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A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

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Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#31

Post by Senji »

EJTH wrote: post #26

To be fair, /pol/ is one of the best places to get happening news (Information about terror attacks that would otherwise be censored by mass media, information from the Syria conflict etc) There is a lot of shilling and a lot of trolling... It seems to me that /pol/ posts has become >50% shitposting from trolls and shills and less political discussion. The real influx of users into pol started with the european refug…

There was that one time when posters from the Syria general thread helped by looking up images on google earth and had an artillery strike directed.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#32

Post by rhaps0dy »

acqq wrote: post #27

It really looks like wasted money, if it was really financed and is not an elaborate trolling.

I think the money was totally worth it, just for the fun we all had. It's a lot of people having fun.

Although maybe the people who don't know about this (thus couldn't have fun) shouldn't have paid for it :\

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#33

Post by ivarious »

ue_ wrote: post #6

If you look at the remnants of the earlier chans (created between 1 and 3 years after 4chan) which never really gained much momentum, you'll see that they had a much different culture at the time. In a way I wish we could return to this idea of the "small chan", as a way of escaping the grinding politics and hate culture that's on some boards (like /pol/) which tends to leak over (jokingly or not) to the other boards…

I still remember when moot first created [s4s] a lot of people say that it can be a reset to the old chan culture.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#34

Post by denzil_correa »

hubert123 wrote: post #3
denzil_correa wrote: post #2

I know a lot of researchers who avoid 4chan due to fear. Given that context, in some sense this seems to be a bold step.

You know a 'lot'(!) of researchers who avoid 4chan? What exactly would they be researching or avoiding to research?

They are not avoiding research. Online boards like 4chan are a great testbed to understand human behavior amongst other things. A lot of people avoid using 4chan as a testbed due to repercussions from conclusions that may not put 4chan in a good light.

Example - https://twitter.com/emilianodc_/status/786296689481003008

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#35

Post by herge »

hacker42 wrote: post #23
dogma1138 wrote: post #14

"9. RARE PEPES In this Section we display some of our rare Pepe collection." Things that you have never thought would appear on a bonafide research paper for 800$. EDIT: 4Chan thread regarding this paper, this is worth the read on it's own. http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/92612923/a-longitudinal-m...

Remember that arXiv is just pre-print and the last page if not the entire paper is probably nothing more than a lame/distasteful joke. Remember that any nutbag who knows a little English and LaTeX can publish on arXiv. It will likely not make it into a journal.

It's almost as bad as HackerNews comments

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#37

Post by the8472 »

ivarious wrote: post #29

It's rather disappointing that the authors didn't talk about the biggest thing that has reshaped discussion in 4chan since years. The reply indicator. For people who don't go to 4chan, you can read it on http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-here-s-your-you . Basically, if someone else replied to your post, the post pointer will show a (You) word, showing that the poster replied to a post that you wrote. Moreover, the po…

I speculate that the ban on raids had a much bigger impact. Before that they were used for all kinds of things, mostly to cause mischief, occasionally even for a good purpose, e.g. op chanology. So this might have tied up and channeled a lot of the mischievous energy of the more active users. Now that it's banned we get more informal, less organized hit-and-run harassment.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#38

Post by Trombone12 »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #20
nickthemagicman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most average people don't even know what a 'chan' is or even know what 4chan is all about, except for the times it gets demonized by the media. And it becomes just associated with something sensational and negative. The higher ideal: the philosophical context of freedom through anonymity resulting in great creativity is completely drowned out by the petty stuff. There's a reason it creates a major portion of culture,…

This means every one is simply judged by what ideas they create and I think thats a beautiful thing. And it drives higher quality content because of it. Most people do not realize that a lot of the popular memes and internet jokes shared on more mainstream platforms originally came from the "chan" culture. To your point though the high quality content is often difficult to find in the cesspool of low-quality spam on…

Lets be honest: memes aren't high quality content when compared to the types of free content available on the net.

4chan has spawned a lot of memes because it was one of the earliest places people appreciated that sort of low-effort anyone-could-do-it content, but to say it drives high quality content is to decry any competently drawn stick figure as bourgeois.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and its Effect on the Web

#39

Post by douche »

dogma1138 wrote: post #19
mafribe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sentence -- not to mention the rare pepe collection at the end -- made me pause a bit and wonder if the paper isn't a particularly elaborate chan troll. Clearly "rare pepe" is a chan in-joke.

Rare Pepe is the "name" of the meme as far as the subject specific custom pepe images/shops go. But I still can't believe that there is a research paper out there where there is a section which describes the researcher's "collection" of rare pepe memes with visual aide samples.

I can't believe that a presidential candidate prominently featured a page on their website attacking a stupid internet meme. I think the Aztecs fudged their calculations somehow, and it was really supposed to be 2016...
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