuck I was, or what I believed in, ripe for recruitment into reactionary politics that would make me an insufferable douchebag for the next 10 years or so until I managed to pull my head out of my ass.
- Brookeden55 2y ago
  [flagged]
- xandrius 2y ago
  So well put. This should be posted every time someone is nostalgic of those times. I'm not pro-walled garden, all is dandy and barbie but there is an opposite extreme. For me the most fun time as a teenager was role-playing on forums: free, fun and harmless.
- pinoy420 2y ago
  [dead]
- rpmisms 2y ago
  > I'm still occasionally haunted by images I've seen to such a degree where I have to take short breaks at work to compose myself. This is PTSD. Get checked out.
jasonjayr 2y ago
You know the meme. /b/ was never good.
- pinoy420 2y ago
  [dead]
mmsc 2y ago
As the other poster pointed out, /b/ was never good;). But: >A 2010 edgelord may say "pool's closed" while a 2025 edgelord may say "it was a Roman salute", but the spirit behind is probably the same. I think I disagree. I don't think "pool's closed" was ever boosted into the mainstream, nor was it legitimized across truly fascist or racist communities; it was an internet meme for internet people. "It was a roman salute" is a phrase of normies that likely have limited experience with computers and online communities; without getting into the politics, a certain class of people actually believe "it was a roman salute". "pool's closed" meant nothing outside of specific communities.
- Sophira 2y ago
  This is a fair point. I know that "pool's closed" comes from Habbo Hotel, but only because I've actually heard that information before. I wouldn't know anything about it otherwise. In contrast, I've never heard of the "it was a Roman salute" meme before, but It's pretty easy for me to understand that this is (probably) talking about people defending Elon Musk's actions - and I'm not even American.
Modified3019 2y ago
“Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.“ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082) Having been an early user of 4chan back in late 2003, from what I saw, the tone shift of nazi stuff just being edgy belligerence for the shock value to people saying “no really, this is my serious political ideology” really got traction somewhere around 2012-2014. Prior to that, there was still pushback. Much like how the idea of having a “waifu” was originally a derisive joke, but somehow turned into actual practice. This coincided with a few things, massive increase in internet use, raids having increased 4chans notoriety, but most importantly it was the timeframe when Russia prepared for and invaded invaded crimea, which included ramping up “active measures” to shift conversation with troll farms/propaganda. 4chan (and later, 8chan, which had a huge population of boomers buying into “qanon” nonsense) became an ideal host to try to amplify disruptive propaganda. I didn’t quite notice what was going on, since by that time I was mostly only on select boards like /tg/ or alt chans like operatorchan, but the Russian influence became obvious in the lead up to the 2016 election. And it wasn’t just nazi stuff, it was all sorts of bullshit like Marxism, esoteric magic and conspiracy shit that was being thrown around to see what stuck. And they were active across every social media site. Though as bad as 4chan was, I’d argue russian presence on Facebook and twitter was especially harmful and far reaching. They didn’t even need to be subtle or target groups: https://qz.com/1284222/russian-facebook-ads-were-barely-targeted-and-they-were-still-hugely-effective https://qz.com/1284222/russian-facebook-ads-were-barely-targ...
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  Trump being a meme is what got him off the ground. And here we are.
- 0x138d5 2y ago
  >around 2012 "the post that killed /new/" comes to mind

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

All of this 100%. And on a more personal level, while I had a grand old time as a 3edgy5me t(w)eenage boy on the early, "free" internet, that time has left me with numerous mental scars I carry with me every day. - Thanks to shock sites, for showing me things a 13 year old kid really should not be seeing, and I wish I meant something as banal as pornography. I'm still occasionally haunted by images I've seen to such a degree where I have to take short breaks at work to compose myself. - Thanks to political discussion boards, which turned important, real life issues and global problems that have genuine life or death stakes for people who weren't me into an alternative to sports that also let me pretend I was in any way intellectually superior to my peers for simply being willing and able to regurgitate conservative political propaganda that I barely comprehended. - Thanks to the entire thing, for helping me nurture a shut-in mentality, that other people were too much work to be worth it, that my peers were dumb and not worth my time, that they wouldn't understand me at all and so involving myself in school was completely pointless, ensuring I would have no social life or skills whatsoever when I graduated high school and later college. Instead you gave me an entire other world of similarly uninformed, loud assholes to live in that would completely dissolve by the year 2009, leaving me 20 years old with no idea who the fuck I was, or what I believed in, ripe for recruitment into reactionary politics that would make me an insufferable douchebag for the next 10 years or so until I managed to pull my head out of my ass.

Brookeden55 2y ago
[flagged]
xandrius 2y ago
So well put. This should be posted every time someone is nostalgic of those times. I'm not pro-walled garden, all is dandy and barbie but there is an opposite extreme. For me the most fun time as a teenager was role-playing on forums: free, fun and harmless.
pinoy420 2y ago
[dead]
rpmisms 2y ago
> I'm still occasionally haunted by images I've seen to such a degree where I have to take short breaks at work to compose myself. This is PTSD. Get checked out.

jasonjayr 2y ago

You know the meme. /b/ was never good.

pinoy420 2y ago
[dead]

mmsc 2y ago

As the other poster pointed out, /b/ was never good;). But: >A 2010 edgelord may say "pool's closed" while a 2025 edgelord may say "it was a Roman salute", but the spirit behind is probably the same. I think I disagree. I don't think "pool's closed" was ever boosted into the mainstream, nor was it legitimized across truly fascist or racist communities; it was an internet meme for internet people. "It was a roman salute" is a phrase of normies that likely have limited experience with computers and online communities; without getting into the politics, a certain class of people actually believe "it was a roman salute". "pool's closed" meant nothing outside of specific communities.

Sophira 2y ago
This is a fair point. I know that "pool's closed" comes from Habbo Hotel, but only because I've actually heard that information before. I wouldn't know anything about it otherwise. In contrast, I've never heard of the "it was a Roman salute" meme before, but It's pretty easy for me to understand that this is (probably) talking about people defending Elon Musk's actions - and I'm not even American.

Modified3019 2y ago

“Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.“ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082) Having been an early user of 4chan back in late 2003, from what I saw, the tone shift of nazi stuff just being edgy belligerence for the shock value to people saying “no really, this is my serious political ideology” really got traction somewhere around 2012-2014. Prior to that, there was still pushback. Much like how the idea of having a “waifu” was originally a derisive joke, but somehow turned into actual practice. This coincided with a few things, massive increase in internet use, raids having increased 4chans notoriety, but most importantly it was the timeframe when Russia prepared for and invaded invaded crimea, which included ramping up “active measures” to shift conversation with troll farms/propaganda. 4chan (and later, 8chan, which had a huge population of boomers buying into “qanon” nonsense) became an ideal host to try to amplify disruptive propaganda. I didn’t quite notice what was going on, since by that time I was mostly only on select boards like /tg/ or alt chans like operatorchan, but the Russian influence became obvious in the lead up to the 2016 election. And it wasn’t just nazi stuff, it was all sorts of bullshit like Marxism, esoteric magic and conspiracy shit that was being thrown around to see what stuck. And they were active across every social media site. Though as bad as 4chan was, I’d argue russian presence on Facebook and twitter was especially harmful and far reaching. They didn’t even need to be subtle or target groups: https://qz.com/1284222/russian-facebook-ads-were-barely-targeted-and-they-were-still-hugely-effective https://qz.com/1284222/russian-facebook-ads-were-barely-targ...

Workaccount2 2y ago
Trump being a meme is what got him off the ground. And here we are.
0x138d5 2y ago
>around 2012 "the post that killed /new/" comes to mind