Opinions on 4chan and chan culture

[xdsoftware]

Used to use it, not anymore.
Although the chans are still a better website than the sterilized internet, and the last time I saw negative criticism of 4Chan in particular the guy doing it turned out to have more than a few skeletons in his closet.

 

[Andy Kaufman]

and the last time I saw negative criticism of 4Chan in particular the guy doing it turned out to have more than a few skeletons in his closet.

I have my reasons for critisizing it. Has nothing to do any skeletons.
You essentially saying that someone who dislikes 4chan ain't quite right pisses me off. 4chan sucks now. I'd go even as far and say anyone who defends modern 4chan has a skeleton in his closet.

 

[xdsoftware]

I have my reasons for critisizing it. Has nothing to do any skeletons.
You essentially saying that someone who dislikes 4chan ain't quite right pisses me off. 4chan sucks now. I'd go even as far and say anyone who defends modern 4chan has a skeleton in his closet.

just read it
Quite intriguing how 4Chan around 2016 or so managed to go downhill because of all the newfags. Makes me wonder if somehow I missed the golden age of the imageboards.
EDIT: I need to apolgize to you. Usually when someone criticises chan culture in my experience, they always have something else wrong with them and I assumed the same, despite not considering actual reasons. You seem to have quite intriguing reasons for the issues with 4Chan. For not being considerate, I'm sorry.

 

[SomaSpice]

just read it
Quite intriguing how 4Chan around 2016 or so managed to go downhill because of all the newfags. Makes me wonder if somehow I missed the golden age of the imageboards.
EDIT: I need to apolgize to you. Usually when someone criticises chan culture in my experience, they always have something else wrong with them and I assumed the same, despite not considering actual reasons. You seem to have quite intriguing reasons for the issues with 4Chan. For not being considerate, I'm sorry.

Dude, 4channers are always the first to criticize chan culture.

 

[xdsoftware]

Dude, 4channers are always the first to criticize chan culture.

bruh that's...quite funny

 

[capncrunch]

Post is too big for a status, didn't want to make a new thread, decided to drop it here since it's related.

I don't think any english-speaking places have picked up on this news, so here it is.
Race Queen, a company owned by the Watkins family (8chan/8kun owners) that stole 2channel's servers and currently profits off of the site rebranded as 5channel, has been ordered to pay 217mil yen (~1.7mil USD) to Hiroyuki Nishimura (4chan admin, Japanese 'net influencer). This lawsuit took 9 years to reach this point.

Unfortunately, this means almost nothing as Race Queen is still the legal owner of 5channel, so they are still being permitted to run the business.
Oldheads on the Japanese net also point out that Hiroyuki ripped off amezou to create 2channel back in the day. Not really similar to what happened with 5channel, but funny, and a decent reminder that Hiroyuki was not a singular innovator.

I have my issues with Hiroyuki, but the qualms with him pale in comparison to the genuinely heinous bullshit committed by the Watkins family. So while their paying a fine is a nice participation prize, no justice was really served.

I know a significant number of people on this website are still imageboard users and will dismiss me upon hearing this, but to me this is just more salt on the massive, infected wound that is the idea of "the death of imageboard culture", assuming you believe there was still something to kill.

 

[Andy Kaufman]

Post is too big for a status, didn't want to make a new thread, decided to drop it here since it's related.

I don't think any english-speaking places have picked up on this news, so here it is.
Race Queen, a company owned by the Watkins family (8chan/8kun owners) that stole 2channel's servers and currently profits off of the site rebranded as 5channel, has been ordered to pay 217mil yen (~1.7mil USD) to Hiroyuki Nishimura (4chan admin, Japanese 'net influencer). This lawsuit took 9 years to reach this point.

Unfortunately, this means almost nothing as Race Queen is still the legal owner of 5channel, so they are still being permitted to run the business.
Oldheads on the Japanese net also point out that Hiroyuki ripped off amezou to create 2channel back in the day. Not really similar to what happened with 5channel, but funny, and a decent reminder that Hiroyuki was not a singular innovator.

I have my issues with Hiroyuki, but the qualms with him pale in comparison to the genuinely heinous bullshit committed by the Watkins family. So while their paying a fine is a nice participation prize, no justice was really served.

I know a significant number of people on this website are still imageboard users and will dismiss me upon hearing this, but to me this is just more salt on the massive, infected wound that is the idea of "the death of imageboard culture", assuming you believe there was still something to kill.

Thanks for the info and news.
I think because moot was literally just a kid with his laptop when 4chan grew big, most IB users never learned to care who's running the site(s) because moot was just one of us.
This changed but the users remained ignorant of such meta stories for the most part. But I think it's important to know who runs an influential site as large as 4chan and who wants to run it.

 

[W1NTER]

Its pretty obvious that many users here, me included, come originally from some sort of chan culture. I was wondering what's the opinion of the members of the agora regarding the infamous site, its Japanese parent, and their many offspring.

By this point in my life I view chan culture with a bit of contempt, I by no means consider it "The cesspool of the internet", but I believe it has lost its cool and that continuously exposing oneself to the misanthropic edge it seeks to maintain is generally harmful to one's personal character, regardless of political views.

By now 4chan has degraded into this weird culture war "psyop" central. One can not browse a simingly innocuous board about crypto or art without stumbling onto sexual imagery with accompanying comments about race-mixing, transgenderism, and cuckoldry specifically. Its always sexual imagery of an asian or white woman followed by slogans like "Made for BBC", or "That's a man". I have no strong opinions about any of these fetishes, but its kind of creepy and very annoying nonetheless.

Its a shame that it has degraded to this point because there's a lot of good resources being passed around the chans, however I think participating and consuming too much of its content stifles one's ability to form your own opinions, and breeds a pessimistic outlook on life that quells one's own inner fire and ambitions.

To put it plainly, its not much of a fun or interesting website anymore.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

I would say chan culture was (and still kinda is) very powerful on the internet but as everyone has said it has degraded massively, the hype is long gone

 

[LukasDayOff]

This video is 8 years old and still valid to this day:

• 
  View: https://youtu.be/Hhx6IfKrvEQ
  

I have a weird love, hate relationship with the site because I have spent so much time on it and the fact that it is still one of the most unique places on the internet. I would say that it is less of a testament of the quality of the site but more that a reflection of the internet as whole. The internet nowadays I find to be pretty soulless and sanitized, while 4chan is one of the few places that still an element of fun and chaos to it while being somewhat active. I say somewhat active because the site has slowed down considerably in the last couple of years in terms of real posters and real threads or said differently, organic conversations. Most people posting on 4chan nowadays are either bots or glowies (most posters on /k/ are literal feds) and the 4chan janitor staff have a heavy hand in deleting threads they do not personally like, which has resulted in the quality of threads being garbage filled with low quality responses.

 

[RealTomCruise]

When I first visited 4chan it was already an empty husk, election tourists had already had their hay day, m00t had long left and decent threads were in short supply. I don't understand how the site died even further during my time on there, I lurked for a bit but even my eventual newfag shitposting in the sandbox of /pol/ was of more value then 90% of the site. Had some fun and effort posted on /tg/ and /vg/ though, definitely some of the better boards.

I find it ridiculous I prefer the shittiest aspects of nu 4chinz over most of the internet, but I somehow do. There's something magical about checking the site for the first few times and to have no utter idea of what is even being discussed about due to board culture and lingo, it's like being some explorer trying to decipher hieroglyphics that just end up turning out to be talking about federal agents and using a bump system, 4chan is probably one of the only sites that I felt like that on. Of all things I just want other parts of the web to return to that way, being their own distinct communities and a return to telling newfags to lurk moar.

 

[Ticbow2003]

I would say that the reason people hate 4chan, or avoid it, is because the large number of people who used to make racist or nazi jokes stopped shitposting and actually became quite serious. I think it's also to do with the mass of incel culture the website harbours. I don't think it's an issue with the site itself as there is gold on there like the greentexts, but as a previous traveller mentioned in this thread, actively using 4chan or chan sites vs wathcing the greentext highlights on youtube are miles apart. None of this is to say I will dislike someone because they use 4chan or chan sites, it does really depend on the person in the end.

 

[Andy Kaufman]

the large number of people who used to make racist or nazi jokes stopped shitposting and actually became quite serious

I don't think this number is large at all. I think the ones who just did it because it was edgy and funny and the ones who take it seriously are a different demographic. Maybe some were pipelined but considering the huge influx of new users around 2016, I hardly believe that all the internet edgelords became unironic hardcore rightoids, more that the edgy shitposting lured in that type of demographic.

Probably the third time I post this image here but it really does explain what happened to 4chan in my opinion.
The ones who posted ""GAYmer word" XD" in 2010 to ruffle some feathers aren't the same /pol/cels who can't stop talking about jewish conspiracies and race realism 24/7 today, I'm like 95% sure.
I'd put the old guard more into the disaffected liberal category who were annoyed by an ever leftward shifting Overton window.

 

[Andy Kaufman]

When I first visited 4chan it was already an empty husk, election tourists had already had their hay day, m00t had long left and decent threads were in short supply. I don't understand how the site died even further during my time on there, I lurked for a bit but even my eventual newfag shitposting in the sandbox of /pol/ was of more value then 90% of the site. Had some fun and effort posted on /tg/ and /vg/ though, definitely some of the better boards.

I find it ridiculous I prefer the shittiest aspects of nu 4chinz over most of the internet, but I somehow do. There's something magical about checking the site for the first few times and to have no utter idea of what is even being discussed about due to board culture and lingo, it's like being some explorer trying to decipher hieroglyphics that just end up turning out to be talking about federal agents and using a bump system, 4chan is probably one of the only sites that I felt like that on. Of all things I just want other parts of the web to return to that way, being their own distinct communities and a return to telling newfags to lurk moar.

>/vg/
How?
Whenever I checked it out I saw drama hungry wierdos (even for 4chan standards) who were too retarded to realize that they'd be happier in a traditional forum with usernames and persistent threads at best and at worst literal insane people who posted nonsense 24/7 to keep their shitty general afloat that stopped being about the game it's labeled after 4 years ago.
I think the only bearable general was the roguelike/DF general.

 

[Iommi Fan 420]

>/vgfans

I swear /v/ and /vg/ are just a collection of people who hate video games, everyone there is so vitriolic and miserable. Browsing them is just mentally draining and achieves nothing. I end up feeling sorry for the autists flinging shit at each other all day there and hating video games even more.

I knew a dude who psyoped his weird albums on to /mu/ though which is pretty funny. I don't know if he still does it. Stuff like editing it in to collages and posting about them in 3rd person.

 

[RealTomCruise]

>/vg/
How?
Whenever I checked it out I saw drama hungry wierdos (even for 4chan standards) who were too retarded to realize that they'd be happier in a traditional forum with usernames and persistent threads at best and at worst literal insane people who posted nonsense 24/7 to keep their shitty general afloat that stopped being about the game it's labeled after 4 years ago.
I think the only bearable general was the roguelike/DF general.

I mostly stuck to the rouge-like/dwarf fortress/rimworld generals of all things lmao. Because that's mostly the type of vidya I play, and because they are far more interesting for discussion. Might have accidentally stumbled upon the decent parts of a completely shit board. Probably even those generals have devolved since first being on 4chan however.

 

[stonehead]

I don't think this number is large at all. I think the ones who just did it because it was edgy and funny and the ones who take it seriously are a different demographic. Maybe some were pipelined but considering the huge influx of new users around 2016, I hardly believe that all the internet edgelords became unironic hardcore rightoids, more that the edgy shitposting lured in that type of demographic.
View attachment 51061
Probably the third time I post this image here but it really does explain what happened to 4chan in my opinion.
The ones who posted ""GAYmer word" XD" in 2010 to ruffle some feathers aren't the same /pol/cels who can't stop talking about jewish conspiracies and race realism 24/7 today, I'm like 95% sure.
I'd put the old guard more into the disaffected liberal category who were annoyed by an ever leftward shifting Overton window.

Pretty sure you've posted that exact same image in a different thread, and it was just as relevant there. It's crazy how often that quote describes places on the internet.

Maybe it's the loss of tone in text-based communication, or maybe it's that the anonymity makes it easier to LARP convincingly. I don't know.

 

[cryptfrog]

Here is my idea for an image board that is still anonymous but less easy to psy op++:::: it's invite only but rather than getting an account with your name etc you just get a token and can set the password for that token. When you post the server records your post to your token, but doesn't record any personal details, and to end users your posts are still anonymous. This means a user with a trend of posting terrible garbage and psy ops can be banned and all their posts removed and they can't just change their ip.
Also each user gets a certain number of invites like maybe 1 per week (and there is a max of maybe 3 you can have stacked if you don't use them), and for each token it records who invited them, so it can recursively ban inviting on any account with two children that have either been perma banned or been banned from inviting themselves. This should also dissuade people creating big pyramids of accounts to invite more accounts to spam with, this would still be kind of doable but it would take a really long time and only produce a finite amount of accounts depending on how many generations of accounts you invite before you start using them (and it would be easy for mods to nuke the whole operation if they figured it out).
also soyjaks are banned on most boards and posting a post that only contains the word 'based' or similar is am automatic 4 hour mute.
Oh yeah and porn is banned from /b/ and /r9k/

 

[Szurlk367]

All Chans become Normie Sites

 

[Andy Kaufman]

Here is my idea for an image board that is still anonymous but less easy to psy op++:::: it's invite only but rather than getting an account with your name etc you just get a token and can set the password for that token. When you post the server records your post to your token, but doesn't record any personal details, and to end users your posts are still anonymous. This means a user with a trend of posting terrible garbage and psy ops can be banned and all their posts removed and they can't just change their ip.
Also each user gets a certain number of invites like maybe 1 per week (and there is a max of maybe 3 you can have stacked if you don't use them), and for each token it records who invited them, so it can recursively ban inviting on any account with two children that have either been perma banned or been banned from inviting themselves. This should also dissuade people creating big pyramids of accounts to invite more accounts to spam with, this would still be kind of doable but it would take a really long time and only produce a finite amount of accounts depending on how many generations of accounts you invite before you start using them (and it would be easy for mods to nuke the whole operation if they figured it out).
also soyjaks are banned on most boards and posting a post that only contains the word 'based' or similar is am automatic 4 hour mute.
Oh yeah and porn is banned from /b/ and /r9k/

The tokens are a good idea. The content moderation however will turn it into a board so dead that you won't need the tokens anymore. People use IBs for fun primarily and trying to force it onto some ultra serious discussion place with no space for light heartedness turns it into a desolate place with maybe 3 posts a day. Seen too many altchans that tried to go down that route.
The solution lies somewhere in the middle: finding meaningful threads/posts while having fun. Exactly what IBs used to be up until the mid 2010s.

 

[SolidStateSurvivor]

All Chans become Normie Sites

Only when they achieve counter culture status, or rather, infamy.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkAngvkWVkk&ab_channel=musicforthelulz


The way to such a fate is rooted in casual disruption of their dailys.
Bonus points if the MSM over reacts,
to the hardcore users, a genuinely disruptive attempt is worth far more.

I've seen many altchans come and go,
the only ones that last are the ones that choose infamy