Imagine how good a place it could have been if people over there talked like people on HN.
Like many others coming from social web, you expect to find some kind of community which fashions everyone shares, an apparel you can put on. The idea is complete opposite: you don't need to follow any fashion, or imagine yourself “part of the team” any more than you want to. Even though it's not written in any rules, you don't have to use slang or tone if you find them dumb, overused (globally or locally), or forced. Neither do you have to treat stupid posts with respect.
I assume that after 15-20 years of being part of collective consciousness, anonymous image boards have mostly the same public as any average site. Amount of crap that you can read there is just the same as everywhere (though in some cases this or that Big Brother hides it from your view — obviously, to make you more comfortable, and spend more time in his warm embrace). The difference is that regular social fashions mandate the use of suitable set of candy wrappers for the crap, then there are customary ways of dealing with them, so in the end people just spend their time wrapping and unwrapping crap, but are proud of themselves, and call it “civilised discourse”.
That's antithetical to many of the foundational rules of the internet, which are core to 4chan culture.
The whole point is that they don't let the fluctuating, weak-willed whims of normie sensibilities determine what's allowed.
Then again this is just my opinion, I don't like 4chan because of the mentioned reasons so I don't visit it. Nothing trollworthy about that.
It's like saying "4chan would be great if they were more like reddit". But the entire point is to not be like reddit. HN is largely equivalent to reddit for this point—progressives who cant fathom the existence of intelligent people who reject frail sensibilities; who conclude out of such closed mindedness that anyone who rejects those sensibilities must be broken.
I think there's room for improvement in both places. I wouldn't go as far as to say that the value in the internet is that you can be exactly the way your are IRL. As someone who rejects a lot of ultra progressive stuff (most of what's astroturfed as "normal" by giga-progressives corporations that have taken over the internet and banned dissent for 15 years), I appreciate that I can at least feel a false sense of security sharing mentally sound ideas that have been recognized for thousands of years without having my life ruined.
The most foundational rule of the Internet was the sharing of information, and that's a coincidence of hackers being the first to adopt it. Being macho and emotionally stunted was never a foundational value, that's immature manchildren equating kindness with weakness.
Kinda over picking apart my relationship with people on Bluesky. Just wanted to share that I have been really enjoying it.
But on the subject of whether things are genuine or not, I see lots of actual, cash on the table, give money, mutual aid in these communities. I could understand performance as being artificial, but if someone is dropping cash to help a person out of a bad situation, that seems a pretty good definition of authentic to me.
In any case, "it's performative" simply does not imply it is not also real.
If it was pleasant to the senses then it wouldn't be counterculture.
4chan is four years older than Startup News (the original name of Hacker News).
I like it though, good to have some opposites to view so you don't get stuck in a bubble.