I heard a story about a whole world that was perfect because they locked a kid up in a room and threw all the bad stuff in there with the kid. The poor kid suffered all of the world’s miseries so that others could enjoy life. That kid’s name? 4chan.
4chan is 99% deplorable garbage. I won’t even go into /b/. Helllll no. But oddly enough, some of the internet’s best memes come out of there.
4chan is what the internet would look like if everything had the bare minimum of moderation. Actually a very interesting case study about the human psyche, and I’ve had many a interesting conversation on there, especially early internet days.
Is it a shithole? Overall, yes. But the right board at the right time is truly early internet ethos.
If the entire internet was as unmoderated as 4chan, it would be a lot less extreme than 4chan is.
But since there are only very few places like that, all the weirdos and nazis congregate there, cause that’s where they don’t get banned for using the n-word.
I don’t really think so, every online fora I’ve been a part of starts unmoderated, and it works, for years sometimes. But every single time without fail when a platform reaches a critical mass, moderation becomes necessary.
I think putting a digital mask on shows the true nature of people, and moderation is the only way of keeping conversation* civil on the internet.
Maybe, if you’re determined to preserve a certain culture on a specific site. But as long as movement between sites is pretty easy (was quite common in the days of forums), then the community could self-regulate reasonably well. Either the weirdos would leave, or the constructive members of the community would leave and the site would get shut down. Either way, the problem solves itself without moderation becoming necessary.
IMO, the only reason we “need” moderation is because we’ve decided that the site itself needs to be preserved. That’s the mindset that needs to change. Sites should come and go and take the trash out with it.
The original idea of a meme came from Dawkins in the 70’s, and “Internet Meme” from Godwin in the early 90’s, talking about message boards, usenet, listservs, etc.
4chan did not start the concept, no. Lolcats came from 4chan, iirc. But internet memes predate the existence of 4chan.
Well the word “meme” comes from Dawkins, but his usage was not to label the idea we talk about when we talk about memes.
I know for a fact where I’m from memes were something you’d only ever see on 4chan and people on Facebook and any other “normal” social media (or people) had no idea of what the fuck even was a meme.
I rememeber because I was like “this people are degenerates but it’s fascinating the whole layers upon layers of insane meaning that they managed to cram into single pictures, I wonder if people outside this bubble would ever understand those”.
And to be fair memes nowdays are rarely as “obscure” as those old ones.
Through this sieve would come the ascended madmen. Those who escaped the cave and rejected the reality without, retreating to their chamber of hate and stagnation. The truly unhinged. No more naive, parroted bastardizations of the Socratic method. Only irreparables.
This select choir of lunatics voluntarily ablating their sanity will be decadence enough, I think
This is why people like this are told to go outside or touch grass.
most of them were social outcasts long before 4chan. That’s actually how they got there in the first place.
Everyone will be having pleasant conversations outside, but these guys won’t.
Frankly all of 4chan should.
But then our supply chain of clinically insane greentexts would fail.
Yeah, we’re way better over here on lemmy. (The lack of racism really does make us better tho)
I heard a story about a whole world that was perfect because they locked a kid up in a room and threw all the bad stuff in there with the kid. The poor kid suffered all of the world’s miseries so that others could enjoy life. That kid’s name? 4chan.
4chan is 99% deplorable garbage. I won’t even go into /b/. Helllll no. But oddly enough, some of the internet’s best memes come out of there.
It’s the primordial soup of internet content.
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
4chan is what the internet would look like if everything had the bare minimum of moderation. Actually a very interesting case study about the human psyche, and I’ve had many a interesting conversation on there, especially early internet days.
Is it a shithole? Overall, yes. But the right board at the right time is truly early internet ethos.
If the entire internet was as unmoderated as 4chan, it would be a lot less extreme than 4chan is.
But since there are only very few places like that, all the weirdos and nazis congregate there, cause that’s where they don’t get banned for using the n-word.
I don’t really think so, every online fora I’ve been a part of starts unmoderated, and it works, for years sometimes. But every single time without fail when a platform reaches a critical mass, moderation becomes necessary.
I think putting a digital mask on shows the true nature of people, and moderation is the only way of keeping conversation* civil on the internet.
Maybe, if you’re determined to preserve a certain culture on a specific site. But as long as movement between sites is pretty easy (was quite common in the days of forums), then the community could self-regulate reasonably well. Either the weirdos would leave, or the constructive members of the community would leave and the site would get shut down. Either way, the problem solves itself without moderation becoming necessary.
IMO, the only reason we “need” moderation is because we’ve decided that the site itself needs to be preserved. That’s the mindset that needs to change. Sites should come and go and take the trash out with it.
Isn’t the concept of a meme itself a leak from 4chan?
The original idea of a meme came from Dawkins in the 70’s, and “Internet Meme” from Godwin in the early 90’s, talking about message boards, usenet, listservs, etc.
4chan did not start the concept, no. Lolcats came from 4chan, iirc. But internet memes predate the existence of 4chan.
Well the word “meme” comes from Dawkins, but his usage was not to label the idea we talk about when we talk about memes.
I know for a fact where I’m from memes were something you’d only ever see on 4chan and people on Facebook and any other “normal” social media (or people) had no idea of what the fuck even was a meme.
I rememeber because I was like “this people are degenerates but it’s fascinating the whole layers upon layers of insane meaning that they managed to cram into single pictures, I wonder if people outside this bubble would ever understand those”.
And to be fair memes nowdays are rarely as “obscure” as those old ones.
No, it was Godwin for internet memes.
If you mean image macros, sure. That’s a subset of what a meme is.
Assuming only a place of pure misery could produce those memes
Through this sieve would come the ascended madmen. Those who escaped the cave and rejected the reality without, retreating to their chamber of hate and stagnation. The truly unhinged. No more naive, parroted bastardizations of the Socratic method. Only irreparables.
This select choir of lunatics voluntarily ablating their sanity will be decadence enough, I think