Like many of us, I found the site when I was about 13 or so. I can't say I totally remember the environment, but a mix of anime girl boobage and conversations about games +anime that I liked and reading about raids led me there after some schoolmates recommended it to me.
Rant: Reading up on this incel shit after the Toronto tragedy, and saw sime forum screenshot where 3 supporters of the incident had Mio, Archer and Kiryu avatars, respectively. Made me shake my head in disappointment and reflect more on my teen years on the internet as a channer.
-
-
Show this thread
-
Now, in hindsight I 500% don't approve of what those raids, or even the dialogue that went on on the site, but as a preteen who wasn't even taught in school what the KKK even was by this point, it's really not easy to detect every last red flag on an ever-changing site like that.
Show this thread -
I remember a thread back in school on one of the pages that was some guessing game of "Was this photo taken in the UK or the Middle East?" and showed pictures of women in hijabs and such. There's obviously a lot wrong with that, but as a 13 y/o you're not going to understand why.
Show this thread -
It isn't solely the site to blame for that handwaving attitude though, especially after 2001, the US was fucking delighted to throw narratives like that around in the regular public. "lol Hitler" and "the Russians" and "the Jews!!!!!" were common punchlines in widespread media.
Show this thread -
I think I've thrown it away since, but back in Jan 2002 or so (I turned 10), my folks offered to let me get my cartoon portrait drawn at the Adventuredome @ Circus Circus as a gift. I'd always wanted one, but I couldn't decide what fun little body I wanted: cowboy, princess, etc-
Show this thread -
-and the artist working there went ahead and drew me, totally unwarranted, in full camo gear with an ar shooting some charicature of a 'muslim terrorist' in the head. (I'm already blonde, but he also made my eyes bright blue, which they are not).
Show this thread -
I only say that because, to draw that on a 10 year-old girl's portrait says a whole fucking lot about how quickly this shit was normalized in our country, and Las Vegas, where this happened, is a relatively diverse city by nature.
Show this thread -
Anywas, back to 4chan. The site was always a melting pot of overt racists, permavirgins and nerds, but I do think at the time a lot more of the racism and sexism, while toxic, came out of ignorance of social issues and not malice. That heavily changed over the years though.
Show this thread -
I don't think I could tell you the just when I started actively board-hopping, but right around Gamergate, the site was increasingly harder and harder to find conversations I a. wanted to talk in and b. weren't already tainted by GGers and people blowing up slurs just to do it.
Show this thread -
(Regarding slurs, /b/ and /pol/ and /r9k/ are the biggest slur-droppers of the bunch, but pretty much every other page besides maybe the animal board used stuff like f** pretty natively. It was used to mean being ~otaku for something, but mind, that still doesn't make it okay.)
Show this thread -
It got to the point where I was just lurking around for cute fanart to save and moving on with my day. Eventually, I deleted the app and never looked back, and I do have to say that while I miss going back to talk in the retro games board, not seeing 4chan's toxicity is healing.
Show this thread -
It's hard to describe just how badly the site changed after GG, and it reached a point of no return during and after the 2016 campaign. I simply lost a lot of faith in a crowd that did rightfully make some cool things happen. I met some friends on there and could rant about shows
Show this thread -
The anonymity of the site was and still is a nice feature that I wish more forums had, but at the same time, there was a certain "underdog" mentality that the anonymous label championed among its nerdbase. This I think was most prominent during the early V for Vendetta memery.
Show this thread -
But I think when you fuse the natively racist and hateful narrative and humor and lack of edu many of us were ingrained with early on +that underdog mentality + the idea that nerdery is becoming more mainstream, the idea that these guys are a dying race rings out very Aryan-like.
Show this thread -
I lack the memory/the awareness of what 4chan "really was" back when I first went on there as an early teen, but I think many who left in the last 6 years can agree that it completely lost course of the potential the site had and succumbed to everything that made it bad.
Show this thread -
And I think one of the popular things about the site back then was the overall "naughty, naughty" irony of it. That's what I found fun about it, but agaon that was because I lacked context. Microaggression wasn't a word that existed to 17 y/olds then as it does to 17yos now.
Show this thread -
I used to like FFT and Shadow Hearts nostalgia threads+bitching about the Holo Holo Bird from Baten Kaitos Origins in nighttime /v/. Just the idea that anyone I chatted with or sent a V/a/lentine's card to could be supporting this truck driver terrorist right now makes me sick.
Show this thread -
I saw the site as a remedy for my awkwardness and lack of friends to hang out with, but even when growing up, I still saw the crutch it put on me and I lost opportunities and relationships based on certain mentalities and jokes that I picked up from the site.
Show this thread -
Now that 4chan is showing up more and more in the news in light of pages like and /pol/ and neo-/v/, former and current channers really need to analyze the situation. The site always operated in the name if preserving our nerdery, but in execution, what were we really preserving?
Show this thread -
I always felt the phrase "permavirgin" was a self-depracating term of doomed endearment,(despite the obvious tsk, tsk of insulting someone for being a virgin). It was more of a "whelp, that's my life", not the grounds for some fascist political movement.
Show this thread -
It's not surprising, but still incredibly sad to see angry, self-entitled nerds push a movement to justify and play Devil's Advocate for horrible statements + horrible political figures + domestic terrorists, all while using K-on and Yakuza and Fate avatars.
Show this thread -
To think this channer was 1 year older than me fills me with a dread that's hard to explain. I can't just brush it off and say, "these are the awful fucking kids that show up during the summer and don't understand what they're talking about".
Show this thread -
Like the ~21y/o domestic terrorist who also ran his car into a crowd of protesters in Virginia, a part of me thinks this happened not just to tickle himself, but to also be seen as the next big authentic 'fuck yeah OP delivers' or the like in his forum of choice.
Show this thread -
I don't know where I'm going with this rant now, and I might delete this later, but I wanted to spit into the ether for a bit. I have work in a couple hours and need to get some sleep. Just pissy and hating what the world is coming to day by day.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.