Reducing 4chan to its mediatic extremes is like reducing Reddit to the_donald or Lemmy to Hexbear.
This ignores that 4chan is widely known as the cesspool of the internet and attracts those types. Itās like going on Hexbear and being surprised at the communists. People gather where their banners are. Shit attracts shit. This reduction is apt.
Sure it kind of does some good ish things sometimes, but more often than not, itās just an internet mob internet mobbing. Thatās essentially all it is: chaos waves constantly crashing back in on itself. Any good that comes from it is incidental at best.
Also, defending 4chan on the wider Internet is a little odd, 4chan itself revels in its shit reputationā¦
Sure it kind of does some good ish things sometimes
Iām actually not saying it brings more good or whatever. Iām saying itās mostly an anonymous forum with people just discussing like many other places on the internet.
I canāt help but project an old version of myself on you. I canāt imagine defending 4chan unless I was actively using it a lotā¦ It did used to be basically my only internet community, so I understand being particularly fond of the cesspool.
However, I donāt actually understand your reactions here. Why are you defending it when it seems like 4chan itself wouldnāt even go this far except maaaybe as a limp wristed attempt at an excuse when something truly horrific happens because of them? I genuinely donāt think I understand
Like, to currently vilify it is easy, just take a screenshot of pol. I remember looking pre2016 and seeing HYPERPARTISANSHIP all caps everywhere. Itās an anonymous forum with people discussing plans to make life shittier for various groups, essentially at all timesā¦ And before pol it was b (my era was back when pol was a boring place, I donāt know the current state of any board, but I know some of the history and what motivates some normies of my niche who fuck with it)
I just donāt understand the downplaying of it, normal people participate in shit ways on 4chan specifically because of the anonymity. The anonymity is why itās such a cesspool in the first place. Itās toxic keyboard warrior syndrome to the extreme.