|
Hello and Welcome to our all new thread about Chan boards and the culture surrounding them. To start off I don’t want this to be just a mock thread like the Freep thread or TV tropes if you go into PYF. I want to really discuss how 4chan came to be and why it is what it is today, plus any other topics that stem off that. Lets also try to keep Gamergate discussions to a minimum and be civil to one another. For those who don't know what 4chan is, To start I wanna talk about my own history with chan boards in. I tried a few times when I was in high school and my first few years of college to become a part of that culture. Mainly because I always heard about the raids and the pranks they pulled on people and thought that was awesome. I remember spending hours reading about stuff like the Habbo Hotel raid, or listening to some weird Texan talk about the stock market and keep getting prank calls from channers. There was also the year that a bunch of 4channers attended Connecticon and caused trouble and I was kind of in awe of them as that lone weirdo that attends anime cons by himself. I even delved into other chan boards like 420chan in hopes of joining what would eventually become Anonymous. I was always fascinated by Anon and what they accomplished with Project Chanology and the other raids they performed. I think I eventually figured out what 4chan was really doing was childish and downright mean. Chris Chan for example. Who the is some autistic guy in the south hand drawing some comic hurting? What was the point? Just to make his life, and others like him, hell? Fast forward to the past year or so and, from an outsider’s perspective it looks like 4chan and other chan boards have become truly vile places. Or maybe they always have been vile and I just figured it out. I think this does deserve a thread because say what you will about Freep, most of the users there will not dead or not relevant in about 10 years. Guys that post on 4chan or 8chan seem to do some real damage and do have a real affect on our culture from all the bullshit that surrounded Gamergate to people in the Marriage Equality thread talking about how channers are celebrating the death of trans game developers and programmers to trying to justify kiddie porn is protected under the first amendment. Some topics I think that might be worth discussing: -How do chan boards go from posting anime pictures to Stormfront -Why women on the internet freak channers out? -When does ironic racism become racism -Nerd persecution complex -The limits of free speech -When the first amendment becomes a shield to justify bullshit. -Being anonymous on the internet. And if anyone wants me to add anything to the OP let me know. Anyone who use to be DEEP into chan boards please apply and share your experiences. BigRed0427 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on May 14, 2015 |
#
?
May 14, 2015 01:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 1, 2024 20:54 |
|
|
BigRed0427 posted:-When does ironic racism become racism
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 01:43
|
|
|
Anonymity, no post memory, fast turnover, and survival only by mass user participation. Those are the ingredients of that form of interaction. I've seen people make a "chan" using post-it notes. It doesn't surprise me that the issues that survive such an environment are racism, porn, fear, etc. Such discussions are like the power chords of internet mass communication. They are also easily translatable into short messages that take no time to write. The medium is responsible for the message... well that and the fact that we happen to respond to these things a lot more reliably and strongly than more nuanced discussions... which disappear. Martin Random fucked around with this message at 01:49 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 01:46
|
|
|
I think this would be a good thread to talk about nerd culture in general, because most/all of the issues with 4chan are shared with the wider nerd "community" as a whole
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 02:11 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 01:59
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:I think this would be a good thread to talk about nerd culture in general, because most/all of the issues with 4chan are shared with the wider nerd "community" as a whole Nerd culture is disgusting and best held at arms length, even by nerds.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:02
|
|
|
BigRed0427 posted:Guys that post on 4chan or 8chan seem to do some real damage and do have a real affect on our culture No they dont, come on now
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:04
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:I think this would be a good thread to talk about nerd culture in general, because most/all of the issues with 4chan are shared with the wider nerd "community" as a whole True. One good thing GamerGate did for me was show just how screwed up Nerd culture is. I guess I was really naive when i saw someone post something lovely on say Gamespot and think that was a rare sight. But the past year or two has shown me that lovely behavior is more of a norm for nerds. Hell the internet in general has allowed people to get off their chest the most vile poo poo they think. Facebook now also puts a face to those comments as well.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:05
|
|
|
I forget what 8chan does. I do know that if it's a number other than 4, it's probably something that was kicked out of 4chan, which doesn't usually lead to good things.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:05
|
|
|
StandardVC10 posted:I forget what 8chan does. I do know that if it's a number other than 4, it's probably something that was kicked out of 4chan, which doesn't usually lead to good things. 8chan split from 4chan because 4chan finally amended it's TOS to actually have DMCA provisions during the whole celebrity pictures leak instead of relying on whatever would have gotten DMCA'd being kicked off their servers within an hour of posting due to the high volume.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:08
|
|
|
Hasn't 8chan been around for years, though? Or have there been multiple 8chans?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:11
|
|
|
Party Plane Jones posted:8chan split from 4chan because 4chan finally amended it's TOS to actually have DMCA provisions during the whole celebrity pictures leak instead of relying on whatever would have gotten DMCA'd being kicked off their servers within an hour of posting due to the high volume. So it's 4chan with more piracy?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:11
|
|
|
One of the problems with stuff like 4chan is that there seems to be this idea of "this is the internet and there is complete freedom here." The problem is that some people decided "hey cool that includes the freedom to be an enormous rear end in a top hat." If you don't police a community then the rules become meaningless; people that can't follow, or don't want to follow, the rules elsewhere always find somewhere to go. 4chan started attracting the worst people who cried "no you can't silence me this is a free space." Awful people wanted a place where they could be awful. Over time people that said "no this is awful" migrated elsewhere so you have this community that is being increasingly terrible. With no policing the terrible side of it became a cancer. The worst parts of the community alienate the rest. In some was Anonymous grew out of it and became the visible representation of the internet's subconscious. One of the very interesting things that the totally anonymous, rules-free environment did was let everyone sort of vomit their innermost thoughts and it turns out that what we expected was true all along; humans kind of suck. The biggest difference between 4chan and other communities is that 4chan revels in being disgusting.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:12
|
|
|
BigRed0427 posted:Some topics I think that might be worth discussing: The answer to all these questions is basically the same and is that nerds are fundamentally reactionaries, reacting to the fact that nobody but them gives a poo poo about their cherished pieces of media. Much the same way that social conservatives are fighting to preserve the patriarchal, white supremacist world they love so much, nerds fight to preserve the children's media landscape of when they were 12 years old, forever. Of course, this reactionsim tends to predispose them to other kinds of reactionism like sexism, racism, etc. The relationship between different kinds of reactionism and an analysis of its true nature is sort of beyond my expertise, but basically nerds are cut from the same fundamental cloth as Rush Limbaugh. quote:-The limits of free speech I think as long as child porn is actively policed there's not a lot of real world harm from these places. Stuff happens like the pseudo-lynchmob on reddit during the Boston bombings sending death threats to random Arab-looking people on facebook, and that should be cracked down on hard, but I don't think these sites need to be taken down completely or anonymity removed or anything.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:13
|
|
|
StandardVC10 posted:So it's 4chan with more piracy? More child porn
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:13
|
|
|
BigRed0427 posted:True. One good thing GamerGate did for me was show just how screwed up Nerd culture is. I guess I was really naive when i saw someone post something lovely on say Gamespot and think that was a rare sight. But the past year or two has shown me that lovely behavior is more of a norm for nerds. You should include Reddit's Red Pill, PUA sites and other misogynistic stuff as part of nerd culture.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:13
|
|
|
I feel like the problems with nerd culture have not at all gotten worse, but have rather become more visible. People weren't paying attention, now they are. The nerds now realize society is watching and judging them (and their behavior is less acceptable among the mainstream), they feel threatened and lash out. I remember when homophobia on most boards was much, much more pervasive than it is now, it was encouraged in seemingly every internet community from the administrators on down. The fury of nerds lashing out against the "SJWs" is a sign of weakness, not of strength.icantfindaname posted:The answer to all these questions is basically the same and is that nerds are fundamentally reactionaries, reacting to the fact that nobody but them gives a poo poo about their cherished pieces of media. Much the same way that social conservatives are fighting to preserve the patriarchal, white supremacist world they love so much, nerds fight to preserve the children's media landscape of when they were 12 years old, forever. Someone get Corey Robin to write a book on it. E: You know, this sort of thing happens with basically everyone, but it seems like most late 20- and 30-somethings realize that their favorite music will never be back in fashion and the drat kids will never get off their lawn and just stop giving a poo poo that their tastes are old-fashioned. But it seems like for a nerd to admit he's old-fashioned is a display of shame deserving of ritual suicide. Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 02:25 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:17
|
|
|
BigRed0427 posted:I was always fascinated by Anon and what they accomplished with Project Chanology and the other raids they performed. I think I eventually figured out what 4chan was really doing was childish and downright mean. ... Fast forward to the past year or so and, from an outsider's perspective it looks like 4chan and other chan boards have become truly vile places. Or maybe they always have been vile and I just figured it out. This basically equals my impressions of the Chans as well. It was only a few years ago that I sort of admired 4chan, especially Anonymous and the escapades they went on about. I used to think one's opinion on Anonymous roughly equalled one's own hope for humanity; for every unambiguously bad or childishly mean thing Anon did, they also usually had one unambiguously good thing as well. Ergo, if you liked them or not largely depended on your own personal convictions as opposed to anything Anon itself specifically did. Strangely though, I haven't heard much about Anonymous specifically, at least in a long time. There was once a time when they garnered rather highly interested media attention, at least here in Canada. Are they still active in hacktivism at all? Are they still connected with the chans, or are they their own thing now?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:20
|
|
|
StandardVC10 posted:So it's 4chan with more piracy? icantfindaname posted:More child porn 8chan differs/differed in that people could create their own niche grouping on the servers so long as it got a new post a year. So it was a mix of reddit and 4chan basically. I would not be surprised if icantfindaname with that kind of lineage to be honest.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:21
|
|
|
Confounding Factor posted:You should include Reddit's Red Pill, PUA sites and other misogynistic stuff as part of nerd culture. This was kind of one of the things I was thinking about when I made this. Do we focus just on Chan boards or do we also talk about Reddit and other sites since they seem to either stem from that or just do the same things as 4chan. Woolie Wool posted:I feel like the problems with nerd culture have not at all gotten worse, but have rather become more visible. People weren't paying attention, now they are. The nerds now realize society is watching and judging them (and their behavior is less acceptable among the mainstream), they feel threatened and lash out. I remember when homophobia on most boards was much, much more pervasive than it is now, it was encouraged in seemingly every internet community from the administrators on down. The fury of nerds lashing out against the "SJWs" is a sign of weakness, not of strength. The whole Gamergate thing is also just a part of society at large having a real discussion about racism and sexism in general. And you brought up another topic worth talking about here. "The SJW Boogyman.(Boogiewoman?)"
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:25
|
|
|
Was nerddom always like this? Like back during the 90s, was nerd more associated with academic achievement rather than being way too into some fandom? I think I remember some sociology papers back then outlining how nerds were on average much more socially progressive than today. What gave?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:25
|
|
|
Morroque posted:This basically equals my impressions of the Chans as well. It was only a few years ago that I sort of admired 4chan, especially Anonymous and the escapades they went on about. I used to think one's opinion on Anonymous roughly equalled one's own hope for humanity; for every unambiguously bad or childishly mean thing Anon did, they also usually had one unambiguously good thing as well. Ergo, if you liked them or not largely depended on your own personal convictions as opposed to anything Anon itself specifically did. Last time I kept up with Anon was during the Michale Brown riots. Someone's Anon twitter threatened to unleash a mess of E-mails from the Ferguson PD. But I don't think they ever were released.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:27
|
|
|
Gamer culture was 10-15 years ago, I remember that much. It was just not talked about because it was an extremely solid consensus that hardly anyone dared challenge. The misogyny, racism, homophobia, masculinity policing, etc. were brutal, it was just more subtle because the bigots felt more secure in their bigotry. The metal community seems much the same way. Go look through early metal-archives posts for 2004 and see how often people said words like "friend of the family" or talked about "NS" music with no indication that it was somehow wrong to be a Nazi. That sort of behavior is no longer accepted there. Party Plane Jones posted:8chan split from 4chan because 4chan finally amended it's TOS to actually have DMCA provisions during the whole celebrity pictures leak instead of relying on whatever would have gotten DMCA'd being kicked off their servers within an hour of posting due to the high volume. Of course they would only make a tiny concession to other people's rights when they ended up pissing off people with the financial and legal resources to rake them over the coals in court. Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 02:33 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:28
|
|
|
It's weird, because people who post there often brag about the lack of moderation creating freedom and an environment without censorship but I found that there really wasn't a free exchange of ideas going on there. Every subforum adopts a particular set of memes and talking points that get parroted over and over again until they become the only acceptable conversation.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:33
|
|
|
Jerry Manderbilt posted:Was nerddom always like this? Like back during the 90s, was nerd more associated with academic achievement rather than being way too into some fandom? I think I remember some sociology papers back then outlining how nerds were on average much more socially progressive than today. What gave? I think it's very important to distinguish nerddom from education/intellectualism. They're really not the same thing at all, the only real connection is that people bad at athletics and social interaction are overrepresented in both because athletics and social interaction as areas of achievement are closed off to them. Basically nerddom in the genre fiction sense has always been this bad, yeah. You can go back to Tolkien and the dude was a reactionary pining for how great it was to be an aristocrat in Old England. Heinlein was basically a fascist with a bunch of weird fetishes he shoved in his books and that was in the 60s. Orson Scott Card is awful too. You can look through Usenet archives back into the 70s and its basically the same as 4chan today, moderated only by the fact it was controlled by universities. Richard Stallman and the other open source pioneers are all gross creeps and bigots, Stallman in particular has essays on his personal site to this day defending sex with children if they consent to it. Comic books are the same, Frank Miller's also a borderline fascist who writes screeds about how Muslims are untermenschen, Maybe I'm being harsh here, I don't know how much further right nerd culture is from the general public, if at all, but I'm pretty confident that it was never ever left of it. If you think of nerds as outside of the cultural mainstream, there's no reason to think they would be any less right-wing than that mainstream, plus more because of the reaction to persecution. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 02:47 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:39
|
|
|
Let's stop calling it "nerd culture"; defining your identity by what you consume is not culture. Everything they adhere was cooked up to fall within defined age/sex/disposable income/distribution region parameters assembled with ISO9000 compliance to Six Sigma standards 25 years ago by some snake in a suit so he could hit his quarterly bonus metrics. Any shared "language" is them referencing a consumed product because they have been marketed that referencing the familiar with a twist is the same as humor. Their "shared priorities" are consuming the products set to be rolled out next quarter. Their "common knowledge" is a series of iterative trivia about products they have consumed. This is not a culture, this is a market segment. And "ironic racism" that unironically uses Nazi rhetoric is just racism. Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 02:52 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:41
|
|
|
4chan, reddit, and the like are all just festering shitpiles and their problems stem from the lack of moderation and the inability/unwillingness to hold individual people accountable for what they say and do.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:41
|
|
|
Jerry Manderbilt posted:Was nerddom always like this? Like back during the 90s, was nerd more associated with academic achievement rather than being way too into some fandom? I think I remember some sociology papers back then outlining how nerds were on average much more socially progressive than today. What gave? I think there was a very brief period of time where one was a "nerd" whenever they actively liked something that was outside of the popular culture mainstream. This was a remnant of the TV broadcast age where you were largely told by large media systems what were the things that you were supposed to like, rather than deciding that for yourself. To call someone a "nerd" dismissively implied that they were interested in something which you and your social group thought was largely irrelevant to the common interest -- to deny the individual strengths they had over you, (e.g., they know a lot about some thing that you know nothing about, including various school subjects,) to triumph in the collective strength of being "normal" people. A problem then arose as the Internet became more and more commonly available, with its wealth of useless information, and thus the cultural mainstream got downplayed as more and more people were free to develop their own interests and meet similar groups. Under the same logic, everyone then became a nerd to some degree. Whereas beforehand there would've only been a few select nerds available at any given time, now everyone is a nerd in some way and can't avoid that. icantfindaname posted:I think it's very important to distinguish nerddom from education/intellectualism. They're really not the same thing at all, the only real connection is that people bad at athletics and social interaction are overrepresented in both because athletics and social interaction as areas of achievement are closed off to them. Fried Chicken posted:Let's stop calling it "nerd culture"; defining your identity by what you consume is not culture. Everything they adhere was cooked up to fall within defined age/sex/disposable income/distribution region parameters assembled with ISO9000 compliance to Six Sigma standards 25 years ago by some snake in a suit so he could hit is quarterly bonus metrics. Any shared "language" is them referencing a consumed product because they have been marketed that referencing the familiar with a twist is the same as humor. Their "shared priorities" are consuming the products set to be rolled out next quarter. Their "common knowledge" is a series of iterative trivia about products they have consumed. This is not a culture, this is a market segment. Also these. (Goodness, this thread is moving quickly.) Morroque fucked around with this message at 02:48 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:42
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:Richard Stallman and the other open source pioneers are all gross creeps and bigots, Stallman in particular has essays on his personal site to this day defending sex with children if they consent to it. I thought he was one of the least objectionable nerds (even if he's completely maladjusted and lacking in self-awareness), since as far as I understand he's quite far left economically but that... ...that's really bad.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:46
|
|
|
I cherish my freedom of speech and i will combat any attempt to abrogate it no matter what some idiots on twitter or 4chan say.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:47
|
|
|
Woolie Wool posted:I thought he was one of the least objectionable nerds (even if he's completely maladjusted and lacking in self-awareness), since as far as I understand he's quite far left economically but that... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:47
|
|
|
Well we already knew children are marginally safer by the fact that he's so physically repulsive and his habits are so awful that no child could be convinced to have sex with him. Could you imagine the smell 
Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 02:57 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:50
|
|
|
Wanamingo posted:4chan, reddit, and the like are all just festering shitpiles and their problems stem from the lack of moderation and the inability/unwillingness to hold individual people accountable for what they say and do. "Give a man a mask, and he will show you his true face" - Oscar Wilde
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:51
|
|
|
What I reckon would be interesting is knowing sort of what the turnover is within these cultures. At a place like SA there are obviously a lot of long timers and it very much shows that the climate and culture of the site has grown with its members, especially somewhere like D&D. More adult and less nerdy, some parts excluded obviously. Chan culture appears to be more stagnant if not devolving. Is that because their prolific users are ever fresh batches of 15yolds, or is turnover in fact not as high as you'd think and the users just stay that age mentally? Overall among my acquaintances nerdiness was something grown out of the general boredom of being a suburban kid and having too much time on your hands, it was was definitely nothing to celebrate or try to start a culture around - as everyone grew up (admittedly at different paces) they moved on and well, stopped being stupid nerds because what adult can be bothered with the inanity. There appears to be sections of the population that went the opposite route, for whom nerd stuff wasn't just a lack of something more interesting but actively interesting in itself. Basically - what is up with those people and why didn't they become massive hipsters like the rest of us? The reactionary angle probably explains it quite well I guess but there has to be more to it...
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:53
|
|
|
chan culture really doesn't have much to do with nerdiness. both are indicators of social awkwardness but i think this connection comes from latent ideas that obscure internet poo poo must be the domain of nerds who know how computers work, but the internet is so pervasive in youth culture now that really it's just a matter of time before something like chan pops up in order to empower a generation of 21st century teenage shitheads
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:53
|
|
|
Fried Chicken posted:"Give a man a mask, and he will show you his true face" - Oscar Wilde "Character is what you are in the dark." --Dwight L. Moody 4chan is the white male bourgeoisie in the dark.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:55
|
|
|
Cakebaker posted:Chan culture appears to be more stagnant if not devolving. Is that because their prolific users are ever fresh batches of 15yolds, or is turnover in fact not as high as you'd think and the users just stay that age mentally? there's really no way of knowing, but i would assume it has to do with novelty like the first dozen times you get involved in some ridiculous internet phenomenon it's fun and all but over time as you age you (ideally) get bored with it. i've been a goon for like 12 years now and i barely check any forum other than this one, and i only keep up with a handful of threads, because as i age my time is more valuable and i'm just not as entertained or informed by the internet as i used to be chan culture is really driven by the combination of teens and young adults with a large amount of time on their hands, a low threshold for amusement, a lot of steam to blow, and a lack of face-to-face social opportunity for whatever reason (social awkwardness, social rejection, geographic isolation, personality disorder, misanthropy, etc.)
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 02:58
|
|
|
Cakebaker posted:Basically - what is up with those people and why didn't they become massive hipsters like the rest of us? The reactionary angle probably explains it quite well I guess but there has to be more to it... Hipsters and nerds are two sides of the same coin. They're both driven by a peculiar mix of consumerism and insecurity.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 03:00
|
|
|
Cakebaker posted:What I reckon would be interesting is knowing sort of what the turnover is within these cultures. At a place like SA there are obviously a lot of long timers and it very much shows that the climate and culture of the site has grown with its members, especially somewhere like D&D. More adult and less nerdy, some parts excluded obviously. I've been posting on one 4chan board (and only ever that one board) for years now.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 03:00
|
|
|
Cakebaker posted:What I reckon would be interesting is knowing sort of what the turnover is within these cultures. At a place like SA there are obviously a lot of long timers and it very much shows that the climate and culture of the site has grown with its members, especially somewhere like D&D. More adult and less nerdy, some parts excluded obviously. Consciously self-identified nerdiness is a sort of identity politics thing, which is rallied around in a right wing reactionary sense. Simply consuming non-mainstream media doesn't make you a nerd, the self-identification is the key step. I almost feel like hipster/alternative/twee subculture and grognard/4chan culture are two sides of the same coin, one being a leftist manifestation and the other a rightist
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 03:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 1, 2024 20:54 |
|
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:chan culture is really driven by the combination of teens and young adults with a large amount of time on their hands, a low threshold for amusement, a lot of steam to blow, and a lack of face-to-face social opportunity for whatever reason (social awkwardness, social rejection, geographic isolation, personality disorder, misanthropy, etc.) Blowing steam does not relieve angry emotions but rather intensifies and reinforces them, it makes anger rewarding and sets up a positive feedback loop of vitriol. icantfindaname posted:Consciously self-identified nerdiness is a sort of identity politics thing, which is rallied around in a right wing reactionary sense. Simply consuming non-mainstream media doesn't make you a nerd, the self-identification is the key step. I almost feel like hipster/alternative/twee subculture and grognard/4chan culture are two sides of the same coin, one being a leftist manifestation and the other a rightist Why do the rightists have to get all the good music? And at least in music it didn't seem to be that way, metal was leftist as gently caress in the late 1980s but... ...metal was cool in the 1980s... ...were '80s thrashers ranting about military adventurism and civil rights violations actually the hipsters of the Reagan years?  ...and even worse... ...is them leaving it behind why so much of it turned to poo poo around 1991-93? 
Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 03:07 on May 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 14, 2015 03:01
|
|