4chan: The Most Powerful People on the Internet

[Kodiak]

[/url]
The most powerful people on the Internet don't work for Microsoft, Google or the government. Rather, they're a bunch of antisocial, foul-mouthed, clever nerds who congregate at a largely unknown Web site called 4chan.org.

Ever get your MySpace page hacked into? Chances are it was 4chan's fault.

Surfing YouTube and suddenly find yourself watching an old Rick Astley music video? You were "rickrolled" by 4chan.

Enjoy reading Sarah Palin's personal e-mail? She's got 4chan to thank for that.

Hear someone shout out the ending of the latest Harry Potter book while you're in line at Barnes and Noble? 4chan strikes again.

4chan.org is the self-proclaimed Internet home for people who lack a social conscience, a Web site that's become a surreptitious cultural powerhouse.

It's responsible for launching several successful Web-based trends, from the wildly popular "lolcat" phenomenon to the surprise comeback of '80s one-hit wonder Rick Astley.

But what the heck IS 4chan?

Welcome to a new world, filled with terminology and conventions that the average person — or even the average nerd — may not know about.

4chan is a no-frills discussion Web site that features dozens of message boards and "image boards" within six broad categories, stemming from Japanese animation to travel, and given semi-random names ranging from "/a/"' to "/trv/."

That sounds harmless enough, except that within 4chan lurks the "/b/" board, dedicated to "random" images and topics, and its 5.3 million users, known as the "/b/tards."

The /b/ board, or just /b/ to its loyal visitors, is by far the site's most popular. Users fill the board with vile material, from pornographic images to incredibly racist and misogynistic comments.

It thrives on competition and users write "moar" to challenge each other to post further loathsome material throughout the day and long into the night.

What makes 4chan unique among message boards is its reliance on anonymity, a vast difference from most sites, which make users sign up with at least a verifiable e-mail address.

On 4chan, one can post anonymously using a nickname or a "tripcode," a system that uses an algorithm to give users unique coded nicknames.

Anonymously, /b/tards create alliances to plan their next big exploits.

In 2008, they bombarded MTV with votes to clinch Rick Astley the fan-picked "Best Act Ever" award at the MTV Europe Music Awards — which helped Astley get a slot performing in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Recurring jokes on 4chan sometimes spread out into the wider Web to become Internet "memes," a pseudo-sociological term for jokey phenomena passed from person to person.

Remember the Hamster Dance and the lonely heart Mahir "I kiss you!" Cagri? Those were two early pre-4chan memes.

Aside from Astley, 4chan's most successful meme has been the "lolcats," photos of cats accompanied by goofy captions written in 4chan dialect, phonetically-spelled words using childlike grammar — for example, a hungry-looking feline with the words "I Can Haz Cheezburger?"

And the 2007 YouTube stardom of Tay Zonday and his song "Chocolate Rain" was due to 4chan users who found his amateurism charming and decided to artificially boost his viewing numbers.

But the antics of the /b/tards also have a dark side far from cute cats. They've been suspected of replacing people's MySpace profile photos with pornographic images. /b/tards have even gathered together to drive past bookstores with megaphones, shouting the ending of new Harry Potter books.

One of the most serious allegations against the /b/tards concerns the invasion of hip-hop Web site SOHH.com in June 2008, where much of the site's content was replaced with racist photos and slurs.

Fellow hip-hop site AllHipHop.com shut down its own forums as the invasion spilled over into them, a stunt that AllHipHop's managers deemed an "unprovoked racist attack" by "cyber terrorists."

Since users are anonymous, it's never proven that /b/tards are the culprits, but online communities often point fingers to 4chan for causing much of the chaos in (and sometimes out) of cyberspace.

/b/tards retaliate by saying that all original Web content stems from something they once posted on 4chan.

As long as users play by 4chan's carefully listed rules, created by the site's founder "moot," they don't get in trouble with the outside world and mainly stay unnoticed.

The rules are few and simple: Invasions of other sites are not tolerated, the SOHH incident notwithstanding, child pornography and illegal material are prohibited and no one under 18 is allowed.

Moot — he insists on the lowercase "m" — is reportedly Christopher Poole, a college dropout in his early 20s who lives in New York with his mother and is looking for more active employment.

Since 4chan is anonymous, it's unclear if Poole is truly his identity and whether it's true that he began 4chan in 2003 while in high school using his mother's credit cards or that he's still deeply in debt as the site continues to lose money.

4chan has been moot's main focus since he was 15 years old, which he began with one "anime/random" board.

Since those early days of 4chan, the boards have grown from something small and slightly elite to a site that moot says is now mainstream.

"4chan ceased to be a 'secret clubhouse' ages ago. We serve over 15 million users per quarter, and are larger than 99 percent of other sites on the Web," moot told FoxNews.com.

Moot says the growth of 4chan has kept things interesting. In just a few months, figures have increased to 450,000 posts a day.

Users tend to push the envelope as far as they can without breaking the site's rules — including a vague "rule" known on /b/ eloquently coined, "Don't mess with football."

That rule was made famous in 2005 when 23-year-old Jake Brahm posted bomb threats to major football stadiums across the country during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on 4chan.

What resulted was a media storm — and what may have began as a practical joke turned into Homeland Security's arrest of Brahm. He was sentenced in June to six months of prison and $26,750 in restitution.

"If you want to post illegal things to 4chan, I would highly discourage it, unless you want to end up in federal prison," moot said at a Web conference.

Another controversy to hit 4chan was the "invasion" of the teen-centric online social site Habbo Hotel. At this online "hotel," users create avatars that walk into various virtual rooms and chat with other users.

In 2006, /b/tards swarmed the site, created avatars of men with Afros and Armani suits and blocked the hotel's swimming pool and shut it down, due to "AIDS in the water." After this incident, moot added "no invasions" to the rules.

The September 2008 hack of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Yahoo e-mail was more muddled.

While some users applauded the /b/ newbie who claimed to have done it, others derided him as an idiot and amateur who would get the entire site in trouble — and quickly discovered his true identity long before the FBI figured it out.

Some see 4chan as a site filled with bored teenagers who like to push the limits on what they can do online. Others see users as part of an "Internet hate machine" filled with calls for domestic terrorists to bomb stadiums.

But it's hard to call someone a terrorist who posts photos of cats with captions in 4chan language every Saturday, or what /b/tards like to refer to as "Caturday."

The "lolcats" — Laugh Out Loud cats — became so popular that one user launched the images on his own blog, icanhazcheezburger.com, a site that has since been acquired for $2 million and spawned at least one book.

But why cats?

"At the end of the day, /b/tards are still human," says moot. "Cute cat pictures appeal to most people."

In an atmosphere where anything goes, the only thing that seems to truly rile a /b/tard is the abuse of a cat.

In February, a user documented abuse to his pet cat, Dusty, as a friend rolled tape. The video surfaced on YouTube and was viewed over 30,000 times.

In a rare 4chan moment, /b/tards created an alliance to do good and tracked down the cat abuser, Kenny Glenn, and alerted police.

Moot believes that 4chan has the ability to grow into something more powerful than a generator of memes.

During the past year, "Project Chanology," created by an amorphous 4chan-associated group calling itself "Anonymous," has become an organized effort against the legal and cultural power of the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous members, often wearing masks depicting the main character in the politically charged comic book and movie "V for Vendetta," protest across the country, claiming the religion endorses Internet censorship.

It all began in January of 2008 after the Church of Scientology tried and failed to purge the Web of a leaked Tom Cruise promotional Scientology video.

What the /b/tards may do next is anyone's guess. As moot says, if he had an idea for the next idea, he certainly wouldn't tell the media. "4chan, both the site and its memes, has touched the lives of tens of millions of people from around the world, in one way or another, for better or worse,' he says. "I'd say that's culturally powerful."

I was suprised to see 4chan getting so much press, and the majority of it devoid of the typical "PEDO/HACKER/TERRORIST" lines I typically see. Is 4chan and /b/ getting more and more pervasive through the internet culture as a whole? The article makes some good points about things they've done, like getting Rick Astley back into a career, but I don't know that they're that much more accomplished than the Colbert Nation. Still, it's a good read. Link is in the quote tag.

[General Zod]

Oh man, this is just too hilarious. Are you sure this isn't a late April Fools day joke? I think Fox is still butthurt over having their message boards desu spammed to death. Seriously, /b/tards the most powerful people on the internet?

[Oni Koneko Damien]

So... power is no longer defined by buying-ability, military might, or social/religious influence across multiple mediums... but rather the ability of a group of immature twits to exploit weaknesses in social-network sites?

I used to like 4chan, thinking of it as huge pile of shit with a few diamonds buried somewhere in it. Then I realized I could find those diamonds in many other places without having to dig through piles of shit first.

[open_sketchbook]

Well, their numbers ARE legion. They possess enough anonymous assholes willing to contribute the the lulz to wreck havoc on pretty much whatever catches their eye at the moment. Thanks to the perfect congregation of idiots, pricks and hackers, they're sitting on a set of pretty broad powers when it comes to internet vandalism and they know it.

As an occasional visitor to 4chan (mostly for the traditional games board and laughing at the cesspool that is /b/) I've seen the process that leads to a site's downfall first hand. In a few short hours the combined efforts of dozens or hundreds can take down or require complete resets on pretty much any forum there is and if they're attention span is long enough that night they can ruin pretty much any website short of large corporations or government, and even then, look what happened to the Scientology site in the early days of Project Chanology. It's sorta like a random generator of destruction; though obviously certain companies could pull the plug and take down far more of the internet than any amount of /b/ antics, /b/ can strike pretty much anywhere.\

Also, their antics can be pretty hilarious. I mean, they got Oprah to say "over 9000 penises" on air.

[Coyote]

Bear in mind this is "4-Chan as seen through the lens of Fox News", so there's a bit of the blind men describing the elephant to this. I don't see Fox News as being the sharpest tools in the shed when it comes to comprehending a society like the Internet in general, much less something like 'chan.

[Darth Wong]

So... power is no longer defined by buying-ability, military might, or social/religious influence across multiple mediums... but rather the ability of a group of immature twits to exploit weaknesses in social-network sites?

It is on the Internet. Rather than a tribute to the power of 4chan, this is more of an indictment of the lowest common denominator nature of the Internet.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

So... power is no longer defined by buying-ability, military might, or social/religious influence across multiple mediums... but rather the ability of a group of immature twits to exploit weaknesses in social-network sites?

It is on the Internet. Rather than a tribute to the power of 4chan, this is more of an indictment of the lowest common denominator nature of the Internet.

Gah, and there's me failing to read the criteria. Yes, they have a huge amount of people congregating in one area, engaging in the same social memes and trends. Only a tiny percentage of them have the skill and motivation to actually cause a lot of trouble for other sites, but their sheer numbers guarantess that this small percentage is still a formidable number. Add in the ability to get larger numbers of the 'unskilled' channers to do a simple, repetative, but ultimately harmful action to another site, and yeah, it is a vicious (relatively speaking) power.

[TithonusSyndrome]

For christ sake, this is the last thing anyone needs to say about them. As if they needed anything else to fuel their delusions of significance. They're essentially no different than third graders doing obnoxious shit and saying "Does this bug you? Does this bug you? How about this?" over and over, and the best tonic to let them wither and die is to ignore them.

[ray245]

Didn't some people from 4chan tried to spam the board with some child porn or something like it? Although I have to wonder, what kind of social life does most people who are active in 4chan have?

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Didn't some people from 4chan tried to spam the board with some child porn or something like it? Although I have to wonder, what kind of social life does most people who are active in 4chan have?

'None' would be the most accurate answer. Most of those on the board who actually go out of their way to cause trouble on other sites and/or stalk/harass other people are the type that lack anything better to do with their own time, I'd hazard. Give them a huge sandbox to play in, with literally millions of others just like them, and you'll get the inevitable social competition, which results in cock-sizing and attention-whoring by attempting ever more outragious and annoying acts.

[General Zod]

Didn't some people from 4chan tried to spam the board with some child porn or something like it? Although I have to wonder, what kind of social life does most people who are active in 4chan have?

More like two people; no more than three.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Didn't some people from 4chan tried to spam the board with some child porn or something like it? Although I have to wonder, what kind of social life does most people who are active in 4chan have?

'None' would be the most accurate answer. Most of those on the board who actually go out of their way to cause trouble on other sites and/or stalk/harass other people are the type that lack anything better to do with their own time, I'd hazard. Give them a huge sandbox to play in, with literally millions of others just like them, and you'll get the inevitable social competition, which results in cock-sizing and attention-whoring by attempting ever more outragious and annoying acts.

And unfortunately, since they've identified themselves with the anti-Scientology trend in the last few years, they enjoy all the benefits of appearing to be participating in activism for social justice, when in fact they're scant better. 4chan is to the average internet tard as Christianity is to the average dispassionate/moderate churchgoer - indispensable for various moral causes.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Didn't 4chan report some guy for posting a picture of his niece and saying 'I'm going to rape her'? IIRC they used her school mascott name on her shirt and the state they lived in to figure out her identity and then turned everything over to the school principal.

Another time, they got some killer to confess where he'd hidden a body.

[Beowulf]

The child porn spammers were from a spinoff of 4chan. 4chan doesn't support board invasions anymore.

[Edi]

Some chan or another. To do a repeat of that, they would actually have to put in some really serious effort now.

[Samuel]

Reminds me of this:
http://www.cracked.com/article_17170_8- ... ntism.html

Also, the article mentioned that the site was running out of money. Is that true and what would happen if it shut down? Where would its multitudes go?

[Duckie]

Reminds me of this:
http://www.cracked.com/article_17170_8- ... ntism.html

Also, the article mentioned that the site was running out of money. Is that true and what would happen if it shut down? Where would its multitudes go?

It's always running out of money and it's always going down but it's never gone. I don't think 4chan is going anywhere.

[montypython]

Chan's are like roaches in some ways me thinks, once they propagate they will be there in one form or another.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Anonymous members, often wearing masks depicting the main character in the politically charged comic book and movie "V for Vendetta," protest across the country, claiming the religion endorses Internet censorship.

I hate Scientology too and all, but this is almost unbearably lame as a symbol of protest.

[Duckie]

Anonymous members, often wearing masks depicting the main character in the politically charged comic book and movie "V for Vendetta," protest across the country, claiming the religion endorses Internet censorship.

I hate Scientology too and all, but this is almost unbearably lame as a symbol of protest.

Actually it's a pretty good idea considering how Scientology has a history of harassing people who protest the church if they can get a name and face.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Eh, news outlets do articles on 4chan every once in a while.

The sheer number of posters basically guarantees they influence the Internet through osmosis. Even if a meme did not ORIGINATE on 4chan, they are probably the ones who propagated it enough that it became well-known.

[ray245]

Anonymous members, often wearing masks depicting the main character in the politically charged comic book and movie "V for Vendetta," protest across the country, claiming the religion endorses Internet censorship.

I hate Scientology too and all, but this is almost unbearably lame as a symbol of protest.

I won't be surprised if a number of of posters at 4Chan are Anarcho-libertarians ( given the fact that the message about "V for Vendetta" is supposed to be anarchism).

I would find that 4chan is a representation on how the internet is really like, where people tends to propagate and share their ideas about anarchism due to a lack of internet police for instance.

[Pulp Hero]

I have come to find 4chan becoming an increasing internet boogyman of sorts.

Did your popular website get DDoS attacked? It must have 4chan! Oh noes.

This is worse because they can take credit for someone else's attack and have it be believed.

And yes, I visit 4chan regularly on /k/ (weapons). I like the pictures.

[Duckie]

Basically 4chan is internet al-qaeda if something blows up, they can claim it's them and FOX News will run the story within minutes. If someone's blog goes down, 4chan will claim credit if they want it.

[General Zod]

Basically 4chan is internet al-qaeda if something blows up, they can claim it's them and FOX News will run the story within minutes. If someone's blog goes down, 4chan will claim credit if they want it.

The hilarity of it is Fox doesn't seem to realize that by giving them attention, they're really just encouraging /b/tards. For the most part all you have to do to defeat annoying channers is ignore them.