Ah, the cultural critique. I'm sure we've all been looking forward to this one. Not only an opportunity to express love for or rage against some piece of media, but we get to make some social statement about it (all the while pretending the social statement is the main point). For my topic I've chosen a website. Not just any website, but perhaps ths single most infamous, influential, and unusual websites around. That would be 4Chan.org, of course. Not the entire website, but a particular corner of it, the true life of the party; the /b/ (random) sub-forum.
They're a most peculiar bunch, the folk who attend that forum. They (nicknamed “/b/tards”) are a subset of the online group Anonymous. They're such a prominent part of it that they are usually referred to as Anonymous itself. They're so prominent as to earn the attention and ire of Fox News, which has labelled them “domestic terrorists”, and the “internet hate machine”. For a short time, the image board of 4Chan was blocked by the Internet Service Provider AT&T, due to some network shenanigans by a rival website called Anontalk (which split away from 4Chan long ago, and is known to be a haven for paedophiles). Few online communities have so much history and widespread interaction with the world, but of those that do 4Chan stands alone for the near media-blackout regarding it. This is because 4Chan is rather unsavoury
Though there are official forum rules, they are rarely enforced. When they are enforced, they are usually not effective. The social phenomenon of 4Chan is very complex, and certainly impossible to explain without direct experience, but the best way to summarize the people of this unrivaled subculture is their moderation. When they are bored, they find something to do. When they find themselves too busy, they will intentionally be unproductive and let their collective workplaces suffer. When they feel an injustice has been done, they respond in whatever manner they feel most appropriate (at times mockery, and at times “white-knighting” [going out of their way to assist someone with words over the internet without any real chance of receiving any compensation]). Though they are known for their merciless invasions of forums, spamming, hacking and general unpleasantness, on other occasions they've behaved like model citizens. The “/b/tards” have, in their generosity, aided an 8-year-old boy to achieve more than his desired number of pageviews on his YouTube account, tracked-down and turned-in a government official in Washington involved in bestiality, punished (through admittedly questionable means) con/scam artists (who are despised only if their work is deemed unfunny), turned-in serious animal abusers/pet-killers, and on at least one occasion prevented a school shooting. Again, quite the record.
For many years I was unaware of the heart of Anonymous, but always affected by it at a distance. I received my first computer shortly after 4Chan was started by Moot (the online alias of the site's founder), but only last year did I first visit 4Chan. I did so with my sister, to show her the website which was so difficult to explain. I clicked on the random (/b/) sub-forum link. The first thing that stood out were the 'adult' adds. It took me no more than a half-second to close the tab, at which point I turned to my sister and said “That, Chloe, is the /b/.” Since that point, I've returned to the /b/ on a number of occasions. Being a lurker, I've only posted there twice (for the novelty of saying I had posted there at all), but I periodically lurk to find pictures for myself and my ladyfriend (who is considerably more /b/-like than I). Oh, those funny pictures. This is where /b/ really shines; the /b/, being an imageboard (like the rest of 4Chan), acts like a gigantic swap-meet for images, except everyone can have everything at no cost to anyone. Except Moot, that is, who is now reportedly at least $20,000 in debt for running the website. He has received donations, and blew it all on a trip to Mexico.
(It should be noted that 4Chan's /b/ sub-forum may be referred to either preceded by the article 'the', or without. One may say “- the /b/ is..” or “- /b/ is...” and both would be considered correct in *Chanspeak. One thing is certain though; never, ever, capitalize that name. EVEN IF YOU ARE TYPING IN ALL CAPS YOU MUST NOT WRITE THE /b/ AS /B/. This is because URLs [website addresses] are case-sensitive. There isn't such a thing as “the /B/”, only “the /b/”.
One might think that grammatical rules are entirely ignored by boorish individuals like the /b/tards, but there is a definite social order. The roving mindless hordes despised by Fox News and most people who are aware of 4Chan's presence at all are the “Anonymous Borg”. If the /b/ were a rock concert, these would be the fans in the audience. Unintelligent and eager to take up any destructive cause, they are the lower class. The upper-class of /b/ would be the “oldfags”, who tend to be well-educated and disillusioned college/university graduates in their 30s.
It should also be noted that the largest demographics of the /b/ are adolescent boys and college students. I, Daniel Tadeuszow, am proudly not among them. I'm a participant of an entirely separate little community that observes from a distance that hilarious, insightful mess.)
Also, staying up late is bad. You shouldn't do it.
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