For those of you who lived under a rock for the past few years, 4chan is a website based entirely on anonymity and people with shared interests. It is basically an image board where you never have to register. It has over twenty boards and literally more threads in each than it can keep in its history, meaning ones that reach page 15 often delete themselves or “404”. A thread is a section of a forum with a certain topic. “404” was named after a common error on the Internet, known as “error 404: not found”.
4chan is most known for its content in a board known as /b/ or Random. When 4chan says Random, they mean Random. There are threads about literally everything, from counting, to post numbers, to pornography (every kind of it), gore, and the most common thread of all, trolling. A troll is anyone who gains pleasure at another’s expense.
The most recent incident as of the date this article was written was one in which an eleven-year-old girl was trolled to the point where she had to be placed under police protection. While there is no thread left and her account on Youtube was taken down, she is mentioned as a “meme” in a website known as www.knowyourmeme.com, where Internet culture is summed up for those who have not seen a computer in the last twenty years. A meme is a popular fad in Internet culture, usually short lived, however there are old ones that are still mentioned to this day. The girl, known as Jessi Slaughter (not her real name) became the victim of real life trolling. Currently she is under police protection.
4chan is not all about destroying the lives of innocent people however. Those are only a few “anons”. An anon, short for anonymous, is a member of 4chan. These ones are usually banned. Even the lawless thread /b/ has its rules. While people on the board joke about Hitler, pedophilia, and bestiality, posting child pornography or attempting to do any of the following in real life results in a ban. Because 4chan has an archive of important threads, it is easy to use evidence against child predators. In addition, children under 18 are not allowed to even view the site.
Oprah has once mentioned 4chan in an episode about pedophilia after receiving an email stating that anonymous “had over 9000 *expletive*es”, going on to describe how each one was currently hurting a child. Little did she know that this email was sent with the intention of trolling her, and the episode would be uploaded on Youtube for all to see.
4chan used to have people spamming on /b/, but with the addition of the captcha code verification came the end of spam and a new meme in which people wrote comics about what the code said.
All in all, 4chan is mostly an image board and, with the exception of a few idiots, is an entertaining site. Just do not go on /b/ if you value your digestive system. You will know what I mean if you go on it.
