this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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4chan's random board isn't the risky experience it once was. Now it is just mostly nazis, trans hate, and porn. I'll drop by the papercraft board from time to time.
Thats the point, at one time it was pure chaos and it was SO racist, homophobic and sexist that it transcended it. A lot of people now are literally too young to remember the "glory" days.
The only thing that mattered was the bantz and how funny or fucked up you could be. "Tits or GTFO" wasnt implying that women werent welcome or a lower class, it meant that it wasnt relevant to the shitposting. Canadians were called "Syrup Ni**ers" or "Leaf f*gs" regardless. It was horrifying and at the same time amazing because we all knew it was just lulz. But people took the edgelord humor and made it their personality, they took it seriously. It became a cesspit.
Ah, the tragedy of any in-joke. If not everyone is in on the joke, eventually it stops being a joke.
Even if they are. We are who we pretend to be
Many, even most of you, sure.
All? Definitely not. I know someone who succumbed to the brain rot of 4chan, and went from a "normie" who (at least outwardly) treated all races and types of people with respect, to someone who viciously mocked our autistic friends, thought it was funny to use the F bomb and N word in public, and then eventually started getting super political, eventually becoming a trumpist (once that became a thing) then a full on qanon weirdo.
The last time I saw him I stopped by at a local coffee shop where a young black woman was working behind the counter, and he walked up and loudly shouted "HEY MY N****R!" (hard R) to me in front of her, she was mortified and ended up quitting the job, I told him off for it but was so embarassed I didn't go back to that place for months.
We haven't spoken in years, he's separated from the friend group entirely (nobody wants anything to do with him), and it all started with 4chan normalizing this sort of behaviour for him. He was never the sharpest tool in the shed, and you can say it was his own fault for taking it seriously, but it's sad regardless how he went from a lonely teenager to a hateful adult because of these "jokes" that "nobody" took seriously.
I mean, you even admit in your post, about edgelords "they took it seriously", well guess what that shit ruins lives and makes the entire world a worse place.
But wow it was so funny how that one guy said the no no word and didn't mean it right? So funny!
There isnt an ideology out there that hasnt turned someone toxic.
Religion, veganism, spiritualism, politicians, flat earthers... all of it. Some people are just looking for something to cling to and define themselves.
Its his responsibility for what happened to him.
This comment made me realize how similar in feeling 4ch was back in the day to the whole GME/wallstreetbets era. The whole frantic one upmanship was pretty nostalgic haha
As an apparent normie middle aged woman with no interest in stocks or 4chan or any of the green text nonsense, I subbed to wallstreetbets when the GME thing was going down.
It was one of the silliest, absurd and funniest things I've witnessed a group of people doing online. The ongoing stuff about 'my wife's boyfriend', all the rocket ships and diamonds, screenshots of people's plummeting investments with responses of 'apes/autists together strong'. It was just so, so dumb and relentlessly funny. There was something that felt very early internet about it. Silliness without ego because everyone was just trying to outdo each other's patheticness.
When I was there probably about 15 years ago one of the things I remember most were death threads, where people posted clips of people dying in the worst ways possible. Some where getting hit by a car, some were electrocution by power line, some were terrorist beheading videos. Yeah, the kids there now haven't seen anything.
(I'm not saying this to defend it. It was horrible and probably no one should see it. I'm just pointing out how the kids there today acting like 4chan is the same place it used to be are wrong.)
I'm good, thanks
That's probably the safer approach
I accidentally visited 4chan a few weeks ago and have had a persistent rash on my left hip ever since.
My teeth are falling out too, but I believes that that's down to the scurvy.
Yeah that sounds about right