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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

This brings back some amazing memories. If I remember correctly, the original inspiration for Omegle came from 4chan; or more precisely, a user thought of stretching the limits of "anonymous free speech" to realtime communications, and came up with the idea in late 2007. The PoC server for it was nothing more than "telnet to this IP" and it was sporadically advertised on 4chan for a short while.

Astonishingly, Google still remembers after 16 years: "forced_anon chat" (with the quotes) finds the very origin, if you want to go down that dark and probably-too-offensive-to-the-current-generation rabbithole.

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God, they're complaining about newposters all the way back in 2007. Is the problem really Eternal September or is it just "kids these days"?

Also Leif K-Brooks is a thoughtful person, and it bleeds into his posts

    I don't know why exactly I think a one on one chat system would be different from an imageboard. When one makes a post on an image or discussion board, I think one does take into account that his words are going to be judged by the whole community. Even he isn't worried about preserving some identity, he still identifies with those words and responds to the reactions they get, and I think that ultimately leads to self-censorship and conformity. When there's only one person passing judgment, it doesn't have nearly the same negative impact, and what's more you can hit F5 and dismiss the entire thing, whereas a post still remains.

Complaining about newposters is just something you do. It would be weird otherwise.

Calling it newposters is already weird

For real. I've never heard of that term until this thread.

Aren't they just neewbs or something? N33wbs?

N00bs?

They have a different term over on 4chan...

They use "newf*gs" on 4chan, I assume that word is banned here so the above posters are censoring it.

newfags? if you see this comment, then it is not censored

Or the people who manually moderate HackerNews just haven't gotten to it yet.

I can read it, so it's not even (yet) shadowbanned.

I don't think it will get shadowbanned if it hasn't already got shadowbanned:P

It’s been 14 hours so there definitely no auto filter. It’s kind of a testament to the moderating here that I’ve been on hacker news for 6+ years and never once have I tried to use a slur.

Newfriends.

I haven't seen newposters anywhere before, it's always been newfriends as the slur replacement

You know how brits call a cigarette? For some reason 4chan calls new-posters new-cigarettes.

>newposters all the way back in 2007

My recollection is that newposters was coined around 2007 for everyone who joined after the Habbo raids that had made /b/ much more popular. These newposters from Habbo were "ruining" the site.

protip: it was never good

One night, visiting a friend, I overheard his kid complaining about the first big Habbo raid and how these people were everywhere. I slid into one of his schoolbook's a block-printed note reading POOL'S CLOSED. He never knew it was me.

Eternal September is an observable phenomenon whenever a new demographic in a community outstrips the old guard. This is fundamentally different than "kids these days", though you may find some overlap.

It's either growing and suffering from eternal September, or shrinking and a dying echochamber.

On an anonymous website, that's the only differentiator

Lurk more

> and what's more you can hit F5 and dismiss the entire thing, whereas a post still remains.

Which was no longer a thing, with many people using Omegle to create content and upload it to youtube. It became far less anonymous in some cases than an image/discussion board.

>probably-too-offensive-to-the-current-generation rabbithole

4chan offensiveness isn't so much a generational thing as it is a personality thing

I will forever respect and cherish 4chan because it's pure, undiluted humanity in all its goodness and badness.

Dunno, it feels very diluted nowadays to me.

Teenage me loved the edginess. Adult me just finds it boring. More like a phase thing to me.

I find people who love edginess to feel some sort of moral or intellectual superiority to the commons or people they often communicate (example, in high school where you really have a random mixture of all kinds of personalities). Definitely a phase kind of thing

100%. Adults who still enjoy that "edgy" style of communication and entertainment always come off as super immature.

There's something in there about human development and pushing boundaries in your youth, I'm certain.

Also, it did feel great as a teen from a very backwards rural area, to be on the very bleeding edge of internet culture. Knowing the memes before anyone else was secretly satisfying.

I think there's a phrase for it: Kids are assholes.

As a father (29) whose daughter (5) told him that she didn't like his gray hair because it means he is gonna die soon, can confirm.

Our generation grew up on offensive / edginess, things like late 90's shock rock, South Park, Jackass, Saw, etc. Nobody cares anymore, and it feels like nobody's tried to out-edge series like South Park. It feels like we've reached rock bottom so the only way is up. Which is a good thing btw.

With the exception of the "break glass to reboot/one more time the IP" moments

It has felt like a natural end to the long term cultural battled for acceptance of such basic expressions of working class language and humor, in a kind of "needing to break it down so we can build it back up" sort of way.

I'd dread to think of a cultural landscape where the previous puritanical average continued letting air out of the balloon at an excruciatingly slow rate, as opposed to the admittedly immature fart sound we reveled in for a few moments.

Series like Paradise PD are more trash and less politically edgy. I think you're right.

> nobody's tried to out-edge series like South Park. It feels like we've reached rock bottom so the only way is up.

maybe you haven't been looking or looking with a different perspective, but it was definitely tried and accomplished, imho.

A community is defined by the selection process.

People who aren't sensitive to the general offensiveness of these communities come from all backgrounds and are effectively tolerant of each other in ways that are meaningful to them.

https://archive.tinychan.net/read/img/1196772434

archive link for those who don't want to google

Very prophetic:

> is this meant as a new scheme to pick up underage children by getting them one-on-one with no one else to monitor the two-way conversation?

That Google search you suggested appears (barring some UI thing I'm missing because I'm on Mobile) to only have two results, your comment and the 4chan archive. Is there a name for a google search with exactly two results? I know one with one single result is called a Googlewhack.

It's cheating if you use quotes.

A Twooglewhack.

Sounds like a 19th century robber baron

FYI, ICQ had popularized this type of random chat long before 4chan existed.

Any time I used it in the last five years I had to wade through about ten obvious bots advertising some pornsite or scam before I got to a real person.

Then when you do get to a real person, 90% of the time they said "M or F?" and if you said M they'd instantly leave

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