4chan

I would like to preface this with strong warnings against visiting the site, because it is a horrible place that will scar you forever. I hope to someday go back in time and warn myself against it.

4chan is one of my favorite social groups to think about. It could be described as a morbid curiosity. The only factor that seems to connect the different aspects of it that blow my mind is anonymity.

Users of 4chan can provide huge amounts of humor. Some of the most popular memes on the Internet (lolcats, Rickrolling, mudkips) have emerged from this community's process of slowly transforming a picture, character, or phrase into an amorphous joke. They combine hundreds of memes to form enough pictures and phrases that the community requires its own wiki to keep track of them all. At their best, they work like the worlds largest comedy writing team, but with no leaders or direction and only one goal: lulz. Anonymity separates it from most sites with user-generated content in that none of them get credit for any of it.

It doesn't take long for a popular YouTuber to steer the subject of the videos to themselves, or attempt to make money off of their newfound popularity. On 4chan, that is impossible. Since everyone clearly knows of this stipulation, it can be assumed that members put hours into creating a hilarious new picture only for the amusement of themselves and the other users. They take their precious new joke and share it freely with others, most of whom they know will repeat it poorly or act like they made it themselves. This level of humor altruism is magnefied due to each member's apparent hatred for the people they are giving it to.

This is one of many fascinating attributes of 4chan that can't be seen anywhere else. All members of this community seem to despise every other person there. Complaints of the lack of original content fill the board to the point that posts containing the phrase "original content" can be safely ignored as written by trolls, or more likely, mental defectives. Threads seem to only contain such mind-numbing premises as, "Post ending in 00 get to tell me what to do," typing "Desu" repeatedly, and, "You laugh, you lose." The Engrish variation, "You raff, you ruse" only makes it seem funnier the first time.

Assuming this problem is caused by noobs who just discovered these never-clever concepts, veteran users attempt to scare away the noobs by shocking them with the most disgusting and gory photos ever to be taken without literally invading a person with a camera. They try to deface the tough guy image of Anonymous by obsessing over a more than likely Asian girl with annoyingly cutesy mannerisms. In the end, they resign themselves to chasing off everyone by posting more of the stuff that they hate. It is tempting to assume that the entire site is made up of like-minded people angry at others for making posts that completely resemble their own. Not knowing a person's identity increases the difficulty of knowing their intentions. However, this vicious cycle most likely begins with purposefully unfunny rehashes being presented by veteran users who enjoy the misery of others. Classic.