4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager • Hacker News Board

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#81

Post by boratsagdiyev » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

aspaceman wrote: post #44

deft wrote: post #14

How many of these anti-4chan articles are written by people that regularly use it? I'm guessing zero. 4chan is an interesting site and has better discussion from a broad userbase than reddit or here. Plenty of interesting projects were born out of 4chan, particularly /g/ but the other boards have created valuable things for humans in general, not just internet culture. The positives IMO come from the whole "FREE SPEE…

> using 4chan and ignore the crap you don't care about. Can you even imagine using 4chan as a woman or a black man? Like not only in real life do you have to deal with people being racist as hell, but hey here's this forum that's entirely shameless about it too. You seem to believe that folks can just ignore being called the n-word day-in and day-out as if it doesn't really affect them. The only people who can go to…

My perspective (21/M/Black Canadian): the people who say we can just ignore it are right. That’s because you pretty much have to learn to deal with it as an avid internet user (even on more ‘vanilla’ sites like YouTube).

The part that affects me isn’t the word itself, and I don’t personally feel offended by a stranger using it. It’s just over time when you see so much vitriol directed towards your race even in places where it should be irrelevant (like gaming), I noticed I began to think that pretty much all white people were consumed by a hatred of blacks (why else would I see the n word being used so often?). It's hard to remind yourself about how big the internet is, maybe it's just the particular communities you visit, etc.

Edit: since this a throwaway anyway, I did develop a distaste for associating with white people for a period of time. In my mind, they were two faced and probably wouldn't hesitate to call people like me n*gger online.

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#82

Post by Brakenshire » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:38 PM UTC

fein wrote: post #49

samuraijack wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we going to just ignore how bigoted and racist 4chan is in general?

Understanding why it is that way would probably be more useful than trying to get brownie points for your signaling. It's like that because people with your outlook have deplatformed so much discourse that 4chan is the last bastion of a truly free exchange of ideas. Voat comes in a close second. Calling something bigoted and racist is just an attempt to deflect and ignore the conversation. Offending people is general…

You must really hate 4chan (or, at least, the racist boards there) if you expect this level of nuance and understanding in discussion. It's certainly not within a million miles of what /b/ or /pol/ extend to anyone else.

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#83

Post by aspaceman » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #77

aspaceman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're only supposed to be offended Folks have the right to be offended whenever they want to be. If you aren't offended, then that's your decision and you're free to make it. But ultimately I still believe you should respect the opinions of those who are offended. If they hate 4chan, I'm not going to argue with them about it. There's a lot of folks in this thread claiming that if you're offended by speech on 4chan…

People have a right to be offended and the offender has a right not to care. I certainly don't endorse 4chan culture but it's different from what you think.

What is it that you think "I think" 4chan's culture is?

I am saying that 4chan is not a safe place if you are black or most minorities. Period. I don't care what 4chan's culture is because it doesn't matter for the sake of this point.

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#84

Post by tomatotomato37 » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

uhdihsjhr wrote: post #52

aspaceman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> using 4chan and ignore the crap you don't care about. Can you even imagine using 4chan as a woman or a black man? Like not only in real life do you have to deal with people being racist as hell, but hey here's this forum that's entirely shameless about it too. You seem to believe that folks can just ignore being called the n-word day-in and day-out as if it doesn't really affect them. The only people who can go to…

Given the Alexa ranking of 4chan lots of women and non white people use the site so no need to imagine it because it's happening.

I don't think the overlap between 4chan users and people that install the Alexa toolbar is large enough for those statistics to be accurate

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#85

Post by deft » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

samuraijack wrote: post #35

deft wrote: post #14

How many of these anti-4chan articles are written by people that regularly use it? I'm guessing zero. 4chan is an interesting site and has better discussion from a broad userbase than reddit or here. Plenty of interesting projects were born out of 4chan, particularly /g/ but the other boards have created valuable things for humans in general, not just internet culture. The positives IMO come from the whole "FREE SPEE…

Are we going to just ignore how bigoted and racist 4chan is in general?

No. I'm not saying we should. I'm saying it's no different than other places, the racism on 4chan is on reddit. It's all over the internet. 4chan isn't especially bad in my experience. I don't go to the boards devoted to racism and I don't go to the subreddits and forums devoted to it either.

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#86

Post by Brakenshire » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

rarec wrote: post #71

aspaceman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you can't handle that in words, I doubt you could live much, regardless of your identifiable characteristics. I really cannot wrap my mind around the lack of empathy required to say "if you can't handle it" to people being called racist slurs. I presume you have never been called a racist slur. I presume you have never been demonized for your skin color - how can you even begin to know what that's like? Ignoring…

Not to defend racism, but you'll find that pretty much every race that's not 2D gets shit on when you're on 4chan. That's just part of being a moderator-lite website. The entire idea is you shouldn't bring your real life onto the site, you'll find people ready and able to tear down anything for incredibly inane reasons. Why is it that it's so prevalent is an excellent question; why do people resort to such strong rac…

Most people are not racist/sexist when given a mask, the people who are go to /b/ or /pol/, and in the process get further radicalized.

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#87

Post by forgottenpass » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

When did new immigrants to the internet stop learning about the things we long-considered to be emergent phenomena of social interaction on the Internet? Eternal September eventually became known as a breaking point where what "is" and what "ought" will never be the same again. It seemed like we resigned to mapping/understanding the ways conversation breaks down so we could practice good mental hygiene of recognizing it, and stopping ourselves from accidentally getting sucked into it. Why did we loose the collective wisdom of social systems at scale?

tl;dr: Who am I to blame for the fact WIRED of all places is writing hot takes about social dynamics of the internet like a Dad that just got their first smartphone?

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#88

Post by deft » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

aspaceman wrote: post #44

deft wrote: post #14

How many of these anti-4chan articles are written by people that regularly use it? I'm guessing zero. 4chan is an interesting site and has better discussion from a broad userbase than reddit or here. Plenty of interesting projects were born out of 4chan, particularly /g/ but the other boards have created valuable things for humans in general, not just internet culture. The positives IMO come from the whole "FREE SPEE…

> using 4chan and ignore the crap you don't care about. Can you even imagine using 4chan as a woman or a black man? Like not only in real life do you have to deal with people being racist as hell, but hey here's this forum that's entirely shameless about it too. You seem to believe that folks can just ignore being called the n-word day-in and day-out as if it doesn't really affect them. The only people who can go to…

If you look at my comment history I've made this exact point about politics. I agree with you. 4chan as a whole isn't any more racist than any other forum. The boards are separated by topics just like reddit for example. My purpose behind my comment was simply saying if you avoid the parts you don't like (exactly how you do on the internet in general, stormfront is a thing), you don't experience that toxicity. I rarely see racism on the boards I browse. And I'd say I see a lot more racism on average on reddit.

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#89

Post by aspaceman » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

boratsagdiyev wrote: post #81

aspaceman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> using 4chan and ignore the crap you don't care about. Can you even imagine using 4chan as a woman or a black man? Like not only in real life do you have to deal with people being racist as hell, but hey here's this forum that's entirely shameless about it too. You seem to believe that folks can just ignore being called the n-word day-in and day-out as if it doesn't really affect them. The only people who can go to…

My perspective (21/M/Black Canadian): the people who say we can just ignore it are right. That’s because you pretty much have to learn to deal with it as an avid internet user (even on more ‘vanilla’ sites like YouTube). The part that affects me isn’t the word itself, and I don’t personally feel offended by a stranger using it. It’s just over time when you see so much vitriol directed towards your race even in places…

Thanks for offering your perspective on this. I obviously can't speak to what it's like personally - I'm only going off of others' experience and my own intuition for what it would feel like.

> The part that affects me isn’t the word itself, and I don’t personally feel offended by a stranger using it. ...

This is kind of the point I'm trying to make further down the thread. There's a lot of folks saying that 4chan's use of this language is a form of community and culture, rather than meant as actual offense. But I don't think that makes it okay for exactly the point you make here.

Re: 4Chan Is Turning 15–And Remains the Internet's Teenager

#90

Post by deft » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

i80and wrote: post #38

deft wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First point: then why write an article about it? Get someone who knows what they're talking about. For your second point, how is that unique to 4chan? Every message board I've ever used does stuff like that.

...what message boards are you using that every single one of them "does stuff like that"?

reddit, topic-specific boards I browsed years ago. You're just better at ignoring the bad parts of the sites you use. I see racism on here all the time, especially against asians for some reason.