How the Internet Left 4chan Behind
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
The anonymous forum thrived when edgelord content wasn’t acceptable on more mainstream social media. Today, it can be found most anywhere.
I never used 4chan myself but I was in high school in the late 2000's and knew folks in my computer science classes who used to spend much time there. The late 2000's was before "mainstream social media" right? Only facebook.com was there and you could post whatever you wanted including "edgelord" stuff on facebook of the late 2000's as that version of facebook wasn't really moderated...
And then you had reddit also which at that time had many subreddits where you could post anything including 4chan stuff. I remember people on reddit back then complaining that reddit was for people too scared to go to 4chan. And I would laugh at the comments because they basically described me back then haha.
Mainstream social media stuff that this article talks about...that happened later in the 2010's....
Also it is still so surreal to me to see prestigious publications like the New Yorker talking about 4chan. Back in the 2000's and early 2010's 4chan was one of those super nerdy silly kinda dumb underground things that you didn't really talk about in public because it would be cringe worthy. I remember in 2016 when somebody shouted "PEPE!" at some Hillary Clinton rally and looking at the video of that and feeling cringe. The thought that history students in the future would have to study memes and the thought that people in the "real world" like CNN would be writing about some dumb silly nerd meme website was so bizzare. Even now in 2025 the fact that The New Yorker has this giant article about 4chan is so weird to me.
4chan...those "edgelord memes"....crazy reddit subreddits....Pepe the frog....
All these things were not supposed to change the "real world." Like I said earlier, I never used 4chan myself, but I really don't think anyone actually using 4chan or any of us using reddit back in the late 2000's or early 2010's ever imagined that anything posted on those sites would ever have any impact on the real world. The internet was just this place where nerdy people could go to post silly shit. What the hell happnened?
Right. The whole internet and the culture around it changed.
Early 4chan really was just stupid silly garbage. Did you know there's an archive of old 4chan posts from around 2006-2008?
https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/85525276 (sarah palin email "hack")
https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/9691632/ (just a random thread.)
https://old.sage.moe/_/articles/glossary/
Just ridiculously stupid, juvenile stuff. Being "edgy" on 4chan was often just copy-pasting the n-word or "JEWS" a thousand times. That feels really so tame to what goes on there now. Looking through this archive, it all feels so... disconnected from reality. It was all so fake and stupid.
These elite "hackers" were often just pwning people who reused passwords, and then posting gay porn on their MySpace. When Fox News did a report saying that "4chan are hackers on steroids. They can turn your computer into a bomb!", they all laughed because they knew they're not capable of that. And then Anonymous? I mean the V for Vendetta masks? So stupid lol.
It all changed as time went on. I remember seeing a tweet around 2015 that said something like "it's crazy how I can type something in this box that would destroy my life", except it wasn't a joke.
The word "innocent" may seem absurd to describe 4chan users...but those comments really do come off as being posted by kids in suburban middle class families who seem gleeful they can anonymously say things on a computer that they cannot say in real life at school or at home because their teachers or their parents would put them into time out or something...
I don't think anyone would ever use the word "innocent" to describe 4chan of the 2010's or nowadays though
If only those who otherwise fell trap into these absurdist talking points had some perspective, something to lose, some dream to be held hostage - you could actually prevent this.
I wish there was a refund on wasted time on propaganda.
We're you responsible for that, as the Communities director? Because that was basically dA's self-inflicted and unprompted Brexit moment.
Just noticed that my dA account is old enough to drink (in the US)! https://lyc.deviantart.com/
I would love to read what you've written about that; as with Matt Pharr writing about Intel's internal compiler team politics, it's a fascinating insight into how some orgs are run.
> Back in the 2000's and early 2010's 4chan was one of those super nerdy silly kinda dumb underground things that you didn't really talk about in public because it would be cringe worthy.
> And then you had reddit also which at that time had many subreddits where you could post anything including 4chan stuff. I remember people on reddit back then complaining that reddit was for people too scared to go to 4chan.
> All these things were not supposed to change the "real world."
> The internet was just this place where nerdy people could go to post silly shit. What the hell happnened?
Social media was IRC and Hotline(Mac) and Usenet. The 4chan was Usenets' Alt. hierarchy. Not anything you used a web browser for.
Browsers were for surfing the World Wide Web, for finding personal and small business "homepage"'s and sharing information. Hotline and alt.binaries.* for "filez" or other "-z"'s. Public IRC for chats, but also whatever the reddit comment section is. Newsgroup readers for forum like things; except the newsgroup Alt hierarchy (other than .binaries), that was for things 4chan took over;one of those super nerdy silly kinda dumb underground things that you didn't really talk about in public because it would be cringe worthy. It was never suppose to make it on to the "real" internet, or change the "real world". (easy accessible things like 4chan)
The internet was for nerdy people to have their own corner of this newly connected world, where businesses could put their information for easier access than the yellow pages. A place to share your nerdy eclectic area of knowledge for others like you to find. What the hell happened?
The people who did post on 4chan became adults. I say "became adults", not "grew up".
It was never cringe to talk about 4chan openly back then because most people didn't even know about it, and for those who did it was like a secret badge/nod to those who knew.
Before 2012 it was also a hub for Anonymous, lulzsec, and others, and was a force behind Occupy Wallstreet, protesting the church of scientology and spreading word about Lisa McPherson, taking down gov sites in protest, Stratfor leaks, and far more focused on taking action on issues related to civil liberties.
Then in 2012 it really went down hill after Jeremy Hammond got arrested, after Sabu snitched on him. Yes, moot owned the site, but I'm of the opinion that due to the arrest/snitching, moot had to go against the "anonymous" ethos of 4chan and give access to everything to the fbi for "national security" reasons because they got spooked after the whole Occupy movement and the activity of activists on the site. The whole site turned into total garbage in a really short period of time following, and became flooded with a completely different crowd, a ton of brainrot (more so than before), way more right leaning posts/posters, and wayyy more porn than usual filled boards like /b/. Then when moot started another business (or he got a higher position at one of the big tech companies... I forget) and sold off 4chan, it became an absolute cesspool for the things listed earlier.
Tldr - it used be good... stupid but good. Now it's garbage, full of maga bs, and brainrot.
Needs moar yellow van: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128IR21ZQa0 (2007)
They have to acknowledge the internet, even if it's more plebian in nature, because that's where shit happens now. They aren't on the cutting edge of cultural commentary anymore. It's just yesterday's medium fighting to stay with the times
It's happened now and again. And lesser publications love to talk about "hacker group Anonymous."
Discord? Decentralized?
The author is on something else.