There's nothing like the rush of getting more likes than the person you're replying to. The ratio is an uncut ecstasy. The first viral post just makes you crave it more! The next ratio, the next rush. But owning people with ratios is hard work, it takes a following and the right target, but you need it to happen faster than that. Get your fix. Soon you're in an alleyway downtown just trying to get ratio'd yourself to feel something. People uppercutting you with quote tweet dunks are almost like Likes if you're down bad enough. Just the attention man, just one more sweet hit of attention. Yeah Anne Frank had white privilege. It's ableist to tell me not to cross a picket line. Cooking a meal for your neighbors? you should have killed them and then yourself for being so rude. Please just give me those upvotes man I need my fix
like a big needle being inserted into your brain and getting 2 kilos of opium right to the cerebrum
For my day to go well I need to see at least 2 upbears in my comments
I'm so debased I feel even worse when I ratio someone. I get off on an insane cassandra complex so I prefer flame wars in group chats
Even back before 4chan was openly white supremacist, this was the aspect of the culture that made me scratch my head as to why anyone would spend time there. Even a discussion about horticulture or guitar amps would just have everyone calling each other autistic pedophiles or syphilitic n-words and telling each other to kill themselves
4chan was a place where people who felt out of place everywhere else could go to finally find a place to fit in. And, of course, to fall into various subcultures around the site, ranging from rather mundane -- /an/, the animals and nature board, was pretty tame, as was /ck/ the cooking board, and both had occasional vegan threads -- to absolutely toxic, namely /v/ (console war dickwaving and the eventual genesis of Gamergate), /tv/ (lots of straight-up pedophiles there), and /b/ (the source of 4chan's reputation). People would treat each other decently enough on the former, if a bit brusquely, but people were absolutely vicious on the latter boards, and in the spirit of being the no rules place, pretty much anything went short of actual illegal stuff.
So why stick around? Like I said, it was a gathering place for social rejects. There were plenty of social rejects among social rejects, and there was also a powerfully persistent culture of community-enforced anonymity. If you were to append a name to yourself, you had better have a good reason for it. Otherwise you'd just be reviled as an attention-seeker. Never be an attention-seeker. Never stand out from the crowd. Be part of the swarm. Fit in. You have to fit in somewhere. YOU WANT TO FIT IN. :bateman-ontological:
A bunch of broken people gathering together in one place to perpetuate the toxic behaviors they've been on the receiving end of will not breed healthy minds or spirits. But loneliness is incredibly painful. Persistent, unchosen loneliness is one of the most painful emotional experiences there is. And it will drive people to seek out, and wallow in, incredibly toxic places. Because at least they're accepted there. So long as they don't break social protocol.
Honestly this is the best summing up of 4chan I've heard. It wasn't the worst place 'back in the day', but admittedly it was a recipe to become what it is today.
Bearing the psychological equivalent of chemical scars from posting there back in the day has its advantages in perspective on precisely how stupid people can be on the Internet
The format was also just good at creating things that resonated with its community. And honestly pretty good at creating things that resonate with the rest of the world - everyone speaks fucking 4chan speak now. Doxx, weeaboo, raid, and all sorts of other shit, plus half the internet memes in the 2000s came from there.
Most online forums at the time had literally a fucking signature field under every post, and they tended to be pretty small and reputation-based. They were all about forming little cliques and reputations.
4chan was the only really anonymous board and they haaaated people who used the username feature that was available.
So it was a laboratory for content. Boring stuff got no responses other than maybe "sage" or a slur plus a sage (users could reply without bumping a thread to the top, to avoid keeping alive a thread they don't like - called a sage).
That's why it created all the memes and eventually catalyzed the American fascist movement. It was a competitive laboratory for attention full of people desperate for attention and overloaded with spare time.
To be fair to John Romero, he was iffy about that campaign but the marketing guys told him it'd be totally sick brah
I think the idea was supposed to be that being a toxic dickhead was no bullshit, 100% honest truth bombage because deep down humans are actually all horrible shitheads :so-true:
It's only our cucked society that makes us treat other humans with basic dignity and tact
Most of the struggle sessions on here could have been avoided if people were more charitable in their readings
This place ia reasonably small and nice.
I've also found some support in my life-experiences (meatspace too) for the idea that left-wing people are just a little bit nicer yknow, just a little bit nicer, whereas businessmen and other rightoids are a bit mean/cruel.
When I really got into leftist thought about a decade ago I came across a very sincere idea that we have to be better. That part of building a new and more equal society starts with the self. That doesn't mean letting people walk over you, stick to your principles. But it means being cruel isn't the way to go about it. I'll be mean to chuds all day. But I won't be cruel to the uninformed that can be won over. So I try to be polite, be sincere, and be kind. Until somebody proves they are an asshole. Then I'll be mean. Sort of cultivate a "warrior monk" mindset as cringe as that might sound. We have to be better as a proof of concept for our beliefs.
Hell most of the internet is like this. It's why I love this place so much, that outright hostility people have for one another in the larger internet is absent here. Good work on the part of the community and the mods for making it this way.
Nice, my internet is similar but instead of Travis Bickle it's the dumb bit in West Wing where Martin Sheen shouts at god in latin
No, it's not a personality. This is just how these people think communication works.
The amalgamated assemblage of all of a person's mores and methods of communication, plus their quirks, preferences, emotional tendencies, mannerisms, etc.
Words you write on the Internet are not a personality, they're just something you can read to make informed guesses about the personality of the poster
