4chan

4chan is an internet image board that was founded by moot Christopher Poole on October 1, 2003. Anyone is allowed to post and share images and comments. There are many different boards relating to different topics like Health and Fitness, Food and Cooking, Video Games, Technology, etc. Its community is best known for fostering internet subcultures, creating internet memes, and organizing internet attacks. (Back to index)

4chan's 4 leaves logo. This logo is derived from Yotsuba Koiwai, 4chan's official mascot. Yotsuba is a female character from Japanese comedy manga Yotsuba&!. The logo is based on her distinctive 4 green pigtails. 4chan is also known as "Yotsuba channel" in Japanese.

Background

4chan launched on October 1, 2003 as a place to post pictures of and discuss anime and manga; an English-language version of the popular Japanese website 2chan. Contributors do not have to be identifiable, and most users post anonymously. The random board, also known as "/b/," is 4chan's most popular and notorious due to its low regard for rules, and creation of popular internet memes such as rickrolling, pedobear, and lolcats.

4chan's founder Christopher Poole, aka "moot." He was voted the world's most influential person of 2008 in Time magazine's annual Time 100 online poll.

"Anonymous"

4chan's boards thrive on the ability for users to post anonymously.The term "anonymous" or "anon" is a widely used self descriptive term and username on 4chan due to a perceived sense of community created by sharing an identity. Although membership of anonymous originated in the imageboard 4chan, Anonymous has spread into the realm of the real world, collaborating on many events such as picketing and hacking important government databases. A study examined and discovered that 90% of all posts on the board were from anonymous users.

A reoccurring message regarding anonymity on /b/ reads: "You have just entered the very heart, soul and life force of the internet. This is a place beyond sanity; wild and untamed. There is nothing new here. "New" content on 4chan is not found; it is created from old material. Every interesting, offensive, shocking or debate-inspiring topic you've seen elsewhere has been posted here, ad infinitum. 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 is a nameless, faceless, unforgiving mafia composed of the best of the best, the worst of the worst and most people in between. We are 4channers. The people devoid of any type of soul or conscience; we are products of cynicism and apathy, and we spread those very sentiments daily. Anonymous is the hardened war veteran of the Internet. He does not forgive, nor forget. We have seen things that defy explanations. We have 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." -Anonymous, 10/28.

4chan activities

4chan users have been the source of numerous controversial internet attacks as well as real world attacks. They are known for pulling off some of the highest profile collective actions and attacks on since the history of the internet. One of the first attacks, which are done strictly for "the lulz", was a mass log-on to the social networking site "Habbo Hotel" and the organization of a mass blockade of swimming pools in the game, spamming the chat with internet sayings, and forming into the shape of swastikas.

Hal Turner

• Between December 2006 and January 2007, 4chan collectively attacked Hal Turner's website and prank called his radio show. This caused Hal Turner's website to go down and creating thousands of dollars worth of damage.

Sarah Palin email hacking

• In 2008, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was the target of an attack by 4chan user David Kernell, son of Democratic Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell. Kernell gained access to Palin's private Yahoo Mail account by enabling password recovery, and answered her security questions using Wikipedia and a little research. He then proceeded to read her email hoping to find something incriminating that could derail her campaign. Once Kernell realized there were no emails of the sort, he started a thread on 4chan's /b/ board where he eventually posted the account's password. David Kernell was sentenced to 1 year and 1 day in custody and 3 additional years of probation for his crimes.

Steve Job's heart attack

• In October of 2008, a hoax story was submitted to iReport.com claimed that the CEO of Apple Inc (Steve Jobs) had suffered a heart attack resulting in a significant drop in stock price of Apple Inc.

TIME 100 Poll Hacking

A screenshot of the 3rd annual Time 100 online poll for the "2009 World's Most Influential People" award. If read vertically with the first letters of each name a message is revealed: "mARBLECAKE ALSO THE GAME".

• In 2009, moot was the winner of TIME magazine's 3rd annual TIME 100 online poll. He won with 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100). TIME noted that everyone who moot beat actually held a job to emphasize the magnitude of this victory. While TIME technical staff detected some hacking attempts and tried to extinguish them, they were unsuccessful. Not only did moot win with an abnormally high influence rating (runner-up Anwar Ibrahim only had 47 out of 100), the hackers manipulated the winners so the first 21 names spelled out "marblecake also the game." Marblecake refers to Anonymous's IRC channel, and The Game is a popular meme.

/b/ - Random

The most popular board on the site, /b/, is what people are most commonly referring to when they speak about 4chan. The board can be depicted as the garbage dump of the internet or as Mattahias Schwartz of the The New York Times put it, “the inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line.” It is, essentially, used for misdoing.

A proclamation by a frequent user of /b/ in the 4chan image boards defining /b/. This definition has been held to much scrutiny within 4chan while also being held in high regard by both outsiders and insiders alike.

This is also the board where a large portion of internet memes originate.

Common Terms

/b/

The "Random" board on 4chan. It is the site's most popular board.

/b/tard

A person who actively participates on /b/.

newfag

A person who is new to 4chan and unaccustomed to its culture and behaviors.

oldfag

A veteran of 4chan who knows about old memes, customs, and threads.

moralfag

A person who goes against the norms of 4chan and tries to prevent harm to others.

whiteknight

See moralfag.

troll

A person who deliberately acts naive in order to incite others.

lurker

A person who reads threads, but does not contribute to them.

lulz

A bastardization of the internet acronym “lol,” meaning to laugh out loud.

Ethics and Controversy

As an imageboard, 4chan has many sub-forums that contain specialized posts relating to the specific topics (e.g. video games, anime, photography). Despite the categorization of posts, the random board, /b/, is all inclusive, containing posts that relate to content that could be on other boards.

Because /b/ has no set topic, users post a variety of images, ranging from shocking gory images, male and female nudity, and even child pornography. Commonly referred to as "CP", users joke about the topic by posting pictures Chris Hansen of To Catch a Predator and Pedobear as a way of fostering simultaneous acceptance and rejection of the topic - so as to comply with the US government's age of consent law.

External Links

An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community