4chan: Difference between revisions
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[https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan] is the website that introduced the Japanese | [https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan] is the website that introduced the Japanese [[Imageboard]] to the English-speaking world. It is seen as the hubsite of the [[Chanverse | *chans]], like [[2channel]] in Japan. | ||
While it's features were derived from [[Futaba Channel]], it's culture and original community was seeded by [[Something Awful]] | While it's features were derived from [[Futaba Channel]], it's culture and original community was seeded by [[Something Awful]] offshoot [[Raspberry Heaven]] with support and advise from the greater SA community. It eventually eclipsed it's founding communities, reinventing [[Internet Culture | internet culture]] in the process. | ||
4chan was the origin and/or hub of many internet-wide phenomena, most famously enabling the development of the [[Anonymous]] hacktivist movement and the being the pivot where the alt-right jumped | 4chan was the origin and/or hub of many internet-wide phenomena, most famously enabling the development of the [[Anonymous]] hacktivist movement and the being the pivot where the alt-right jumped from the political fringe into the mainstream. | ||
If I had known it one day become a dominant source of Internet culture with five hundred million pageviews per month and an [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/4chan.org Alexa Traffic Rank] in the global top 1,000 websites, I might have written more of this down at the time. - moot (source?) | If I had known it one day become a dominant source of Internet culture with five hundred million pageviews per month and an [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/4chan.org Alexa Traffic Rank] in the global top 1,000 websites, I might have written more of this down at the time. - moot (source?) | ||
Revision as of 20:44, 31 October 2025
4chan is the website that introduced the Japanese Imageboard to the English-speaking world. It is seen as the hubsite of the *chans, like 2channel in Japan.
While it's features were derived from Futaba Channel, it's culture and original community was seeded by Something Awful offshoot Raspberry Heaven with support and advise from the greater SA community. It eventually eclipsed it's founding communities, reinventing internet culture in the process.
4chan was the origin and/or hub of many internet-wide phenomena, most famously enabling the development of the Anonymous hacktivist movement and the being the pivot where the alt-right jumped from the political fringe into the mainstream.
If I had known it one day become a dominant source of Internet culture with five hundred million pageviews per month and an Alexa Traffic Rank in the global top 1,000 websites, I might have written more of this down at the time. - moot (source?)
Characteristics
A basic overview of 4chan as a forum:
- 4chan is Registration-free.
- Unlike most other English forums, 4chan does not use cumbersome user account, lowering the barrier to entry.
- 4chan is anonymous.
- Anonymity allows users to post their truthful opinions without fear of recourse. Additionally, since all users are anonymous in name, people are judged by their words, rather than their reputation.
- Users can also choose to become psuedoanonymous with tripcodes in case there is a need to establish identity.
- 4chan has no memory.
- Because all threads will be destined for deletion, great pictures are immediately saved, and later reposted by users of the site. The less interesting pictures are left alone and soon forgotten. This creates a "survival of the fittest" environment that demands and promotes the development of remix culture.
In the cultural context of the 2000s internet, this made the site immensely attractive to just about anyone with a passing interest in the internet communities and content creation. In the span of a couple years, 4chan became the dominant force in the Internet zeitgeist, a position it held for almost a decade before new developments in online platforms managed to stand toe-to-toe with 4chan on it's own niche.
Structure
Between January and March 2013, 4chan is registered in Delaware as 4chan, LLC with a branch office in New York. In March 8, 2013, 4chan files to register it's name and logo as trademarks and obtains them in October 8. Between June and September 2015 4chan, LLC is phased out in favor of 4chan Community Support, LLC, likely for the ownership transfer process during Hiroyuki Nishimura's adquisition.[1] Somewhere in the regulations of these two states is a requirement to have real (paid) employees. At some point between the shift from 4chan, LLC. to 4chan Community Support, LLC. the manager and lead developer became paid positions, according to moot statements, not early than May 2013.[2]
Impact
- See also: Internet Culture and Chanverse
History
- See also: 4chan/Chronicle and 4chan/History
Dramatic account: The old 4chan Chronicle on Wikibooks
4chan was founded in 2003 by a 15 year old kid named moot. It started out as simple joke and an personalized email and that evolved into the idea of recreated the content culture of Futaba Channel for English audiences. With support from Raspberry Heaven and the greater Something Awful scene, moot purchased the server space with his mother's credit card. Costs began to spiral out of control and the project collapsed several times and underwent many crises before it became economically solvent around 2009.
Multiple groups and immigrants from other communities arrived, first attracted by the fast-cycling pornography board and otaku-friendly niche discussion, later by the innovative "4chan-style" sense of humour developed by /b/. The primary factor behind growth was the ease of posting relative to other western communities due to the requirement to register an account before posting, other factors included general fatigue when it came to dealing with ubiquitous cliques in forums and chatrooms.
Staff
- See also: 4chan/Staff
Boards
- See also: 4chan/Boards
/b/
/b/ is the random board of 4chan, where any sort of faggotry goes on. It it's first and foremost board, dwarfing all the other ones in size. Currently, /b/ has amassed over 936,000,000 posts whereas many of the others have yet to break a million. (On an unrelated note, GETs are a popular pastime, such as getting the numbers 1111111, 10000000, 12345678, etc.) The content on /b/, as with all of the major chan boards, is periodically deleted automatically to save database strain.
Also, on /b/, there are NO RULES, LOL. Except no child porn and /i/nvasion. This consequently means mods can slap you with the banhammer for no good reason.
/i/nsurgency
4chan is by far the largest force, and as the spawn point of all the other *chans, so therefore it has a good history. Most 4chan raids are zerg rush attacks on a target, like AsianBabeCams or Drawball. Sometimes, as during the Subeta or Gamestop calls, 4chan is a massive epic force; Personal Army. The problem with getting 4chan's help is twofold: First you need their interest. Everyone hated Gamestop and Subeta pissed them off, and the hivemind randomly chose Hal Turner and his ilk. However, most regular raids will be saged for "raidfags" which some people hate. The second problem is the banhammer; a larger and more legally scrutinized site, the 4chan staff can't just leave raids going, and so they ban hard. Major raids with great interest will overwhelm the mods, and often you might just escape their attention.
Getting 4chan involved in a raid is either going to completely fuck it up (if they listen to you at all) or turn it into something hueg, though the majority of the time, if its not their idea they'll not be interested; for example, during MySpays when there were too many passwords and not enough people to fuck them up, the packs were posted on 4chan, and the threads were saged. On the other hand with stuff like Project Chanology they seem more than happy to help. They're incredibly fickle and usually disinterested, but on the rare occasion help from 4chan arrives, expect either a large amount of newfags fucking shit up or a giant shitstorm of destruction.
- A great example of proper 4chan involvement were the Gamestop.
- An example of 4chan inaction is MySpays The reason for this: /b/tards consist of a mix of several groups of internet users. There may be a few talented /i/nsurgents who visit the board, but the rest of the users are basically civilians who lack either the technical skills and know-how for internet raids, the motivation to actually do something, or most often both. A group of raiders from 4chan is usually composed of a few proper /i/nsurgents leading an attack and (trying) to manage things, a few others following behind and doing the "grunt work", and the rest just blindly doing whatever the fuck they feel like until they get bored and leave. Think of it as a levee en masse; you have the potential to employ all of *chan's resources by getting everyone there involved, akin to large scale military conscription, but unless it's important you're not going to get anywhere.
Other Info
- 4chan Boards
- 4chan History
- 4chan History Timeline
- 4chan GET Encyclopedia
- 4chan mod memes
- 4chan-anecdotes.odt
Sources
| Boards | ||||
| Japanese Culture | Interests | Creative | Other | Adult(NSFW) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Former Boards | ||||
| April Fools | 4chan BBS | World4ch | Split or Merged | Misc. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||
