Saturday, May 02, 2015

A quick history of 4chan and the rightists who killed it (guest post)


A lot of the cool funny internet stuff we know and love - LOLcats, Doge, etc. - came from a site called 4chan. But recently, 4chan has become a gathering place for online rightist movements like GamerGate and various racists. How did this come to pass?

This is a guest post by a 4chan user and Portland resident who goes by @animemoemoney on Twitter. He was also an early GamerGate supporter, and even organized one of the first real-life GamerGate meetups, before later repudiating the movement. Here, he tells the history of 4chan and the invasion of un-funny, uncreative anonymous rightists that eventually changed the nature of the site. 

________

Anonymous Rightists and Their Slow Resurgence on the Internet

At one time, the internet used to be a smaller place. Large social, content hosting websites like Facebook and Twitter now rival large countries in population size. It’s what people do on the internet—browse social media. It’s rare to be out in public and not see a person flip through their mobile device and maybe check their email. The internet is huge now and a ton of people use it.

Before there were advances in consumer electronics, and other forms of utility-increasing technological devices that allowed users easier access to the internet, there were enthusiast forums. Enthusiast forums are not like social media. They behave the same, but there was a far different community dynamic seen in forums of the past. Enthusiast forums are where gamers, anime watchers, or plain jokesters gathered to discuss their hobbies. An enthusiast was more likely to use a slower, now outdated version of the internet as well. 

Enthusiast forums still exist today, and they still have that handmade look of a website built by two-to-three people. The biggest differences between social media websites and enthusiast forums would be the culture and the board software. Instead of putting their real name and uploading a picture of their face, enthusiasts have taken a persona with a custom username and avatar. Enthusiasts loved to take a different persona because it made them anonymous on the internet, and thereby not be judged by their hobbies in real life.  Because of the anonymous nature of enthusiast forums, it meant users’ online behavior wasn’t judged either. 

When Christopher “Moot” Poole created 4chan, he sought to emulate the anonymous behavior of the Japanese website 2channel. Moot was a large browser of the website Something Awful, a web forum dedicated to making jokes and creating original content. Moot would bring Something Awful’s character to his soon to be popular website. He wanted 4chan to be more anonymous than the enthusiast forums of the past, by stripping away usernames and user accounts. 4chan was a great success, and was soon to represent everything Poole loved—anonymity, games, anime, and original content.  

Before 4chan, forums had a lot of rules. The board software would only allow you to do so much, such as make a thread or make a post, but there were also rules made by the moderation team. Users would be expected to obey the rules enforced by the moderation team if they didn't want to be suspended or banned. It was a particularly sad sight when a member of a community was banned forever due to racism, or trolling.  

Unlike forums before it, 4chan didn’t set (many) limits to what was considered acceptable on the website. Forums like Neogaf.com have a very strict expectation for rule following, and will ban you for subtle things like posting in an incorrect tone. The lax rules of 4chan attracted a lot of content producers, and people who loved to post without the fear of gaining a bad reputation, or being banned for behaving a certain way. On 4chan you can be banned for being off-topic, but not for making racist posts. 

There probably was never a moment were racism couldn’t be found on 4chan, but the trend of making racist posts shifted drastically from being an ironic, edgy joke to a very serious habit for a percentage of the posters. It started mostly with the news board “/n/,“ which was deleted for being too packed with race discussion. While it used to be a great place to discuss economics and politics, the board was slowly consumed by people trying to “red-pill” [i.e., convert to rightism] as many people as possible. These “red-pill” posters probably were channers, but they were a vocal minority at that time. After /n/ was deleted, posters didn’t know where to take their race discussion. They went to the firearms board, the anime board, and the video games board but were unwelcome there.
Later on, Moot decided to remake the news board as /new/, and the same process reoccurred. Some people would make threads linking to news articles, and it would be followed by a couple posters presenting the racial truth behind the story; they’d post race statistics, homicide  statistics, and ACT score graphs. Though predictable, these posters where still channers…and therefore jokesters and trolls, so there would be fun discussion even if the content was offensive. 
As time went on, /new/ got more and more radical. The free speech board attracted radicals from all over the internet. But most prominent of the radicals were the hateful plain-text rightists that would soon to dominate. Every thread was filled with racial discussion by that time. The hateful plain-text rightists did not seem to be channers—their posting style was different, they wouldn’t use images, and they wouldn’t recognize the channer language. When a hateful plain-text rightist would be called a “newfag” for example, he would claim he was very against homosexuality. Because of these plain-text hateful rightists, those who didn’t post images or news, the discussion on /new/ became very, very far right. 

Moot would soon delete /new/, probably for the same reason he deleted /n/. An opportunistic man who went by SaveTheInternet would create a website for /new/’s old user base to post at.  That website would be called 4chon, and it was basically just the /new/ forum, with some other boards for community support. People did make news threads at this forum, but it was crowded out with race discussion, conspiracy theory culture, and a very confused love for the Mises Institute. Unfortunately, the chan culture seemed to leave these posters, and they would become hateful plain-text rightists themselves. Anime posting was soon discouraged, and much of what made a 4channer in the past would be considered “degenerate.” It was very sad to watch channers take in the judgmental attitude of a mysterious group of anonymous rightist invaders and use it to dissolve their own culture. . . which is what made their image-board so special.

Moot recreated the news board as the /pol/ “Politically Incorrect” board, making it the third board where rightists gathered on 4chan. In /pol/, you weren’t expected to have to post news, just whatever politically incorrect ideas that you had at the time. This new board would slowly kill alternative boards like 4chon, which relied heavily on defected 4chan posters. Moot would claim in his 7 hour departure Q&A that creating sites like 4chon, based solely on hatred of other people or other internet forums, “didn’t really create a lot of great content.” The activity of /pol/ would soon rival the activity of the anime forum. In the word-of-mouth between posters, there was a joke that /pol/ was a containment board and just a place to keep anonymous plain-text rightist posters off of the other 4chan boards. 

Despite most of the rightist discussion being limited on /pol/, there was a website-wide rightening of 4chan culture. Memes were mostly critical of different races, and even the most progressive parts of 4chan would bemoan the identity politics of Tumblr. When dislike of identity politics reached its height, the video games forum would launch an anti-left politics movement called GamerGate to demand a reform in game journalism ethics. While GamerGate started off as a very diverse, vocal opponent to what they saw was unethical journalism (before it was debunked), many of the anonymous /pol/ rightists would take advantage of its anti-left character by creating sock-puppets. Unfortunately, activities like GamerGate would prove to be too much, and cause Moot to step down from 4chan’s admin position. 
Today it is hard to find a 4chan user that doesn’t have an attachment to far right politics. By being anonymous, rightists took advantage of their lack of identity to spread a hateful world-view. Some 4channers bought the right wing philosophy completely, others accept only some of it. Many only spread the rightist memes as a joke.

80 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:56 PM

    This is an incomplete story. The rightists of 4chan were hand-in-hand with rightist trolls of SA forums too; like the SASS and MPC.

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    1. Anonymous10:03 PM

      I posted on SASS and it really had very little to do with it. People posted on both websites but you're talking about maybe 20 people of various beliefs in total vs thousands on 4chan. MPC was started by a SASS poster but most of his users aren't from there.

      Delete
    2. the LF age on SA was definitely a factor here too though

      Delete
  2. Anonymous2:41 PM

    All these people are essentially creations of the bourgeois state. Protected by its collectivism. Their political attitudes are fantasy much like multi-culturalists.

    They don't have the tribal mentality to survive in the "real world".

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous9:08 PM

      What is the "real world" that these people cannot survive in?

      Delete
  3. Anonymous3:16 PM

    I don't think you've spent much time on 4chan. As someone who has gone on /mu/ for almost five years, /mu/ is quite left generally and hates /pol/. Then there's all of the more specific boards who could give a fuck less about /pol/ or whatever.

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    1. Anonymous3:18 PM

      I also can't believe you defend tumblr's identity politics. That is ripe for satire.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous3:22 PM

      One more thing--you could have written this entire article about economics. Is your average EJMR post really representative of how the average economist actually acts, thinks, and talks?

      Delete
    3. I haven't spent much time at all on 4chan since 2007, when I went to grad school. Back when I was there, it wasn't very political at all - a lot of people made offensive jokes, but it was clear they weren't trying to be political.

      Delete
    4. Is your average EJMR post really representative of how the average economist actually acts, thinks, and talks?

      No. Definitely not.

      But the asshole/bully fraction and the rightist fraction are higher in econ than other academic fields.

      And there does seem to be a contingent of econ profs who think affecting the persona of junior high bullies and/or backroom politicking is the way to win intellectual battles. I'm not sure how common the backroom politicking is in other fields, but the goofy Biff Tannen routine is something I've never seen anywhere else. When profs drop by to comment on EJMR, it's often those guys.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous3:40 PM

      Fair enough. More broadly, I think that the rightist movements on 4chan represent something bigger in real life. You're focusing on the symptom, not the disease. 4chan's anonymity just makes it very public.

      Delete
    6. I think you're right, and I think that the main part of that is that people with rightward political leanings feel under siege, from 1. immigration and the 2012 Obama victory, 2, the disproportionate impact of the Great Recession on men, and 3. The stunning, rapid victory of gay rights. Also, after a big economic calamity, radical political movements in general gain strength - look at Europe, Japan, etc. In the U.S. we mostly don't live in dense cities, so more of the frustration will tend to emerge online.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous5:15 PM

      I don't think this is true, at least in /pol/'s case.

      /pol/ is /pol/ because:

      a) It's a reactionary response to the surge in 'SJW' culture on tumblr & twitter & elsewhere, and the narrative they push.
      b) a natural place for racists and conspiracy theorists to congregate, as there is less fear of banning or reprisal from the community.
      c) they believe that their beliefs about race, gender etc.. are what most people think, but are too afraid to admit, so they are skeptical of non anonymous discussion

      Delete
    8. "1. immigration and the 2012 Obama victory, 2, the disproportionate impact of the Great Recession on men,"
      -Illegal immigration has declined severely since the housing bust. Obama's victory was a marginal factor; there was much more anti-Obama anger before the Birth Certificate/Bin Laden week. Though there really should be much, much more anger against Obama now, if there was any justice in the world. I think pretty much everyone has forgotten that the Great Recession had a disproportionate impact on men, as the difference in unemployment between men and women is only .3 percentage points.

      The growth of the Internet Alt-Right (of which I am a supporter) is a direct response to the rise of Social Leftist Media Warrior Nuttery, which includes, but is much broader than, gay rights. This began only around mid-2011:
      http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=transgender%2C%20feminism%2C%20sjw&cmpt=q&tz=
      Also, Central American child migrants, Obama's brazen chutzpah in 2014's executive order on illegal migrants, and the Mainstream Media's presentation of Ferguson as the Most Important Place on Earth. Also, the Rape on Campus that wasn't. But that's more recent. The Alt-Right was already growing in intensity in 2013.

      Delete
    9. The growth of the Internet Alt-Right (of which I am a supporter) is a direct response to the rise of Social Leftist Media Warrior Nuttery

      Everyone justifies their crazy political movement by saying there's an EVEN CRAZIER political movement out there that MUST BE STOPPED.

      *yawn*

      Delete
    10. Anonymous3:26 AM

      Come on Noah. Stopping faggots from being treated like human beings is definitely a reasonable response to evil Leftist Social Media. And blacks not sticking to producing rap and sports culture for white consumption and then quietly slinking away to die in their ghettos was a colossal outrage! Dont they realize their genetic inferiority means thats the only valid way they can contribute to pithom. And you call yourself a 4channer.

      Delete
    11. Anonymous1:21 AM

      So you rehash shitty liberal sarcasm circa 2004 and then claim the memefactory that is /pol/ "killed 4chan"

      I bet you think "lulz" is a new and subversive thing too, and enjoy browsing 9gag for hours to find funny cat pictures

      You enormous, boring faggot

      Delete
    12. Anonymous12:46 PM

      I'm not in the least rightwing, but the SJW crap definitely pushed me to post more on /pol/. Political correctness, defined as trying to push a particular political view by making disagreement unacceptable to voice, is a real problem.

      It's basically impossible to dissent from certain "received wisdom" liberal positions on reddit and many other sites because you'll get banned.

      4chan is just one oasis where you can say what you think. If it was just about being rightwing, /leftypol/ on 8chan with their "free speech leftist" platform, wouldn't exist.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous3:23 PM

    /pol/ is aweful

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    1. Anonymous3:46 AM

      your spelling is awful.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous3:28 PM

    Lol this place allows instant anon comments, we could turn this blog into 4chan :O

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It wouldn't be the first time! ;-)

      I do practice a policy of arbitrary whim-based comment deletion, though...

      Delete
    2. Anonymous3:33 PM

      Fascist

      Delete
    3. Damn straight ;-)

      Delete
    4. Anonymous1:23 AM

      "if I post a smiley face then it means censoring comments that make me feel bad is entirely justified"

      Reminds me of a liberal professor who was smiling when he said he wished he could find out the names of students who criticized his faggy teaching style

      Liberals: eternally fascists, eternally unable to see their own hypocrisy

      Delete
    5. Noah deleting comments here isn't censorship. You're in his back yard. This is not a free speech issue.

      Delete
    6. "Noah deleting comments here isn't censorship."

      Don't be retarded. Of course Noah deleting comments is censorship. I mean that is literally like the exact definition of censorship. Just because people agree that he's got a right to do it and might well be justified in the event that the shitposting got out of hand doesn't change what it is.

      Delete
    7. I'll censor whatever I damn well please! Which is heavily dependent on my mood and whim. :-)

      Delete
  6. Whenever a bunch of right wingers suddenly show up on your site, it's always educational for the site admin to examine IPs. I have a sneaking suspicion that most rightists are either highschool kids or Russian propagandists.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous7:20 PM

      how will examining IPs help you determine if they are highschool kids?

      You sound like a highschool kid now.

      Delete
    2. "I have a sneaking suspicion that most rightists are either highschool kids or Russian propagandists."
      -Who sez it has to be either-or? :-)
      Seriously, though, most rightists are neither.

      Delete
    3. And why Russian propagandists? Why not Ukrainian, or Serbian, or Chinese?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous7:44 AM

      That's a very odd contention. It seems like most GG-style idiots are low social status nerds who spend a lot of energy trying to fill up their pathetic lives by building up a pretend reality nobody else is smart enough to see, while failing to come to grip with their emotional incompetence. See Pithom, for instance.

      Delete
    5. Sez a dude called Anonymous.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous1:24 AM

      So basically redditors who came late to the 4chan party are mad that /pol/ exists, what a joke

      Delete
  7. Anonymous7:31 PM

    Mises Institute shoutout! The evil austrian brain worm is spreading! Mwahahaha!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous10:12 PM

    To hit Gamergate more directly, I kind of blame /v/ specifically. I started posting on /v/ late in my time on 4chan so I don't necessarily have a great sense of its historical perspective, but what struck me about /v/ is how angry and paranoid they were. Every change happening to video games, some genuinely problematic others not, was treated as some sort of fundamental threat to gaming as we know it, and part of some conspiracy to screw over gamers. And then this reactionary style easily fused with reactionary politics, blaming the SJWs and/or feminists and/or Jews depending on how hard right you were willing to go. Other boards had their reactionary aspects too, but /v/ just seemed so eager to view society as going to hell in a handbasket that they were easy pickings.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous10:17 PM

      I believe you are correct, I posted downthread that gamergate is not right wing, it is reactionary. And for the record, /v/ had good reason to think that about games, at this point it is more than sufficienctly documented if someone cares to look. That is not to say there aren't ridiculous conspiracy theories, but there is definitely a semi-covert movement to "fix" gaming culture.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous6:37 AM

    >4chan was ever good

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  10. Anonymous6:39 AM

    http://twentytwo.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-158-tits-or-gtfo-the-logics-of-misogyny-on-4chans-random-b/

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous10:36 AM

    From looking at the content posted at pol, it appears to have a lot of cross over with the HBD and alt-right crowd. What we're witnessing is most likely the resurgence of an intelligent, sophisticated and cultured far-right. And i say resurgence because if you go back 50 or so years, almost every educated and intelligent person held the views posted on pol.

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    1. True, with the caveat that "HBD" is the most retarded name ever.

      Delete
    2. Why? It makes sense, if you think about it.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous3:36 PM

      I would like to see a resurgence of the right, but I want to see a greater emphasis on gender, mode of production, etc. Acknowledging race and genetics is good, but they should not be overemphasized.

      Anyways, Ricochet does a much better job at allowing for a cultivated right wing discussion than much of *Chan.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous1:26 AM

      4chan is superior because memes have always won the hearts of the masses with quick, easy to grasp sloganeering that becomes memorable when it makes you laugh

      The rise of the right is because the left is a bunch of boring losers

      Delete
  12. Anonymous10:58 AM

    Y'all are a bunch of whiny wimps.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous9:36 PM

    Multiple polls have confirmed that a large portion of gamergate are left wing, so-called left-libertarian. This is confirmed by the majority of active tweeters and KotakuInAction participants. I would say that largely they are left wing, they identify with left wing politics, but are mostly uneducated and so they tend to have reactionary opinions about things, so I can understand why they superficially appear right-wing. There are many right-wingers in gamergate, but they don't constitute the majority at all. A significant portion of /pol/ rejects gamergate outright because it is f*ggy left wing BS.

    Gamergate however is slowly shifting right, and this is a direct result of the way the far left of the Internet and media are treating them. Peace was possible at one point, but that possibility is receding, and its taking a bunch of moderate-left fence-straddlers with it. This is not the fault of the right wing, which is mostly incompetent and holds no institutional power (in the arena that gamergate takes place in.) This is the fault of the far left wing.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous3:47 AM

      Nuh uh, when was peace possible? How was it supposed to be achieved, short of nobody standing up for Quinn in the first place?

      We're talking about trolls and anons here. The former are dedicated to stirring up trouble, the latter is a nebulous mass with no leaders, who as a group show no inclination towards peace. Individuals who express a change of heart are dismissed as shills by the group. The group lives on, becoming smaller and more hardcore.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:41 PM

      the word troll is like the word thug, it means nothing. It's not accurate. It's not specific. It has racial overtones.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous9:42 PM

    By the way, everything you have written is folk history posted about 4chan and /pol/ for years now, there is nothing new here and it contains various biases and revisionist edits but has gone mostly unchallenged because most people don't actually spend enough time on 4chan to refute it, and in any case it's hard to document things that happened before there were many public archives.Moot has also not been honest about why he has done certain things. Unless you have inside knowledge, you can't really know the truth in many cases.

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    1. Anonymous10:11 PM

      To make more clear what I am saying, the guest who wrote this article just regurgitated a common 4chan history copypasta that has been posted on /pol/ for years now with minor alterations, and isn't an original work. It has had multiple edits over the years the same way that everything on 4chan mutates. It is a "story we tell about ourselves" and shouldn't be mistaken for truth.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous9:45 PM

    Any other Jews here who like /pol/? I used to think it was just antisemitic nonsense, but after going there to disrupt the board, I was forced to face certain difficult truths. In the end, I came to realize /pol/ was for the most part right about everything, especially after someone linked me the lecture by Barry Chamis about Sabbatai Zevi.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I'm not a Jew myself, but my wife is, and our kids are halfies. Didn't prevent me from slowly coming to the realization that /pol/ is always right though. One of the best parts about being hWite is the seemingly innate tendency towards methodological individualism, creating the ability to distinguish group averages/traits from individual attributes. My three favorite alt-right writers are all half-Jews: Mencius Moldbug, Karl F. Boetel, and Unamused.

      obligatory "gas the kikes, race war now," etc.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:04 AM

      My three favorite alt-right writers are all half-Jews: Mencius Moldbug, Karl F. Boetel, and Unamused

      That's only two people.

      Delete
  16. NEETweeb9:56 PM

    I find this guy's premise absurd: That the "rightwingening" of 4chan is from an outside influence, instead of simply allowing anonymous discussions and the leftwing in the West going full retard in the last few years.

    OK, I will admit that I am more of a newfag. I am just some 20something NEET, jobless, and I came to the anime stuff from going to /pol/ and other boards. I've seen a lot since then though. (200 shows in 2 years) I was a ronpaulfag back in '07 when I was just in highschool and it was extremely attractive how similar 4chan was to my own views.

    However, he basically implies there was some kind of malicious influence trying to shift 4chan to the right. However if you look at 2channel, their right-wing extremism is well-documented, and much more extreme than simply supporting Ron Paul and vaguely natsoc sympathies.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2channel#Culture

    A more simpler explanation is that 4chan, as an anonymous messageboard, is going to be more likely to be RW because people are more rightwing than they openly allow themselves to be. Political correctness is stronger than ever and people can lose their jobs, reputation and have their family targeted for having politically incorrect ideas. Both on social networks, or even on regular forums if they got doxxed. Anonymity is the greatest enemy of political correctness, and since leftwing political correctness is currently stronger than rightwing political correctness it is not surprising 4chan will appear much more right of center, since rightwingers have much more to hide.

    4chan isn't that much more rightwing than normal people are. We have an /lgbt/ and they have very apparent rightwing sympathies. If you had a /blackculture/ board I bet they would hate SJW's too. The reality is that people are not as extreme as the SJWs think we are.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous1:50 AM

    "4chan is super mean and right wing, can't they see how silly they're being lol, George Bush is to blame for Obongo's mistakes! Hillary 2016 lol!"

    4chan is becoming political because politics has evolved beyond the lame bubble that was the 2000s wherein no politics actually fucking mattered

    A majority of Democrats voted for the bailouts and a majority of Republicans voted against them. That's the first seed in the rightward shift of America- why is the pro-rich party voting against free shit for the rich?

    And of course it was predicted in 2007 or so that by 2050 non-Hispanic whites would no longer be the majority. No one ever voted for that, yet you can find Bill Clinton talking about that a decade earlier in speeches and about how great it would be.

    Thirdly you talk like a faggot. The whole Jon Stewart "lol I use sarcasm and make silly faces" is shit and unfunny even on his show and worse on the internet because you don't have your biased clips of conservatives saying dumb shit and we can't see you making your facial contortions through the screen. The simple fact is that your "comedy" was only funny because the character played by George Bush in his belief that he needed to act semi-retarded to get votes was even dumber and provided a good counterpoint to straight white liberal men, who were logical.

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    1. Anonymous1:51 AM

      The simple fact is that liberal white men like you have made yourselves obsolete, you've supported an ideology which has consistently relied on judges ordering popularly voted for laws to be struck down because of "muh wrong side of history"- you've never actually won. You talk about the spread of gay marriage being rapid, but that's a fucking lie. People who aren't idiots can see right through it because EVERYONE knows that Californians voted against gay marriage in 2008 and then it was struck down by a judge. You throw crap like that out and assume we've all just forgotten that, forgotten that all of the ends of bans on gay marriage is because of judges.

      You've supported an undemocratic, suicidal, anti-liberty, unmasculine and generally idiotic ideology and now you're surprised that the politics of the internet as a whole and the largest anonymous website of all are shifting rapidly to the right?

      Since you're a Jew and /pol/ tells me you're some kind of evil master race it surprises me that you're apparently not smart enough to realize all you're doing is fucking yourself over in the long run. You're white before you're a Jew in the eyes of minorities. The fact that Jews don't seem to understand they need to get in on the ground floor of white nationalism if they don't want to get run over baffles my mind- instead you try to call people anti-semitic meanies- do you think anyone is going to give a fuck? You're asking the entire West to collectively commit suicide, for men to hand their balls over to fat, ugly women, for women in general to gain 300 pounds because "fat is beautiful, don't be thin privileged!" and you expect people will accept that because you called them mean names?

      Your opinions are stupid and completely in line with what the left in general currently believes, which is why the left in general is getting its collective ass kicked all over the West. You stand for absolutely nothing positive, and expect people to go along with it. You're insane and you're a spoiled brat who thinks everyone has as much money as you, which is why you idiots say things like white privilege because you have no conception that maybe white people aren't all-that.

      It's fine though, you'll delete this post anyway because you're allergic to cold, hard reality and being forced to see that you have no real political beliefs that are actually intended to help anyone- your politics exist only as a way to jerk yourself off about how good your intentions are.

      But that just means the right will keep growing, and eventually people like you will get fucked because of it, because you weren't smart enough to get out of the way or get on board when the getting was good.

      Delete
    2. My my. Noah posts on racist, homophobic, extremist, juveniles who post anonymously taking over 4chan (which I have never been on), and, whoops! here is at least one or maybe more or maybe somebody just goofing and trolling showing up to show how right he is. Somewhere between hilarious and pathetic, not sure which.

      Yeah, ejmr has the same problem, although these whatever they ares (the usual labels seem boring and trite) have not taken the place over, although it has always been a den of pathetic aspie virgin infantilism.

      Barkley Rosser

      Delete
    3. Anonymous5:51 PM

      "aspie virgin infantilism"

      your neo-nazism is showing

      Delete
  18. Anonymous5:44 AM

    Is this all basically trolling 4chan? Genius.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous2:15 PM

    oy gevalt

    ReplyDelete
  20. The first thing I'm doing when I get home from work today is playing some StarCraft II.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous5:59 PM

    "un-funny, uncreative"

    i bet you think lolcats are funny and creative

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous10:47 PM

    Isn't the original Japanese 2ch board also full of japanese rightists and nationalists? so 4chan became more right wing was not caused by some greater social dynamics, it was inevitable.

    ReplyDelete
  23. "By being anonymous, rightists took advantage of their lack of identity to spread a hateful world-view"
    I don't think being anonymous is a pre-condition. Some of the stuff that Mankiw writes can be read as being racist. And Republicans consistently come off as being anti-diversity.

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    Replies
    1. Cesium,

      As I noted, I have not been on 4chan, but I have seen this stuff on ejmr and even in the last couple of days on highly respectable Marginal Revolution, where Anonymous posters or those with obvious phoney monikers post stuff that is simply awful, truly nauseating. Mankiw may play dog whistle games, but there is a massive and substantial difference between that and this new stuff, which seems to be spreading to other locations now. This stuff is so awful one does not even want to reply to it when it is thrown at one (and, yes, I have just had some of this thrown at me on MR). But, not responding simply lets these people "get the last word," and the mroe they do so, the more the general discourse becomes degraded.

      Barkley Rosser

      Delete
  24. If you want your game to be popular then it has to be racist because racism is so popular it borders on infatuation or obsession. People are so racist they think some genes and traits are better than others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:55 AM

      no, it's just racism has become taboo, and lots of people gets turned on by things that are taboo

      Delete
  25. Anti-Homosexuality Sermon Suspiciously Well-Informed

    NEWS IN BRIEF
    November 16, 2005
    VOL 44 ISSUE 26 · Local · Gay & Lesbian · Christianity

    BOSTON—The Rev. Francis Sebastian's Sunday sermon condemning homosexual behavior was suspiciously rich in detail and nuance, parishioners from the Adoration Of The Savior Catholic Church noted Monday. "For a celibate man of the cloth, Father Sebastian is very specific about which code words not to use on which forbidden chat rooms at which times of the night," said Betty Riegert, 67. "He also seems to have done his homework on what happens if you flash your headlights at certain rest stops along Route 16." Riegert and other parishioners expect Sebastian to revisit his usual well-worn themes, "Consider The Lilies," "Back Street Sodom," and "Christ The Bridegroom," next Sunday.

    http://www.theonion.com/article/anti-homosexuality-sermon-suspiciously-well-inform-5078

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous9:29 PM

    It's the element of counter-culture that 4chan has. On the internet, among educated young people, etc., the focus on "identity politics" is very much the dominant theme. There's going to be a backlash against it on a place that is openly counter-cultural. And how could it be otherwise, with the internet and academic identity politickers making themselves more and more open to parody and ridicule every day.

    On /lit/, the literature board, there is a lot of Marxist discussion but the same disdain for identity politics. On that board it would be more acceptable to be an explicit, blatant racist than to say that rich people's taxes should be lower!

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  27. Anonymous12:58 AM

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2channel

    "There are some indications by Japanese internet news media and sources, assuming 2channel as a major foothold for "net-uyoku" or "internet right-wing" (ネット右翼 netto uyoku?) nationalists and patriotic supporters."

    see, nobody says 2ch has been killed just because it has lots of right-wingers

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous5:45 AM

    >4chan is open to every one
    >right wing people start using it
    >stop using 4chan right wing people!
    your just a little faggot that can't handle a bit of contrary view point and blames everything on your very own buggyman

    >4chan hates the special snowflakes of tumbler
    >why are you mean to tumbler
    well no shit if you want to go be a polyamurus dragondildo kin so badly go to tumbler, good riddance

    go back to your hugbox, you'r drunk

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous3:55 AM

    Noah Smith is a new fag. Old fags wouldn't whine over this. You, Noah, are the cancer that killed B

    https://kwikset0.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/tumblr_lqvu3gbrpj1r2vwmoo1_1280.png?w=640

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:20 PM

      Oh hey, more old memes. Yawn.

      Delete
  30. Anonymous6:03 PM

    I don't think whoever this 4Chan user is was on 4Chan for very long.
    As someone who has had the profound misfortune to browse since the early days I can assure you. Little has really changed over the years and the recent influx of howling leftists has its roots in project chanology.

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  31. Anonymous12:02 PM

    It's a response to the politicalization of the internet, SJWs and Fedoras started messing with their shit and they got angry, then it spiraled out of control when other influences came at hand.
    But the real reason is simply because they are Anonymous, they can say anything and get off without harmful retaliation, if you have a problem with that, i'm afraid you are a fascist.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anonymous9:08 PM

    What makes me laugh is how reactionaries complain about lack of freedom, losing their job if they say hateful things about gays or, yeah, I get it, just being able to express you think it's wrong. I don't agree, but I can defend this liberty, but not for those among you who, however, would advocate being able to fire people for whatever reason, because capitalism, because then you can't complain if it's now about you.
    Other than that, stupid sexist paranoid remarks and defining masculine as compliment and feminine (feminization of society) as a tragedy. It's as low as this, here.

    ReplyDelete