WARNING: This article may contain inappropriate language, explicit references and worst of all, references to 4chan.
Hey again folks! We’re now on week one of our new topic and we’re starting with Anonymous and The Dreaded Chan’s. For those of you who have never heard of anonymous or 4chan/the Chan’s, you are probably better off, believe me.
Anonymous is a group of people who hack peoples accounts, create internet meme’s and are generally racist, sexist and any other ‘ist’ related word you can poke a stick at. As all members are anonymous, there are really only a select few who know anything even remotely harmful and the rest are a bunch of 12 year olds who like to feel important.
4chan is one of the many anonymous posting styled image boards which is a collection of image boards themed around Japanese animation and are based on the popular Japanese site 2ch.jp. Both groups are known for their trolls, invasions, meme’s, de-motivator images and much, MUCH more.
So from this point onwards we’re going to delve into this horrible subculture. You can make a decision on whether or not you want to ever see one of these sites or more predictably you will find out how to keep clear. (Check out the glossary at the end for words in their ‘language’ you don’t understand, feel free to comment at the end of the article if I’ve missed anything.)
Fox 11 Investigation - Anonymous
Okay so let’s digest this video and point out a few things for those of you who have never heard of anonymous.
This video is a classic example of a troll, Oprah and her show have been COMPLETELY sucked into saying ‘over 9000…’ which is exactly what they wanted. The significance being the classic Dragonball Z episode where Vegeta is asked “What does the scouter say about his power level?” in response he says “Over 9000!!!” which now seems to be a classic anime moment. Being an anime related image board, getting anyone to say this anime related punch line is a huge joke. Another interesting piece of information was that Oprah’s email account got hacked shortly after this, needless to say that no one was surprised to find out her password was “popcorn”.
The Infamous /b/
Before you can even BEGIN to understand what /b/ is, you need to come to terms with the boards posting style which these boards have adopted. Each board is assigned a letter which corresponds to a specific topic or purpose e.g. /i/ is invasion or in the case of /b/ it’s random. By random they mean anything goes within reason. (How b = random, I'll never know but I think it's just one of the few letters they had left... so go figure.) The board letters are usually along the top but in the case of the newer layout of 4chan, you have to pick a board by name first. The next question is what type of content gets posted on /b/? and why is it so popular? The truth is, anything goes and anything DOES go on /b/ including stories, rants, hate, racism and every other 'ism' you can think of in every possible shape and form. As you may know, a lot of meme's including rickrolling, caturday and muchmuch more were created on these dreaded image boards which continued to infect the already polluted internet.
How many are there!?!?!
Well theres 12chan, 2chan, 2ch.ru, 24chan, 315chan, 4chan, 420chan, 5chan, 55chan, 7chan, 711chan, 78chan, 8chan, 888chan, AnonIB, BBWchan, Bokuchan, Britchan, Desuchan, Diochan, Fapchan, Fchan, Futabachannel, Gurochan, Konatachan, Kriegchan, Krautchan, not4chan, OPERATORchan, Wakachan, Wikichan, WTFchan and Ychan to name a few... but you'll notice these aren't linked, quite simply because these sites are pretty dodgy and you can seek them out yourself if you so desire.
The Rules of the Internet
Yes believe it or not a set of ‘rules’ for the internet was invented over time by anonymous groups. There are a lot of different versions (Yeah the cleaner of which is below… yes this is the clean version) yet the only agreed upon rules are 1, 2 and 34. (For the record, I know I broke 1 & 2 above.)
1. Do not talk about /b/
2. Do NOT talk about /b/
3. We are Anonymous
4. Anonymous is legion
5. Anonymous never forgives
6. Anonymous can be a horrible, senseless, uncaring monster
7. Anonymous is still able to deliver
8. There are no real rules about posting
9. There are no real rules about moderation either - enjoy your ban
10. If you enjoy any rival sites - DON'T
11. All your carefully picked arguments can easily be ignored
12. Anything you say can and will be used against you
13. Anything you say can be turned into something else
14. Do not argue with trolls - it means that they win
15. The harder that you try the harder you will fail
16. If you fail in epic proportions, it may just become a winning failure
17. Every win fails eventually
18. Everything that can be labeled can be hated
19. The more you hate it the stronger it gets
20. Nothing is to be taken seriously
21. Original content is original only for a few seconds before getting old
22. Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality
23. Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality
24. Every repost is always a repost of a repost
25. Relation to the original topic decreases with every single post
26. Any topic can be easily turned into something totally unrelated
27. Always question a person's sexual preferences without any real reason
28. Always question a person's gender - just in case it's really a man
29. In the internet all girls are men and all kids are undercover FBI agents
30. There are no girls on the internet
31. TITS or GTFO - the choice is yours
32. You must have pictures to prove your statements
33. Lurk more - it's never enough
34. There is porn of it, no exceptions
35. If no porn is found at the moment, it will be made
36. There will always be even more fucked up shit than what you just saw
37. You can not divide by zero (just because the calculator says so)
38. No real limits of any kind apply here - not even the sky
39. CAPSLOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL
40. EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER
41. Desu isn't funny. Seriously guys. It's worse than Chuck Norris jokes.
42. Nothing is Sacred
43. The more beautiful and pure a thing is - the more satisfying it is to corrupt it
44. Even one positive comment about Japanese things can make you a weeaboo
45. When one sees a lion, one must get into the car.
46. There is always furry porn of it.
47. The pool is always closed.
What others have said about 4chan
(I'm not posting the site names yet because I intend to review some of them at a later date.)
Gawker.com... once claimed in jest that 'reading /b/ will melt your brain'
The Guardian once summarised the 4chan community as 'lunatic, juvenile... brilliant, ridiculous and alarming.'
I think one this site gives us a nice explanation to end on...
'You have just entered the very heart, soul, and life force of the internet. This is a place beyond sanity, wild and untamed… We are the reason for "not safe for work". We are the anonymous army, cross us and you will fail. Anonymous is everywhere, you depend on us every day, we bag your groceries, we fix your computers. Anonymous sees you before you see him, sitting at desks around the world right now are a nameless, faceless, unforgiving mafia composed of the best of the best.
We are 4channers, the people devoid of any type of soul or conscience, products of cynicism and apathy, spreading those very sentiments daily. Anonymous is the hardened war veteran of the internet, he does not forgive or forget. We have seen things that defy explanations; heard stories that would make any god-fearing, law abiding citizen empty their stomach where they stand. We have experienced them multiple times and eagerly await their return.
4chan is a place of sheer genius and utter stupidity, and there is often a thin line dividing the two, here you will see a state of mind that exists in most human beings, but is rarely if ever shown. This is a place where taboos do not exist; 4chan cannot simply be regarded as a simple website or image board. It is so much more than code; 4chan is alive and constantly changing. This is a subculture, a self-governing sect of the world which is rich in history and foundation. To become a 4chan user is to speak a different language, to leave behind any methods of conventional thinking you once knew.
There are things here that you will not understand and things you never will understand and if you cannot accept this then GTFO now because there is no turning back.
This is 4chan.
This is /b/.'
Glossary of Terms:
4chan - The most popular among all of the Chan’s and other anonymous related websites, as well as one of the most popular English image boards to date.
Anonymous - Online community of people who lurk in the chans and are all said to be hackers but in reality aren’t.
Lulz - Often used to denote laughter at someone who is the victim of a prank. Can be used as a noun — e.g. "for the lulz" ("for laughs"/"for the hell of it"/"for the Schadenfreude"). This variation is often used on chan image boards. According to a New York Times article about Internet trolling, "lulz means the joy of disrupting another's emotional equilibrium."
Troll - In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
ITT - In this thread
Copypasta - Content which isn’t original or has been Copy pasted
OP - Original Poster
tl;dr - Too long, don’t read (a sort of summary)
GTFO - Get the f*** out!
Meme - A catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the internet, largely through email, blogs, social networking sites, and instant messaging. The term derives from the original concept of memes, although it has come to refer to a much broader category of cultural information. Examples include Rickrolling, lolcats, "Leave Britney Alone", Keyboard Cat, Bacon and "All your base are belong to us".
Summary:
In summary I think that after reading this, if you are still that keen on heading on over to 4chan or related chans, you probably don't have to worry about losing any of your integrity, sanity or soul because you simply had none to start with. Material on these sites is guarenteed to make you think of the internet in a different way, horror movies all of a sudden become humerous in their obvious inadequecies. Anyone going to any of these sites need only understand that they can be epic, brilliant and clever but they are also repulsive, redudant, reclusive and any other 'R' word you can think of off the top of your head. Retarded? Well you get the point!
That's the weeks feature article on 'Anonymous and the Dreadful Chans', I hope you enjoyed it, be sure to check the site in two weeks time for the next release. (I have exams so unless one of the admins decides to be nice... you'll just have to wait!) Until then, keep it random, entirely random!
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