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Comment on 4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere

There used to be a dozen sites like 4chan. I don’t know if any of them are still around, but I’m willing to bet that if 4chan doesn’t come back there will be a new website that takes its place.

4chan is a pretty unique experience. Most of the internet is forming into echo chambers, where having a different opinion than the “correct” opinion for that community will get you downvoted or banned. My understanding with 4chan is that post popularity is determined by replies, and frequently controversial opinions/etc get the most replies. So posting stuff that most people will agree will result in a less popular thread than posting something controversial, offensive, or wrong.

I think this leads to a lot of the negative things you’ve heard about 4chan, but encouraging disagreements between its members keeps it from becoming a full echo chamber like a lot of social media. They still have some dominant community opinions, but those opinions can’t really smother all the other opinions like on most sites.

To be clear, 4chan is a cesspool. But for all it’s flaws it does offer something unique that’s largely missing on other websites.

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jimmy90@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
now we have plenty of toxic lemmy instances as the modern alternative.ml

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- TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  correct me if I’m wrong but I heard a theory that either Hexbear or .ml started as a group on 4chan
  
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  - lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hexbear started in Reddit, as r/chapotraphouse.
    
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ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I personally used it daily for years. There was more to the site than neo-nazi threads on /pol/. Anime, manga, kpop, and vtuber threads were some of the most popular and they were all highly moderated.

I enjoyed the lack of username/post history meaning no worshipping prolific posters or doxxing people by going through their history to find a post where they talked about their work.

No upvotes or ranking system meant good and bad posts weren’t labeled. You figured that out yourself without other people (or an algorithm) telling you how to feel about it.

Frequent thread deletion meant the site was constantly a snapshot in time. It’s like going to a bar. You’re not going to know the conversations people had in that bar yesterday. It might not even be the same crowd as yesterday. The vibe is created by the people there at that time and it’s constantly changing.

The site had barely changed how it functioned in 20 years. It was honestly one of the last bastions of the old internet before everything became about “engagement” metrics.

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ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The piracy threads and general game discussion on /tg/ used to be mostly decent. /b/ was always the face of 4chan though, and that was the main pipe spewing and spilling sewage everywhere

And let’s not forget, 4chan was possibly one of the biggest reasons for MLP success back in 2012 or so (probably a hangover from too much Robot Unicorn Attack)

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- lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  /ck/ (cooking - mentioned by the article), /vg/ (where people discussed video games; /v/ aka /b corta/ was a shithole), /sci/ (science) were also decent. ~~/tr/~~ /vp/ (Pokemon) was also really fun, at least when I still enjoyed the franchise. /a/ (anime) was a bit of hit-or-miss.
  
  /b/ was only the main pipeline of cancer until /pol/ was created and took over the crown - instead of cancer mixed with dumb trolls and memes, /pol/ was pure and distilled cancer.
  
  probably a hangover from too much Robot Unicorn Attack
  
  Fuck, I miss that Flash game. Catchy song, simple but addictive mechanic, weird and awesome.
  
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cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Last tine I went on there I got a 3 month ban for making fun of Roy Moore losing to Doug Jones. It’s as much an echo chamber as anywhere else.

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- lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Image
  
  (Caveat lector: IDK/DC who are Roy Moore or Doug Jones.)
  
  …this sort of power-tripping bastard, desperate to enforce their opinions, was really common in 4chan. However Fubarberry is talking about structure; structurally speaking 4chan highlighted divisive opinions, while e.g. Lemmy, Lebbit etc. do the opposite.
  
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TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Cesspool is the only word you needed to type. Fuck that place.

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Banana@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I once saw a guy steal a skull from the catacombs and proceed to fuck it on 4chan.

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- pishadoot@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Oh dang I remember that
  
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- TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  So much better than an ECHO CHAMBER! /s
  
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Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
according to my friend who uses it, some went to 8chan (4chan but can create new communities in the same vein of reddit), and the more extremely ones would go to soyjack or kiwifarms

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- Ragdoll_X@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I vaguely remember reading that some dude created 8chan because he thought 4chan was too heavily moderated or smth, which considering the little I saw while perusing 4chan ages ago, makes me wonder the depths to which 8chan can go.
  
  Also it’s kind of funny but also fully expected that Kiwifarms would attract the most extreme among the extreme considering it’s literally just the “harass and dox queer people website”.
  
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  - ogmios@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I vaguely remember reading that some dude created 8chan because he thought 4chan was too heavily moderated or smth, which considering the little I saw while perusing 4chan ages ago, makes me wonder the depths to which 8chan can go.
    
    You’d be surprised how uptight people can be about certain things, even while being extremely liberal with others.
    
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