The New Man of 4chan

The New Man of 4chan
thebaffler.com

Get out normies, REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Movies, music and reading as hobbies? Yup, that's a killer alright. /s

Man, the media hasn't really progressed since 1991 has it...

1. "4chan" is not a person, a club, a worldview, or even a reputation-based comment aggregator. 4chan is website with a constant, ephemeral stream of anonymous comments, and the "culture" between different boards varies quite significantly. This system makes it especially prone to misrepresentation by a media that does not understand it. One could easily write an article entitled "The New Man of Reddit" about disturbing subreddits that exist with deep misogynistic hatred, but people understand that one subreddit does not represent the views of everyone that visits the site as a whole. It is even easier to portray 20-30 4chan users as representative of hundreds of thousands because they all post under the same name, "Anonymous". I know several friends who frequent /g/ (the technology board on 4chan), and the discussion is on technical topics virtually all of the time.

2. There are obviously pockets on certain boards (e.g. /r9k/) with groups of anonymous users that have disturbing thoughts and views. That being said, I think it is a mistake to frame the problem as a website being "like Uber, but for violent misogyny", or making a broad analysis that includes references to decades-long gender dynamics theories. I am NOT defending or endorsing the actions whatsoever of these users.

However, if the author were to engage in conversation with some of the more extreme users, she might realize that what many of these people need is help. If she were to read personal stories threads on /r9k/ she might find that a large portion of those people are there because they are not "doing well" in life, at all, and have not "fit in" to society for a very long time. They are often clinically depressed, or have any number of debilitating mental illnesses. There are people there that are in poverty, have crippling anxiety disorders that prevent them from leaving the house, who are addicted to substances and cannot hold a job, and who have never done so much as held hands with a romantic interest even decades into adulthood. There are a disturbing number of people on /r9k/ that were physically and sexually abused as children, and those stories are excruciatingly sad. I don't exaggerate about the prevalence or severity of these problems, I have seen regular popular threads about child abuse and significant social impairment on boards. Misogyny is often not a calculated tactical hatred on the part of these people, but an unhealthy and abhorrent outlet for their desperation.

Again, I am not defending their actions and I don't think that those 4chan boards are positive places for people to seek refuge. But I think it is important to recognize why many of them are there, and proceed from a point of compassion for another human being, no matter hard that may be. It is easy and tempting to demonize a group of individuals that engage in repulsive misogynistic commentary all day, but that won't solve any of their problems or those of society.