in defense of 4chan in its current incarnation

4chan dot org is probably in my top 5 most visited sites, like, even in the past year. (...)

I am in a lonely and isolated chapter of my life rn, and have come to realize that online is where I'm attempting to have a social life. Which is why, when I refresh SNA over and over and none of my posts are being replied to, and I'm not interested in the most recently bumped 20 threads, I feel like I either have no friends, or an awkward silence has come over the room.

This is when I often turn, sadly, to the reeking, fetid cesspool that is 4chan. Where the conversation doesn't stop.

The conventional wisdom is that, these days, the site has next-to-none value. /b/, not worth discussing. /pol/, home of the alt right. /mu/ sort of a cringey melange of newbs and spergy (sorry) elitists who you sense do not leave the house/basement. These are, I think, the big 3, aside from /v/ (video games) which I have no interest in.

I'm going to focus on /b/. Even though it's still very "active", it's considered dead, or on life support, by oldf*ags. Many feel this way about ILX, and good-ol-days syndrome hits every forum, but it's inarguably true with /b/. Compelling "conversations" are very few and far between now amongst the weeds of porn and dicks and trolling and rekt/ylyl/loli/political and issue bating, etc.

But there is still value there imo, the same sort of zeitgeisty stuff that was considered the gold-in-the-hills of yesteryear's /b/. Let's take the everpresent FB/IG/VSCO threads, which on the surface seem just like another porn thread, just nonnude. Examine the thread, though, and you'll find that anon is not fapping. They're studying. What is a VSCO girl, why is shit like this popular, what is the aesthetic, how did it come about, how is changing (and why). And, ultimately, what does it MEAN(...)?

(tbc in thread a little later, have to run errand)

but first

YOU

STILL

VISIT

THIS

WEBSIT

(well, a few of you anyway)

its bad and due to /pol/ it didn't mellow out and slide left over the past decade the way SA did. i get the appeal of a super active traditional forum over e.g. twitter but not when half the posts are unreadably trolly or hateful

i check in once every few weeks but it's pretty bleak over there, esp /pol/ which isn't even alt-right so much as just neo-nazi. like porn is to /b/ nazi stuff is to /pol/. i agree that ilx is also v uninteresting these days i almost bumped the ilx boring thread the other day but was too bored to do it. first we lost a lot of critical posters and of the ppl who stayed either they mellowed out or just lost interest and it's ok i more visit just bc of force of habit and some ppl i like are here. there are still some ppl with great taste who post to ilm and turn me onto new music but yeah both communities have seen their most vivid compelling days past. much like humanity maybe.

if I had all the time in the world it wouldn't be enough to bother with that website

like probably there are some music board posters at 4chan who like things that i'd potentially be interested in but it's too bleak + nasty for me to make the effort. i guess despite its stagnation in some important ways ilx is just comfortable for me in a way that a site full of nazi pedo edgelords ever could be. but maybe i'm wrong about some of the subboards and the worst of that stuff is largely avoidable? maybe on the books sub? even if true (and i'm skeptical) you still know who your neighbors are. i'm pretty sure aeon flux and subjectivisten are fine even tho i have no idea what goes on over there.

i don't really feel "i don't have anywhere better to go" is a strong defense, though i do feel really bad for you. you deserve better.

Mordy, enlighten me: what was so remarkable about ILX's olden days?

there were great posters who have since left. the conversations were more lively. people were interested in wide ranges of stuff and people wrote long paragraphs with interesting information they knew, or things they had considered. conversation was broader and more opinions on a variety of subjects were tolerated. the clusterfucks were also much larger the personalities larger there were way more people ppl were less mellow in some ways and more mellow in others. there were a few other active boards of more experimental natures which had enough ppl to populate them and make them active.

I only haunted ILM in the early 00s and don't recall it being all that different except for its greater number of posters and more cred-obsessed musical opinions, the latter of which I can't say I miss.

maybe you had to be there but whenever i see a thread from the early days necrobumped there's usually someone saying something acutely stupid, grossly offensive, or both right at the start.

Yeah, aside from missing particular posters, pining for the olden golden days of ILX is generally some rose-colored glasses shizz imo.

nope

I haven’t ever really gone to 4chan, even when it had less of a bad reputation, so to speak. I’ve almost always had my “homes” online, and some have ended badly (I got banned from one, which was a total joke) but for better or for worse I kept going for the same things.

I have commented on ilx for almost nine years, which feels shorter to me than my three/four year periods on either of the other places, probably because most of my participation has been much more casual?

Ilx is the only place I didn’t discover myself and so it doesn’t really feel like “mine”. It’s also the only place I’ve been a member of where I came after the “remember when this board was great” stuff started. Understand the feelings of people who’ve been here a long time about that, but ultimately you aren’t ever going to get new people if you’re constantly implying (not necessarily deliberately) that the people who do bother posting nowadays are of lesser quality or whatever. I always think, whenever one of those edgelord threads circa the GWB era gets unearthed, “really? This is what you’re missing?” Most forums have a pretty high noise to content ratio anyway.

Ilx is interesting to me because it’s one of only two places I’ve ever posted online that had the issue of people wondering why more women didn’t post there. For the most part, since my last forum that was like that, almost all my online friends and places I go are mostly female and ilx is the only exception. This is a part of why I never took to Reddit. I guess it’s like Mordy says above about 4chan; you’re just browsing a thread and suddenly you’ve got some cunt brigading or regurgitating MRA rhetoric. (Though tbh the thing that really was shit about reddit was how often comments just descend into the same stupid jokes and sings again and again).

tl; dr all online places are like this, but I like forums more than almost anything and so you shouldn’t let them die

My opinion, which may satisfy golden-age truthers and objectors alike, is that nascent ILE (2000-2002-or-2003) was kinda choppy, cringey, desultory as it found its way. 2004-2007 or 2008 were indeed golden years with and embarrassment of intellect, charisma, and edge thanks to a live Pickle Bar. I think ILX is still very good, but it has kind of a "minor" feel compared to prime ILX.

*lively

I've habitually hung out at 4Chan over the years, usually on the /co/ (comics and cartoons) and /mu/ boards, but recently decided to stay away. The problem is that, while there is some good stuff to be found there, it isn't enough to make up for all the bad. I can remember the topic of Daria come up on /co/ one time and there was a really long thread full of engaging discussion and different perspectives. But every other time I came across a Daria topic, there were a few one-line opinions, a few shitposts, and then the thread died. Someone posted the 80s DC comic Angel Love a few months back and it was pretty damn funny - both the comic itself and the live reactions.

But it felt like there were just occasional good spots in a sea of hateful racist shit and images I can't unsee.

IMO fuck 4chan

2004-2007 or 2008

i have seen my share of (and, honestly, done my share of) breast-beating, in various spaces, over the "why aren't there more LADYWOMEN on this forum" question, and i'm overall not impressed by it, any more than i'm impressed by white communities making a big deal about being welcoming to minorities, rich communities making a big deal about being welcoming to poor people, etc., etc. because usually it's not the mystery it's made out to be. it is not actually a huge challenge to understand, for instance, why there aren't more women in science - it's just that a lot of men in science are resistant to acknowledging or addressing those reasons. why bring it up if the only result is that you're going to get yelled at and nothing will change?

golden age ilx depended to an underappreciated degree on posters who took an active hand in community-building activities like inventing thread types and 'games' (kind of like parlor routines), encouraging meetups, and trying to bring order to the burgeoning buzzing vitality (remember the thread-categorizing phase?!). coming up with six different ways of running polls wasn't quite a replacement for that but i suppose it partakes of the same spirit.

Examine the thread, though, and you'll find that anon is not fapping. They're studying.

really, dude

well, in November at least

haha yeah that was b.s. but i'm arguing a side

you're not making a very convincing point

in the same way it can be fun to poke the wound of "indie guilt", it's evident that 4chan is similarly stigmatized around here and i was hoping finally talk some about it. i was going to continue my case but super bowl and all, plus it's a horrible place

Kinda inevitable that the thread became about ilx instead

next week: storm front friend or foe

If OP is in a lonely and isolated chapter of their life, they could do worse than look at /soc/ from time to time. It's possible to meet interesting people on there.

This thread was always about ILX tbf

∆ ∆
 ∆

I, a self-avowed decadent, am glad to be contributing to the Decline.

never understood that triforce stuff. It took me ages to work out what "dubs", "trips" and "quads" meant.

xp

I am in a lonely and isolated chapter of my life rn, and have come to realize that online is where I'm attempting to have a social life. Which is why, when I refresh SNA over and over and none of my posts are being replied to, and I'm not interested in the most recently bumped 20 threads, I feel like I either have no friends, or an awkward silence has come over the room.

This is when I often turn, sadly, to the reeking, fetid cesspool that is 4chan. Where the conversation doesn't stop.

The conversation on R3ddit doesn't stop either iirc. I don't know why this makes you go to 4ch. I'm sorry you're lonely and isolated, but it's not an inevitability that that will make you go to 4chan, like you seem to make it out to be. I've difficulty seeing the implied causality here.

Wanko, come and raise merry hell on the 2019 albums poll rollout that should be starting shortly

I'm sorry you're lonely and isolated, but it's not an inevitability that that will make you go to 4chan, like you seem to make it out to be. I've difficulty seeing the implied causality here.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, February 3, 2020 8:06 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

the speed of the conversation, or rather the idea of having on-demand conversation, is genuinely different, though, and I think an undermentioned component as to how teenage boys* get radicalized **

*
**: maybe if I use two separate sets of asterisks to denote the aside about my referring to teenage boys and not the OP or anyone in this thread, the aside will actually get through

It totally is imo - not just the stuff circulated on there, but the general sense of nihilism is fertile ground for extremism.

gyac, what sort of femaley online places do you go to? The few I've been on (not so much now) I got the impression would've been sneered at for being about womeny things. E.g. one was a skincare/beauty -based one but was about a lot of other stuff too.

I was never on the SA forums I don't think but I visited the site a lot when I was a wee teen.

I often think I'd like parts of Reddit but it seems hard to navigate and it's just too big.

Ah, think I pressed clear!

Previous online “home” was a livejournal community, now defunct, that was ~95% female, and literally everything was discussed.

My main spaces now are less public than that, really only ILX is now that space for me. I have various private discord/signal/twitter chats going with (female) friends where we discuss games, books, and various geeky shit but also personal stuff. I think it’s unfortunate you’ve had that experience but usually most female-majority spaces I’ve been in there will always be someone to talk to about skincare etc. Ofc there are dickheads there too who’ll shit on you but that’s the same with any forum.

the interesting thing about reddit is that it's not one community with an overall "community vibe". different subreddits have different group personalities. places like facebook and twitter have a more porous vibe, they seem to be more coercive towards behaving in certain platform-dictated ways.

although there's really only one subreddit i ever still lurk on i sort of feel it's the least worst Content Industry site right now (discord aside).

re: online places and radicalization - of course 4ch radicalizes your hikikomori _in a certain way_, but though 4chan is a key actor and should cease to exist the underlying problem goes deeper than that imo.

the interesting thing about reddit is that it's not one community with an overall "community vibe". different subreddits have different group personalities.

Yeah, this is why I'm wary of generalizations about reddit. It's a lot more diffracted than first meets the eye.

My last year on Reddit involved realizing that most of the subreddits I was active in were essentially anti-reddit groups

https://genius.com/Aphrodites-child-the-system-lyrics

4chan (and 8chan) are diabolical in the classic sense of the world. The hateful, bitter “blackpilled” ideologies—whether they be misogynistic or white nationalist or just gleefully anarchic—are tempting because they are nihilistic and if you embrace this way of seeing you don’t need to hold yourself to any kind of standard. Nothing is worse than these communities.

“Radicalization” is the wrong word for these communities. They don’t turn people into revolutionaries, not even right wing ones. The violence that comes out of these places is like, lone wolf attacks, just expressions of hatred with no other end.

4chan (and 8chan) are diabolical in the classic sense of the world. The hateful, bitter “blackpilled” ideologies—whether they be misogynistic or white nationalist or just gleefully anarchic—are tempting because they are nihilistic and if you embrace this way of seeing you don’t need to hold yourself to any kind of standard. Nothing is worse than these communities.

― treeship., Monday, February 3, 2020 11:14 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Okay, okay. I have lurked 4chan for a decace without ever making a racist comment nor being converted to a white nationalist, nor have I become a pedo or shot up a school. It is so bizarre that intelligent discussion happens at the same lunch table as all that crap, but it does, just less so as the years have past. But that's what's so darkly compelling about the place.

passed

I wasn’t accusing you of that—i know you are a thoughtful poster here. These chan sites just creep me out and i think they are flaming parts of the human psyche that need to be kept in check.

thanks treesh, but I didn't take it personally fwiw

K good

I’m also not trying to be an over the top, censorious “cancel everyone” type. There is a place for transgressive humor and whatever and our culture has swing too far in the direction of pathologizing divergent opinions. But the chan stuff doesn’t feel transgressive in a way that is cathartic, it seems like people go there and let their souls rot away.

you're either with us or agin us ~=~ the ppl thus decried deciding as well to be hung for a wolf as for a lamb

nerd with lame attitude: North Korea is bad
Me: Have you ever lived there.
nerd: (his glasses fall off)
Me: Catch you later

— wint (@dril) August 3, 2014

feeling icky now, like i'm playing devil's advocate in the most literal sense. i genuinely loathe the hate and nihilism and exploitation you find there, and do not want to drag it in any way over here. but the 4chan/8chan seem like a significant force is online culture, but are so verboten that they are rarely acknowledged here (perhaps I am even wrong about that as I do not read much of the political or alt right threads). but maybe that's a good thing.

but but but

still no darragh-to-english translator on google

i was happy with that one, inasmuch as that it makes perfect sense but prob needs for you to switch personalities twice, maybe thrice

I read it as an oblique commentary on zoophilia.

ok ok, four times

would be pertinent tbh xp

4chan was a much more significant force in online culture over a decade ago when it was the origin of a lot of internet meme culture etc. but the ironic veneer of its worst aspects slipped off long ago and it's just a hub for white supremacy now. idk what there really is to discuss, it's maligned for very good reason

i never went on it much back then as a teen, all the edginess and semi-ironic bigotry was too much for me even then, but i knew plenty of people who did spend their teens posting about music or video games or anime there before growing out of it and becoming pretty disgusted with it. the sort that didn't end up disgusted with it eventually are the sort for whom the hate was an active part of the appeal, hence /pol/ being what it is and the ironic veneer disappearing

No results found for "i ain't no 4chanate one".

4 results for ""i ain't no 4chanate son."

I don’t understand how the white supremacy came about. Was it just because it was so taboo?

That’s the thesis of the angela nagle book. But race seems like a strange thing to become a focus on the internet, where people exist as just words.

it's more that when the internet first entered the popular sphere, racists and Nazis finally had a place where they could comfortably post their abuse anonymously without ever having to do so in public, and they could finally say the racist shit directly to people without getting beat up. then these people had kids who they raised to do the same shit. just a terrible tradition that kept getting passed down, and of course, the more controversial sites will be the ones to be infested with it the most.

but it was all over USEnet even when I started using the internet in the 90s as well, which put me off of it almost immediately as a kid.

prior to that, they just sent racist telegrams

I only hang out on /soc/ and there isn't much racism or white supremacy there

I'm surprised to discover so many ILXors double as undercover 4channers.

yeah, same

Thirded.

I've waded into a few cesspools in my time and still do on occasion but 4chan was always too much.

What continues to baffle me is that OP visits the biggest extreme forum - known for and proud of its rampant racism and misogyny etc - and finds this one tiny corner that supposedly is not that what it's known for. It's all very "but Hitler did love dogs y'know".

And it suggests, for one, OP really wanted to name this thread "Please help me in my defense: I visit 4chan in its current incarnation".

look i just visit breitbart for the weather updates okay

BuT bUt PlAyBoY hAs GoOd InTeRvIeWs!

it does though

unlike 4chan

Real edgelords get a full back tattoe of naked Tommy Robinson with a mushroom cock, none of this going on stormfront with a sock lightweightery!

When I saw
Mushroom head
I was born
And I was dead

I was going to say that 4chan had been deliberately infiltrated over years by st0rmfr0nt but now that I think of it, that was also true of Reddit.

What Yiannopoulos left out, according to Marwick, is that these spaces increasingly became attractive to sincere white supremacists. They offered them venues for recruitment, and new methods for popularising their ideas.
In other words, troll culture became a way for fascism to hide in plain sight.
Marwick points to another guide to the “alt-right”, published last on Andrew Anglin’s prominent Nazi site, the Daily Stormer, which credited “troll culture” with bringing about “non-ironic Nazism masquerading as ironic Nazism”

hey thanks for ruining can for me, cheers xp

Well bg, you're the one who posted that abomination of a Trump comic featuring the deathless line 'And it look NOTHING like mushroom' that has left an indelible stain on my already fragile psyche, so it's only fair.

bg was merely the conduit, not the source tbf

oh yeah that was a good comic, thx for the reminder

hey thanks for ruining can for me, cheers xp

― the main character Cooly and his fart attack (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, February 4, 2020 12:16 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well bg, you're the one who posted that abomination of a Trump comic featuring the deathless line 'And it look NOTHING like mushroom' that has left an indelible stain on my already fragile psyche, so it's only fair.

― toilet-cleaning brain surgeon (pomenitul), Tuesday, February 4, 2020 12:23 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

In this war there are no winners, only losers ;_;

Well. So far I've learned (a) ILX was a cooler place in the early 2000s (b) ILXers visit 4chan.

when two posters go to war, psyche's all that you can scar

My main problem with 4chan's is its "u mad bro" banter, which has long ago infected the rest of the site, much of reddit, also America, also the world.

i dunno man i still think the main problem is the white supremacy

the two are intricately linked

That’s the thesis of the angela nagle book. But race seems like a strange thing to become a focus on the internet, where people exist as just words.

― treeship., Monday, February 3, 2020 10:31 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is the same "the internet doesn't consist of real people" thing -- they encounter real people in real life all the time

on the internet nobody knows you're a dog

i mean true you'll just spend all day posting "woof woof i'm a dog" but everybody else will be like "yes but are they _really_ a dog?"

Man I miss those ‘yes this is dog’ memes. I guess that makes me old in internet years.

FWIW, I can comfortably say that I haven't so much as clicked a 4chan link in over a decade and only sporadically prior to that. I'm only ITT to once again shoot my mouth off about things with which I have little-to-no direct experience.

The common thread running through all of the online spaces that I choose not to frequent (and which, to a greater extent than today, typified old-school ILX) isn't a diversity of perspective/opinion but reactionary expressions thereof. And the more extremist and/or fringe-y the opinions, the more reactionary the opining tends to be. I lurk on a few other boards dedicated to dumb nerdy stuff like comics and blu-rays but I'm inactive in those communities because those reactionary voices bafflingly pop up unchecked amidst seemingly innocuous discussions and it sucks even as an outside observer. I just don't have the fortitude for it, personally.

be me
an elderly lunch

i think my only exposure is greentext posted elsewhere, and those usually have some community normalized shock jock awful phrases tossed in.

Scoop: In a true shocker, the Iowa caucus hotline was posted to 4chan repeatedly on Monday night with directions to “clog the lines”https://t.co/YlbKUlK2Ik

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) February 6, 2020

IMO fuck 4chan

― totally unnecessary bewbz of exploitation (DJP), Sunday, February 2, 2020 7:01 PM bookmarkflaglink

i used to look at 4chan in the early 00s because it was the source of memes at the time, lolcats and the like, but stopped visiting because, even by the standards of the edge-lord "irony racism" etc. 00s exemplified by vice magazine, it was too toxic

IMO fuck 4chan
― totally unnecessary bewbz of exploitation (DJP), Sunday, February 2, 2020 7:01 PM bookmarkflaglink

― totally unnecessary bewbz of exploitation (DJP), Thursday, February 6, 2020 5:38 PM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've spent a bit more time on Chan sites than is sensible but they can be handy when they're the only ones picking up on artwork and nude models I cant find elsewhere. The nicest/best moderated porn forums I go to are frustratingly slow to pick up on new models, so I often end up going to the trolly unpleasant forums.

Some of them have a very useful design of featuring several images from each thread on each sub-forum, so if you're looking for artists and models, that is extremely useful.
There does seem to be tolerable pockets on them with okay people (or are they just unable to be toxic full-time?) but I'd always rather be somewhere else. I utterly despise the aesthetic and language.

First one I visited was Guro-Chan, years before I'd even heard of 4chan and I didn't realize they were related in any way for a long time. I'm not into erotic grotesque for sexual reasons (I promise) but this place used to have a ton of Suehiro Maruo and other related artists at a time when they were gaining popularity. I visited this place regularly for a few years and there was some really fascinating art.
The place really opened my eyes to a ton of fetishes I'm glad I don't have and most of the art was too cartoony for me and gross in a way I didn't like (like Sonic The Hedgehog with diarrhea). I saw nothing political and no bigotry in all my time there. People were only scary because some of them were worried by their own sexual deviancy getting out of hand.

BBW-Chan seemed to be a sort of safe space (?) from people who wouldn't tolerate big girls (was there a Furry-Chan and others for similar reasons? Was the transgender place on regular 4Chan?). It seemed generally nicer, seen some people being angry about racism without any interruptions, but last time I visited there was at least one racist asshole. But too many assholes for comfort generally.

I've been looking at DesuArchive recently, which seems to be a mirror archive of 4Chan (?) and it's easily way nastier, bigoted and disgusting than the above two, but occasionally there are threads that seem like mostly okay people there.
Just searched there yesterday for black fantasy authors and it seemed like most people on thread were genuinely interested in this and afrofuturism and were making fun of the Nazis popping in there and arguing that the comics section mostly isn't Nazis; Nazi argues back that the forum wouldn't exist without Nazis.
Surprised by how many women are on there. I don't know where most of them are politically but I'm not going to assume that them hating themselves and being into humiliation fantasies means they are all Nazis. Seen a few stubbornly patient feminists there trying to school people on their desires.
I've heard that there are tons of Tankies there. I'd like to think that the people teasing and winding up the Nazis are not all tankies. There usually seems to be lots of pushback against Nazi stuff in the threads I go to but there is sometimes a horrible majority of people insisting that their beauty ideals/sexual orientation is THE ONE TRUE one, as if everyone else is in denial.
I don't see the point of teasing the typical Chan trolls and Nazis (regardless of where you are online) with the usual insults because they spend ALL DAY calling each other "cuck, incel, fa**ot". Difficult to tell if these are ideologically opposed people or just Nazis getting angry over minor disagreements.

So yeah, I think there are pockets of seemingly decent people, a lot more variety of people than you'd expect but why on earth did they have to contribute good stuff on Chan sites? Why cant they just enrich nicer forums?

Would love to find out why non-Nazis and non-trolls decide to contribute there.

"we can't just live in a bubble, we must seek out otherminded people like Nazis"

"i'm not Nazi but i am Nazi-curious"

some new ideas for the great revitalization of ILX:

ILBBW
ILG(uro)
ILStHwD

Would love to find out why non-Nazis and non-trolls decide to contribute there.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, February 8, 2020 2:01 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

because i just can't with reddit and what else is there?

y'all don't even know discord exists, it's kind of hilarious

i use it for work related stuff, haven't explored other interests. ok tbh i don't know much about it outside my one little server

discord's only as good as the server and most public servers are crap extensions of some subreddit or twitch stream

I got into a half-assed flamewar with a Trumper on Reddit who also taught Krav Maga.

Guess I shouldn't be surprised, it's right there in the name.

so the basic problem is that everybody you know is an asshole?

i'm sorry, i'm not in a position to help with that

Idk what discord is and have lost track of where this thread has wound up

IMO fuck 4chan
― totally unnecessary bewbz of exploitation (DJP), Sunday, February 2, 2020 7:01 PM bookmarkflaglink

― totally unnecessary bewbz of exploitation (DJP), Thursday, February 6, 2020 5:38 PM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

― latenloomer (latebloomer)

Otm

It's fucking eye-opening to learn some of you do this shit. Like, go to a "Murder, She Wrote" forum if you want intelligent discussion about your hobbies.

to be fair here, there are apparently no other forums on the internet apart from the absolute fucking worst one

I go to MSW forums to write fanfic

i think i've looked at maybe two 4 chan threads in my whole lifetime and i assume that all the other threads are exactly like those two threads

r/murdershewrote is pretty horny

https://www.reddit.com/r/murdershewrote/comments/aut7m6/wtftheres_actually_full_blown_nudity_in_murder/

In this episode about a ballet gone wrong, there's a scene where a man bursts into a room and a semi nude woman (80s hottie Nancy Valen) quickly covers her bare chest.

Of course this was filmed at a time where it was virtually impossible to pause a video frame by frame so I'm sure no one noticed or cared, but if you pause at the exact moment you can clearly see her nude breasts. This was on the family friendly TV broadcast too!

discord's only as good as the server and most public servers are crap extensions of some subreddit or twitch stream

I am too old and square to have been on any discord servers, but occasionally I'll see someone interesting on twitter/twitch throw out a discord link and say "come join us", but since I always feel like I'm the only person watching their stream / following on twitter that they don't already know, the invitation is probably not really open to me

but... maybe that's the old way of thinking, idk

well I fully expected and am savoring the high-horsery. but, try as i might, i cannot relate to the mind that dismisses out of hand something so singular, culturally impactful, controversial, and is by no means thoroughly toxic. i've partaken in countless "conversations" that were as astute, informed, prudent and nuanced as any I've read here. the toxic stuff is easily circumvented. you learn rather quickly what boards and threads to avoid. (and I'll concede that's 90% or more of the site). I just find this stance "incurious" and impetuos. And I suspect a lot of it is plain bullshit.

*impetuous

The place really opened my eyes to a ton of fetishes I'm glad I don't have

New board description.

I’m shocked shocked to find gambling etc

how do you even “chat” on 4chan don’t people just post images

teenagers

idk about 4chan but am more than happy to throw rvw an otm in the general sense

I do t think ppl are dismissing 4chan out of hand, they’re saying they’ve been there and it sucks

yes, but also

* there are roughly ∞ better websites to spend your time on
* it has been a malevolent influence on the internet and the world and if it were closed tomorrow I would be very happy

if it were closed tomorrow the anime nazi frogs would still have their discords and satellite sites

it wouldn't solve everything, no. but it would help.

something I struggle with is that with DJP as a poc, I get it. and i'm making the presumption that his position is informed by his race and I might be wrong.

but if that were the case, why do I endorse his stance, but think it's "okay" for me to participate there (4chan)? I cannot answer that question satisfactorily, and that does bother me. I guess I see at as, racism exists, it sucks, but I don't see my visiting the site as an endorsement of, or casual indifference to racism.

it would be a good thing if the site closed. another problem...

Your viewpoint isn’t objective, and you’re thinking that you know for a fact it’s all good and you’re not handwaving racism by being captain defend 4chan on here. It doesn’t work like that, though, and your comment about “savouring the high-horsery” doesn’t really suggest that this is a stance you’re very sincere about.

the toxic stuff is easily circumvented. you learn rather quickly what boards and threads to avoid. (and I'll concede that's 90% or more of the site).

it's just interesting to me how ilx, liberal as it is, can be so reactionary and predictable sometimes

idk about 4chan but am more than happy to throw rvw an otm in the general sense

― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Saturday, February 8, 2020 5:49 PM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're being trolled :D

xp ehh scratch that. may be true for a couple dissenters but by no means all

it's just interesting to me how ilx, liberal as it is, can be so reactionary and predictable sometimes

I don’t think ppl are dismissing 4chan out of hand, they’re saying they’ve been there and it sucks

There were posts here during occasional toxic moments in, like, 2007 where people were begging not to turn ILX into 4Chan

really if you want to take a stand on creepy sub rosa racism then dig into 4chan and all that, shit is rife

― gff, Friday, August 17, 2007 4:29 PM bookmarkflaglink

no no no that’s only 90% of the board, don’t get it twisted

sorry I’m done. Seriously, though, 4chan?

something I struggle with is that with DJP as a poc, I get it. and i'm making the presumption that his position is informed by his race and I might be wrong.

but if that were the case, why do I endorse his stance, but think it's "okay" for me to participate there (4chan)? I cannot answer that question satisfactorily, and that does bother me. I guess I see at as, racism exists, it sucks, but I don't see my visiting the site as an endorsement of, or casual indifference to racism.

it would be a good thing if the site closed. another problem...

― otm into winter (rip van wanko)

well, compromising on shit like this is an _option_ for you as a cis white man.

just know that the more you associate with them, the more that you listen to them, the more you will become like them.

i will leave others to address the sociological and emotional implications of your recent statements; i'm not totally up to it right now tbh.

except to say that it sounds to me like you have, in fact, already picked a side (with or without considerable charm), and i'm not sure it's necessarily compatible with the ilx hivemind circa 2020.

Even if you found some niche on 4Chan that wasn't Nazis or revenge porn or whatever, I don't know how you could look at it for more than a couple of minutes without your eyes bleeding.

oh i'm thoroughly desensitized and would be a little suspicious of anyone who's very online and claims not to be in 2020

perhaps i'm being a little naive/solipsistic in that i presume others share a curiosity or even attraction for the taboo. that is what initially drove me to 4chan. again, it's hard for to relate to that, but i must respect it

(but that curiosity cab be satisfied and then exhausted verrrry quickly at 4chan, and is no longer a factor in why i visit the site*)

Transgression has lost its zip in the 21st century, the bourgeoisie have been thoroughly epatered.

perhaps i'm being a little naive/solipsistic in that i presume others share a curiosity or even attraction for the taboo. that is what initially drove me to 4chan. again, it's hard for to relate to that, but i must respect it

― otm into winter (rip van wanko)

i do believe there are other ways to explore "the taboo" besides hanging out with shitposting nazis. for instance, one could, for instance, come to the belated realization that one is, say, trans, or otherwise queer, or even just spend time hanging out with people who are.

i'm not saying i'm intrinsically interesting, i'm not, i'm kind of a boring middle-aged lady, i'm not interested in being "provocative". one doesn't necessarily get the thrill of the transgressive from me that one does from jim goad. but the sense of the "taboo" fostered by goad, hicks, 4chan, there's no depth to it, it's shock coupled with profound despair.

and i think it's maybe the latter that attracts people more than the former? the opportunity to be a lifelong learner of helplessness?

There were posts here during occasional toxic moments in, like, 2007 where people were begging not to turn ILX into 4Chan

Those were the days, eh?

there's no depth to it, it's shock coupled with profound despair.

― you know my name, look up the number of the beast (rushomancy), Sunday, February 9, 2020 2:03 AM

The depth of the despair is pretty scary. Tumblr never got credit for how utterly foul it could be in this way. That's where I seen the scariest shit.

I think the comics sections of the chan sites seem to get all sorts of visitors looking for torrents. When I first discovered Gurochan I was looking for scanlations. If you're looking for some kind of digital piracy, Chan sites seem like a good bet.

Thinking of that assumption about trolls being mostly teenage boys and trolls often assuming other users cannot be women ("there are no women on the internet" meme), there was a tv show that tracked down cyberbullies and they often turned out to be someone unexpected, like a really furious old lady. Makes me wonder about how much of Daily Mail's audience got into 4Chan.

Rip Van Wanko - Why do you need an all-purpose site? I initially disliked that ILX did everything (don't know why) and stuck exclusively to the music section for a few years. Surely going to separate forums should work? I think they might be healthier than multi-purpose forums.
I'm still not really getting a sense of what you go to 4Chan for. I think it's best used as a last resort but I would prefer the politically orientated Chan sites were gone. Wipe out twitter and facebook while we're at it.

I suspect a lot of people use the anonymity to talk about things they'd be too ashamed to even under a fixed pseudonym username. Like how many Nazis admit all the ways they like to be humiliated? I suspect that's why sex workers were doxxed, they know all this stuff.
But a lot of the confessions probably wont even be as sinister as that.

Discord seems like an app and I couldn't view it from outside, fuck that.

It's fucking eye-opening to learn some of you do this shit. Like, go to a "Murder, She Wrote" forum if you want intelligent discussion about your hobbies.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, February 8, 2020 8:21 PM

Where were you when I needed someone to show me a better place to find Hans Bellmar-alikes, cars exploding with brains and the newest zatfig sensations?

Also, I miss people on ILX who are still here but no longer talk about books.

Searched Desuarchive for Shelleyan Orphan and got a Nazi thread all in german.

good bet that the "tv show that tracked down cyberbullies" wasn't interested in accurately reporting the demographics

I think it was one of those things that just covered specific cases. How could anyone get accurate demographics on anonymous communities where you cant even track a users posts?

Or cyberbullying in general?

i mean, not knowing exactly where this program falls on the "reality show/local news investigation <----> peer-reviewed documentary" spectrum, that it probably had more interest in a juicy narrative than an typical one

I'm still not really getting a sense of what you go to 4Chan for.

boredom, too much time, force of habit. when 4chan jumped the shark, in what seemed like overnight sometime around 2012, and I can't remember why, I wondered where the users went. (I never found the answer.) I appreciated 4chan, despite all the grossness, for being the vanguard of so, so much of internet culture. so i go back partly, and almost always in vain, looking for that. some new cultural observation/interpretation that's bubbling somewhere in your head that you're hoping to find fleshed out (in a dumb meme probably) that's probably already been discusses in Baffler or the Awl or somewhere but I'm too ADD to read those.

But it's a waste of time now. I failed to convince myself it's worth visiting

the corona stuff on /pol/ is all "IT'S HAPPENING! omg we're all going to die" vs. "stop exaggerating, it's a total nothingberder"

I did find something pretty funny in Desuarchive recently. Vox Day was bragging about how he could beat up SJW Jack Kirby (some said he was previously claiming that Kirby would have liked to work for him) and criticizing his drawing skills. Then one of Day's fans tweeted that Kirby was on twitter, sending all his SJW hordes against Vox Day. This guy didn't realize how long Kirby has been dead.

Kirby wouldn’t’ve hesitated to clock that nazi punk tho cf famous anecdote.

Kirby ate nazis for breakfast iirc

I think that's why Vox seemed to start having reservations about Kirby.