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

arxiv.org

41–50 of 155 posts

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

#41
post #31
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.

Can you (or somebody) explain this? It sounds interesting but I don't understand exactly what that sentence means.

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

#43
post #37

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.

I miss the BattleToads threads, especially when they would record their calls to the Pawn Stars and GameStop stores. Or just visiting 4chanarchive to watch drama unfold in some previously massive thread. There just isn't anything like it on the Internet still, as far as I'm aware. Unless you enjoy a 'LIK DIS IF YOU CRY EVERTIM' Facebook post.

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

#44

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…

Besides memes and internet jokes, what are examples of high quality content created (or originating) from the "chan" culture?

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

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Considering that one of internet's strength is the democratization of content creation, low-effort anyone-could-do-it contents are inherently high quality.

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

#46
post #41
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you (or somebody) explain this? It sounds interesting but I don't understand exactly what that sentence means.

Probably someone had a photo of a possible target but didn't know the location so they crowdsourced that to 4chan.

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

#47
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Was it not the Mayans who predicted some kind of cataclysm?

But yeah, I agree it's ridiculous how the Clinton campaign took the bait and now apparently a cartoon frog is a "hate symbol".

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

#48

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…

Posts linking their replies in the header has been a feature for a very, very long time. This doesn't have the negative impact you think it does. It's not a post rating system, and only trolls and candyasses pay attention to the number of replies on your post.

There isn't any kind of long-term karma game like on other sites. 4chan is still content-heavy and shit posts are still looked down upon by the larger community. It may not seem that way, but the stupidest people are often the loudest.

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

#49

"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.

Seeing "LaTeX" (lay-tech) and "arXiv" together in your sentence made me finally realize that arXiv is pronounced "archive". I've been reading it as "arx-iv" for years.

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

#50
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…

Every board in 4chan has it's amount of shitposting. One thing you start developing, as a user, is an semiconscious filter and ways to process the information.

A *chan site has many layers a user must go through to finally fing a decent discussion (or the epic lulz). You have an outdated confusing UI, the sheer amount of useless content, the lingo and the highly offensive content.

After you learn to process and filter all that, you start finding the really good stuff. Or, as I like to say, "Gold floats on shit. You just have to be brave and reach it"

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