Think of it like a really crowded dormitory whose lower floors are overrun by a never-ending frat party. The first person you run into when you show up will likely be projectile vomiting, or teabagging someone who passed out. Bored jerks are free to wander upstairs and urinate in any room in the building, and the deafeningly loud music and incoherent screaming is a backdrop (albeit distant at times) to every stimulating conversation that takes place.

If you want to enjoy yourself, you kind of have to know where you're going, and how to knock. Even on "quiet" boards like /lit/, the front page is churning with new threads. Everything is steeped in weird slang and inside jokes. There is no respect for newcomers. People who don't "get" the culture are dismissed with "lurk moar" or simply ignored.

Also, there is always someone, somewhere, who will find any given post hilarious.

Sort of. Each board is more or less its own community (much like how different subreddits are independent of each other on Reddit). /b/ and /v/ (Random and Video Games) contain the cause of the great majority of 4chan's esteemed reputation.

The other boards are a lot more calm and enjoyable. But some people enjoy the chaos :)

So far 4chan is one of the last places I found which still fosters an absolute anything-goes policy. It is almost a last frontier of a world where people can dump their thoughts, ideas just without having to use any form of self censorship. Once one gets over some idealistic expectation how other people should behave it is, at least from my perspective, a truly liberating experience.

Not really, no. I think it's size is more indicative of the standard age range it draws (a younger audience).

People keep telling me that there are decent parts of the place. Each time I try to venture in it is such a dizzying mess that I stopped trying.

It makes me feel old.

To add to what has been said - on 4chan, the very "controversial" topics are beaten over and over and over again.

Go to /pol/ and you will see at least two rasict threads at any given moment, then some other name-calling and misoginy. Go to /g/ and you will see non-stop dumb OS wars ("Mac OS X sucks!" - "STFU, your mother is a whore"), and so on.

Feminism, homosexuality, religion, those topics are always popular no matter the board.

It would help to add that while the age of everyone posting is a broad range, the most active users are teenagers and people in their early 20s. At least that's the impression i get after browsing for a few years.

Also, while it could be said that notoriety attracts a good crowd for them, so does their anime discussion as there are several boards dedicated to different styles of artwork (and, of course, the fact that the entire website is styled after another hugely popular Japanese Anime board, 2chan.net).

I would recomend the /fit. Is a great place to get tips and encouragement for exercises.

But go away from /b, it's a mess.

Maybe you've got a wrong impression of humanity?