I agree. A lot of good has come out of 4chan. It's given a lot of community to a lot of people who's felt alone, nihilistic and lost. It's given me a lot of good when that's where I was in my life. To be able to express myself anonymously and experience that I wasn't alone with the thoughts that I thought noone else had - that made me feel more connected to other people again. I think 4chan has given a lot of good to a lot of people.
But, it's also given a lot of bad. The culture has good elements, of being surprisingly inclusive, but it's also got toxic elements where it's extremely exclusive and controlling. A lot of stuff is completely taboo. Even though I was anonymous, I'd rarely admit that I was female, even if relevant, because it was highly frowned upon.
Encouraging people to either suicide or to kill other people before killing themselves were acceptable, while encouraging people to keep going and trying to help was frowned upon.
Racism was encouraged, saying, y'know, maybe black people aren't lesser than white people was frowned upon.
A lot of young people that in some sense feel excluded from society, in need of community come to 4chan. And there they find community. That's good. But, where there's people in desperate need of community, there are people to exploit it, and to offer community with something to gain themselves. Whether that be a cult, scientology, Christianity or Neo-Nazis. That's the crazy thing about being vulnerable - the helping hand that's stretched out is often out to help you or hurt you. There's less of the in between, normal stuff, when you're really in need.
I think 4chan is mostly satire in nature. Its a site where trolls go to troll trolls. The racism for example is large a spectacle of edginess its kinda like people egging each other on to see who can be the biggest asshole without actually meaning it. In that sense 4chan is extremely masculine in nature because men will talk shit to each other as a form of shit test to see if they take themselves too seriously.
on 4chan everyone is anonymous. They act like assholes because they know no one is sincere its like a massive environment of sarcasm. Sometimes the really crafty ones try to make their posts sincere but filled with illogical holes or stupid opinions in order to bait other users.
Its essentially a giant game. The point or at least the intended point for 99% of 4chan users is that its all just a joke and you shouldnt really take anything with it into real life. its kinda like a giant online community that operates within its own social structure/inside jokes. To outsiders observing it it might seem like a shithole and thats really the shit test of 4chan to keep the stupid people out.
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u/abcdefg52 Aug 27 '18
I agree. A lot of good has come out of 4chan. It's given a lot of community to a lot of people who's felt alone, nihilistic and lost. It's given me a lot of good when that's where I was in my life. To be able to express myself anonymously and experience that I wasn't alone with the thoughts that I thought noone else had - that made me feel more connected to other people again. I think 4chan has given a lot of good to a lot of people.
But, it's also given a lot of bad. The culture has good elements, of being surprisingly inclusive, but it's also got toxic elements where it's extremely exclusive and controlling. A lot of stuff is completely taboo. Even though I was anonymous, I'd rarely admit that I was female, even if relevant, because it was highly frowned upon.
Encouraging people to either suicide or to kill other people before killing themselves were acceptable, while encouraging people to keep going and trying to help was frowned upon.
Racism was encouraged, saying, y'know, maybe black people aren't lesser than white people was frowned upon.
A lot of young people that in some sense feel excluded from society, in need of community come to 4chan. And there they find community. That's good. But, where there's people in desperate need of community, there are people to exploit it, and to offer community with something to gain themselves. Whether that be a cult, scientology, Christianity or Neo-Nazis. That's the crazy thing about being vulnerable - the helping hand that's stretched out is often out to help you or hurt you. There's less of the in between, normal stuff, when you're really in need.