A demonstration of Rule 34 of the internet as told by 4chan.By Mario Orcon
Published: December 10, 2008
It’s been called the “the asshole of the internet” and perhaps rightfully so. Where else can you enjoy grammatically incorrect cats, feces-eating lesbians, and your childhood cartoons turned into porn stars? Give up? Well then newfag, let me introduce you to 4chan.org, specifically the notorious “random” section, also known as /b/. Hang your modesty at the door and let Ceiling Cat take your hat because /b/ waits for no one.
/b/ is at its rotting meaty core an online image board that allows for complete anonymity by not requiring any kind of username, online tag, or other identifier. Instead, all your comments and posts are numbered using their clever base-10 numerical system.
If you are familiar with the internet at all, then you probably know how anonymity leads to the most intelligent, carefully researched, inoffensive discussions possible.
As such, you can expect posts like “TITS OR GTFO!” a common phrase on the /b/ board roughly translating to “Your contribution is acknowledged however I would prefer pictures of breasts instead.”
4chan’s mask of invisibility has led to the creation, or some might say popularization, of Anonymous.
Anonymous is the name given to the collective mass individuals that describe themselves as “human nature unencumbered by pointless ethics, foolish moralities or arbitrary laws and restrictions. [They] are every dark impulse you have; unrestrained and fully realized.” They have orchestrated “raids” on websites wherein they hack or simply take up the site’s bandwidth either out of a perceived sense of morality or sheer boredom.
The lolcat phenomenon, captioned pictures of cats in strange situations, got its start on 4chan and eventually grew to a point where every Saturday on 4chan is known as Caturday. The infamous Rickrolling trend is also a /b/ product that got its start as a joke based on a joke.
The generally agreed upon chain of events is “eggroll” becomes “duckroll” by way of a word filter, which later became “rickroll” when the duck image that normally appeared was replaced with the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
If you happened to be watching this year’s Macy Day’s Parade then aside from leading a sad existence you might have noticed Rick Astley actually performing the song as part of the parade, a testament to the influence 4chan is gaining over pop culture.
If you stick around in the land of /b/ for a while (and retain some semblance of humanity), you may notice that males and females do not exist on /b/, insteadthere are “fags” and “cumdumpsters.” These of course are not slurs, but in fact how /b/tards (nickname for users of /b/) reference one another, including themselves.
Lurk longer and you may discover some of the “rules of the internet,” the first two of which are “Do not talk about /b/,” and “Do NOT talk about /b/,” (just come and get me Anonymous). These “rules” serve more to explain to beginers, known as newfags, the culture of 4chan. (I was kidding about getting me Anonymous. I know to not mess with /b/).
Despite its cultural contributions, all is not well in the digital wasteland that is 4chan. The FBI has been keeping a close eye on the board after several instances of bomb and shooting threats were posted. Several 4chan users were behind the hacking of Governor Sarah Palin’s personal email and went as far as posting the screenshots of the inbox that included the account’s password.
4chan has also been under fire due to users posting child pornography, which 4chan classifies as illegal material and removes any posts or threads containing them.
I barely scratched the surface of 4chan culture by the way. There are furries, traps, Pedobear, an hero, OVER 9000, and so much more waiting to stain your memory and rob you of your sanity. As one /b/tard put it, “/b/ is a place for people to be monsters-the horrible, senseless, uncaring, monsters that they really are…we are the true face of the internet.”
Published: December 10, 2008
It’s been called the “the asshole of the internet” and perhaps rightfully so. Where else can you enjoy grammatically incorrect cats, feces-eating lesbians, and your childhood cartoons turned into porn stars? Give up? Well then newfag, let me introduce you to 4chan.org, specifically the notorious “random” section, also known as /b/. Hang your modesty at the door and let Ceiling Cat take your hat because /b/ waits for no one.
/b/ is at its rotting meaty core an online image board that allows for complete anonymity by not requiring any kind of username, online tag, or other identifier. Instead, all your comments and posts are numbered using their clever base-10 numerical system.
If you are familiar with the internet at all, then you probably know how anonymity leads to the most intelligent, carefully researched, inoffensive discussions possible.
As such, you can expect posts like “TITS OR GTFO!” a common phrase on the /b/ board roughly translating to “Your contribution is acknowledged however I would prefer pictures of breasts instead.”
4chan’s mask of invisibility has led to the creation, or some might say popularization, of Anonymous.
Anonymous is the name given to the collective mass individuals that describe themselves as “human nature unencumbered by pointless ethics, foolish moralities or arbitrary laws and restrictions. [They] are every dark impulse you have; unrestrained and fully realized.” They have orchestrated “raids” on websites wherein they hack or simply take up the site’s bandwidth either out of a perceived sense of morality or sheer boredom.
The lolcat phenomenon, captioned pictures of cats in strange situations, got its start on 4chan and eventually grew to a point where every Saturday on 4chan is known as Caturday. The infamous Rickrolling trend is also a /b/ product that got its start as a joke based on a joke.
The generally agreed upon chain of events is “eggroll” becomes “duckroll” by way of a word filter, which later became “rickroll” when the duck image that normally appeared was replaced with the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
If you happened to be watching this year’s Macy Day’s Parade then aside from leading a sad existence you might have noticed Rick Astley actually performing the song as part of the parade, a testament to the influence 4chan is gaining over pop culture.
If you stick around in the land of /b/ for a while (and retain some semblance of humanity), you may notice that males and females do not exist on /b/, insteadthere are “fags” and “cumdumpsters.” These of course are not slurs, but in fact how /b/tards (nickname for users of /b/) reference one another, including themselves.
Lurk longer and you may discover some of the “rules of the internet,” the first two of which are “Do not talk about /b/,” and “Do NOT talk about /b/,” (just come and get me Anonymous). These “rules” serve more to explain to beginers, known as newfags, the culture of 4chan. (I was kidding about getting me Anonymous. I know to not mess with /b/).
Despite its cultural contributions, all is not well in the digital wasteland that is 4chan. The FBI has been keeping a close eye on the board after several instances of bomb and shooting threats were posted. Several 4chan users were behind the hacking of Governor Sarah Palin’s personal email and went as far as posting the screenshots of the inbox that included the account’s password.
4chan has also been under fire due to users posting child pornography, which 4chan classifies as illegal material and removes any posts or threads containing them.
I barely scratched the surface of 4chan culture by the way. There are furries, traps, Pedobear, an hero, OVER 9000, and so much more waiting to stain your memory and rob you of your sanity. As one /b/tard put it, “/b/ is a place for people to be monsters-the horrible, senseless, uncaring, monsters that they really are…we are the true face of the internet.”
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