How the Internet Left 4chan Behind

As I reflect on my past experiences with 4chan, a website that was once synonymous with the internet's wild and untamed side, I am reminded of the site's early days as a playground for misfits and outcasts. Founded in 2003 by Christopher Poole, also known as "moot," 4chan was an online community that thrived on its ability to allow users to anonymously post a mix of text, images, and animated GIFs. The site's background – a pale yellow gradient – still sends shivers down my spine, evoking memories of hidden Playboy magazines under the bed.

I first encountered 4chan during high school, when it was already well-established as a hub for illicit material, pirated files, and uncensored discussions on dating and politics. The site's reputation preceded it, with even grown-ups knowing its name and avoiding it at all costs. I often tested the censorship settings on library or school computers' LAN internet connections by trying to load 4chan, only to be met with a void where the site should have been.

The anonymity of 4chan was part of its appeal – users could hide behind a mask and become one with the crowd. The site's slang, which I learned through trial and error, became a key to understanding its jokes: "lulz," "fren," "TFW," and "troll" were just a few terms that helped me navigate the site's eccentric landscape.

Posts on 4chan would often get deleted quickly if they stopped receiving engagement, which typically happened within minutes. This ensured that the site remained constantly energetic, no matter the time of day or night. However, as social media platforms grew in popularity during the 2010s, 4chan began to fade into relevance.

In 2015, Poole sold 4chan to the owner of 2channel, the Japanese site that had inspired it. The site continued to exist as a relic of the internet's wild past – dingy, subterranean, and stuck in time. When 4chan finally returned online after a devastating hack, the team claimed that they had moved onto new, secured infrastructure, but the functionality for uploading new posts and images remained down.

The damage from the hack was catastrophic, but the blog post proclaiming "4chan is back" seemed almost laughable in its optimism. While 4chan may never regain its former glory as a nucleus of online radicalization, its sensibility endures in a grungy corner of our collective brains.

The internet has changed significantly since 4chan's heyday, and extremism now spreads through private digital niches that are harder to track. School shootings have been planned on Discord, and influential group chats involving Silicon Valley investors and politicians can be found on Telegram or Signal. The brain poisoning of the internet is now perpetuated through closed groups that offer some encryption and automated erasure of messages.

Ben Smith recently broke the news of a collection of influential group chats involving Silicon Valley investors, media executives, politicians, and writers – including Marc Andreessen, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Thomas Chatterton Williams. These chats provide test runs for their publicly stated opinions and often descend into sniping conversations about workplace identity politics and the rise of China.

As I look back on my experiences with 4chan, I am reminded that even in a world where social media platforms are increasingly mainstream, there is still room for mischief and mayhem. The site's sensibility endures, a testament to its ability to tap into the darker corners of our collective psyche.

Today, a fluency in memes extends to the highest levels of authority – even our President and Vice-President have become poster children for this phenomenon. The official White House account on X has taken on a trolling aspect, with an A.I.-generated image that resembles nothing more than a 4chan post in its nihilistic combination of implicit violence and absurdist humor.

As I conclude my reflection on 4chan, I am reminded that the internet is constantly evolving – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. While 4chan may never regain its former glory, its legacy lives on in a world where extremism spreads through private digital niches and memes have become an integral part of our shared culture.