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A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

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Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#81

Post by LyndsySimon »

travmatt wrote: post #59
jeffry233 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see plenty of conservatism all over Reddit and all of those other places you mentioned. It happens in boring threads on boring articles that aren't politically charged. What causes the downvotes is the way the ideas are presented. If you write your comment like you're a writer for the Rush Limbaugh Show, you're going to be downvoted. There is plenty of room to discuss conservative ideas without resorting to the rhe…

I'm also old enough to remember /r/chimpire and other explicitly racist right wing subreddits who had massive support, well before the rise /r/the_donald. Hell, I even remember discussing the organized stormfront propaganda raids. To me, crying about the lack of conservatism is just code for "people don't follow my ideologies exactly, therefore I'm being oppressed." I follow plenty of subreddits where there is plenty…

> To me, crying about the lack of conservatism is just code [...]

For some, sure. But there are those of us who are not conservatives who share the view that conservatives have been subject to ubiquitous censorship.

I'm an anarchist, and honestly share about as much with the left as the right ideologically. The behavior of the left today sickens me, though. Even after the election of Trump - who himself is not traditionally "conservative" - has not seemed to have changed the way the left sees the right. The right is not a racist, homophobic, misogynist minority. They are a majority (albeit a slim one), and their views are both less extreme and far more commonly held than seems to be believed by the left.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#82

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

anon6778 wrote: post #36
jeffry233 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The contrarian aspect of 4chan is important, but I think theres more to it than that. Contrarianism on 4chan during the Bush years wasn't nearly as violent and widespread as it's been lately, and I think it goes back to gamergate, which was the first time a lot of 4chan users experienced politics having an effect on something central to their culture. The only groups speaking out against "SJW culture" happened to be…

> There was also always an undercurrent of racism (spamming the n word goes back to the early days of /b/) You are conflating message with actual sentiment. Using racist language is simply a subset of inflammatory language and trolling. Calling people a retard or a faggot fulfills similar goals. It does not really tell you much whether the anonymous poster actually discriminates based on those attributes or just uses…

> You are conflating message with actual sentiment.

Whether or not people who act like racists are actually racist doesn't matter at the end of the day, they have the same effect.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#83

Post by LyndsySimon »

dijit wrote: post #33
devmunchies wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope its easy to see that the rise of this "cancer" and the alt-right was a natural response to the rise of the extreme left throughout popular media and in society in general. There is nothing wrong with moderate conservatism, but when one must keep their conservative views in the closet, and anything conservative (on Reddit, Twitter, or simply at work) is seen as an inferior view point rather than just a differen…

It's a controversial opinion but I agree with you. The inability to even have a discussion with people about left vs right inevitably leads to echo chambers in both camps. The smaller the echo chamber the louder the volume.

Agreed. I moved from a right wing echo chamber (Boone County, AR) to a left wing echo chamber (Charlottesville, VA) about four years ago. Neither of those communities are currently able to even begin to understand the other.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#84

Post by yyytt »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #75
badsock wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that's popular is practically by definition not on the extreme any more. In most of the developed world the Democrats would be considered a moderate right-wing party, and the Republicans a far-right theocratic extremism party (like, say the DUP in the UK, or CHP in Canada). What you're seeing is a ground-shift in values, and what used to be considered OK is now considered extreme, and is therefore being shi…

Conservative views are treated as extreme, even though they are not and that's the point. /pol/ exists largely as a reaction to the suppression of non-progressive thought in the places where the demographic spends most of their time: academia, gaming, and tech. There are certainly people who believe what they say on /pol/, but the vast majority of them are consciously acting as a parody of what they have been cast to…

> /pol/ exists largely as a reaction to the suppression of non-progressive thought

/pol/ exists so edgy teenagers (and others who haven't developed mentally past that phase) can attempt to get a rise out of people by posting shallow, far-right tripe.

The level of intelligent discussion there is pitiful.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#86

Post by LyndsySimon »

slang800 wrote: post #44
akhilcacharya wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's truly bizarre to see how big of an impact one random, completely irrelevant event (ZoePost, GamerGate) had on the sites culture.

I think you're conflating causation - GamerGate was an expression of /pol/ culture, not the cause of it. I'm sure that the fact that the event made news spread that culture, but ultimately the ideas didn't change.

I disagree. GamerGate was the cause for the rise of right-wing social media power. Milo wasn't know outside those circles until after the controversy got the mainstream consciousness, and now he's a staple on all of the right-wing sites I frequent.

The idea that the largest gun forum on the internet would be regularly discussing posts by Milo and Gavin McInness would have been laughable before GamerGate. "Based Stickman", "Dave", etc. wouldn't exist if not for it.

From the perspective of the "new right", GamerGate was the first time a community does up against the cultural warfare of the left and won. It was the point where the left went from being counter-culture to being "the establishment". For the first time in generations, the social outcasts were conservatives, not liberals. It's now rebellious and cool to want to marry and start a traditional family. You can be booed off a stage for saying things like "the husband should provide for his family". The right has grabbed this and incorporated it into their identity; the left hasn't figured out yet that they've become what they thought they were fighting. They're the Man.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#87

Post by badsock »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #75
badsock wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that's popular is practically by definition not on the extreme any more. In most of the developed world the Democrats would be considered a moderate right-wing party, and the Republicans a far-right theocratic extremism party (like, say the DUP in the UK, or CHP in Canada). What you're seeing is a ground-shift in values, and what used to be considered OK is now considered extreme, and is therefore being shi…

Conservative views are treated as extreme, even though they are not and that's the point. /pol/ exists largely as a reaction to the suppression of non-progressive thought in the places where the demographic spends most of their time: academia, gaming, and tech. There are certainly people who believe what they say on /pol/, but the vast majority of them are consciously acting as a parody of what they have been cast to…

What makes you say that American conservative views are not extreme, in the context of the global internet?

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#88

Post by aphextron »

vim_wannabe wrote: post #46
aphextron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think one important question to ask here is: what caused the huge shift? Because it's something I noticed as well. It was 8 years of a Democratic, fairly liberal president. People like to rebel against whatever is in fashion. The right wing is now "edgy" because it rails against the prevailing political power The generation of kids who are now posting on 4chan grew up in a world defined by the Fox News anti-Obama…

>The generation of kids who are now posting on 4chan grew up in a world defined by the Fox News anti-Obama 'liberalism is a disease!' rhetoric which has taken over our media in the past decade. Absolutely false, kids do not watch Fox News, and I'm not sure what you mean by 'taken over our media'. The generation of kids now posting on 4chan actually group up watching shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which t…

>The generation of kids now posting on 4chan actually group up watching shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which took one sentence sound bites from people, put labels (you might know which ones) on them and made them into a huge spectacle.

It's two sides of the same extreme, both of which have driven people to the far right (Trumpism) and left (Antifa) respectively. Stewart is a perfect example of this childish false dichotomy created by the media to set people against one another. There's clearly a lot of money in tribalism.

As far as 'taking over our media', what I meant is the rise of far right talk radio and things like Alex Jones being taken legitimately. These things have made it impossible for a normal person to filter out the nonsense these days.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#89

Post by ThrustVectoring »

fiblye wrote: post #9
peruvian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crazy is that in the Bush/early Obama years 4chan was fairly liberal in terms of politics.

I think one important question to ask here is: what caused the huge shift? Because it's something I noticed as well. Something happened that has pushed much of the general internet and large swathes of the "geekier" parts of the net to the right, and it doesn't seem to be letting up. The media ran with the "Russian shills" thing for a while, but it seems to be running out of steam and people I've known for years who…

The social "tax rate" of things you must do in order to be a "good person" according to the establishment left got way too high. So if your choices are to make excruciatingly sure you don't accidentally forget the TQQIAAP part of LGBTQQIAAP alliance, or fuck all that noise and stop caring about what the left thinks, well, a bunch of folks are going to stop caring about what the left thinks.

Re: A Study of 4chan’s Politically Incorrect Forum and Its Effects on the Web [pdf]

#90

Post by aaronbrethorst »

devmunchies wrote: post #55
Trill-I-Am wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much exposure to "extreme leftism" would you say you get on a day to day basis at your job, in your informal social interactions, etc.?

I live and work in downtown Seattle. I'd say "regularly". I don't even know who other conservatives are because we tend to keep that information, as I said, in the closet. I had one friend at work tell me in secret that he was also a conservative. All I'm saying is that conservatism is "unpopular" and sometimes "shameful" (at least from my experience), which is unhealthy.

What are the viewpoints you hold that you refer to as "unpopular" and "shameful" that you're afraid to express to your coworkers?
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