Hey 4chan? Can we talk briefly?

Dakkagor

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Sep 5, 2011
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(BIG FREAKING NOTE: please try not to be offended. At this point I'm using humour to cling to sanity. And really, I think 4chan can afford to laugh at itself)

Me: Hey 4chan, how you doing? How's Gamergate these days?

(at this point, please imagine this: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/034/4/1/hydra__dipsy_demo__by_sandara-d74271p.jpg
standing in for 4chan)

4chan: WE ARE LEGION/NAKED PICTURES OF EMMA WATSON/OH NO NOT THIS AGAIN/GAMES JOURNALISM/FAGFAGFAG

Me: Yeah. . .about that. So, I saw an article on the business insider this morning, and well, I don't think it paints you in a very good light. Dare I say it, it makes you look like deplorable douches. Now I understand that not all the heads speak for each other, in-fact that as a community there is a wide range of both good and bad people (like most communities) but do you think you could deal with that head that keeps being such a sexist asshole all the time? I'll just post the link down here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/4chan-hackers-threatening-to-post-naked-photographs-of-emma-watson-2014-9

4chan: KILL ONE HEAD AND TWO APPEAR/SHE'S A SLUT AND SHE DESERVES IT/BUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH/THATS NOT WHAT GAMERGATE IS ABOUT/WE ARE NOT A HIVEMIND!

Me: Right, I know you're not a hivemind, no community is. . .now, the problem you have is that every-time something like this happens recently, it originates from one of the boards, either /b/ or /v/. It just seems that maybe its time for the moderators to take it in hand and do something about it. I know the anarchic nature of the community is one of the main draws for its members, but as long as you don't police the boards the worst, loudest voices in that community will continue to paint the rest of you in a bad light. Publicly attacking figures like this is only proving their point, and turning people against you. Are you aware of a quote commonly mis-attributed to from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., but actually originating from Zechariah Chafee?

4chan: WE ARE THE SPAWN OF DARKNESS/SCREW THAT FEMINAZI/WE DON'T CONTROL THOSE GUYS/HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT SILVERSTRING ARE DOING/NO I AM NOT

Me: It goes "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." Its a good rule to live by in my opinion. It plays into Free Speech as well. You have the right to talk, everyone does. You just don't have the right to be heard. People are free to judge you on your actions and words, and that means if you say something bone deep stupid or sexist, they are free to ignore, condemn, critique or ridicule. Just like Anita Sarkessian is free to critique video games. You are in turn, free to criticism her, but don't be surprised if after insulting, harassing and threatening her, she defends herself by shutting down comments. Thats a pretty reasonable response. Being civil, stopping your fist short of the other persons nose, means people are more likely to listen to you.

4chan: WE ARE THE VOICES OF CONTAGION/STFU SJW SHE WON'T SCREW YOU FOR IT/GODDAMNIT SHUT UP YOU ARE NOT HELPING/LOOK AT THESE CONNECTIONS IN MEDIA/THATS A GOOD POINT

Me: Similarly, attacking a public figure with threats of spreading pictures of her online is just going make people condemn the whole damn community. Maybe its time to stop ragging on the moderators over at 4chan and let them do the best job they can at cutting of the arsehole heads. Maybe they'll grow back, maybe in the meantime 4chan won't be a good place to discuss Gamergate, but I think for the good of the forum as a whole, and all the good parts of it, those voices need to be cleaned out.

4chan: WE ARE LORDS OF TYPHON/STFU FEMINAZI ARGH SWORD AND ACID/OH THANK GOD HE GOT CUT OFF/COLLUSION BETWEEN MODERATORS AND PRESS/THANKS FOR BEING REASONABLE.

Me: No problem. I'm going to go cruise /tg/. Stay classy you many headed beast of ruin!

4chan: WE ARE LEGION/...ARGH REGROWING HURTS LIKE YOUR MOM/DAMN HE'S BACK AGAIN/THE MOVEMENT IS NOT ABOUT ZOE QUINN/SEE YOU AROUND!

(Note: again, not overly serious. . .but come on guys, you have to understand why you have such an awful reputation around the internet, and people struggle to take you seriously, even when you have good points, when 4chan self identifies as the anarchic Mos Eisely of the internet.)

captcha: in over my head. . . .ho boy. . .
 

dragoongfa

It's the Krossopolypse
Apr 21, 2009
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4chan is no longer affiliated with GamerGate after the banning of the discussion a week ago.

Nice joke though.
 

TheYellowCellPhone

New member
Sep 26, 2009
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dragoongfa said:
4chan is no longer affiliated with GamerGate after the banning of the discussion a week ago.

Nice joke though.
Everyone's talking about jumping ship to 8chan.co

It's a lot like the first schism where a bunch of people fled to 7chan, except they're not pedos defending their right to post illegal jailbait and loli images this time.

By everyone I mean the guys who frequent /pol/, /b/, and /v/. Most of the other boards are pretty much unaffected.
 

dragoongfa

It's the Krossopolypse
Apr 21, 2009
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TheYellowCellPhone said:
dragoongfa said:
4chan is no longer affiliated with GamerGate after the banning of the discussion a week ago.

Nice joke though.
Everyone's talking about jumping ship to 8chan.co

It's a lot like the first schism where a bunch of people fled to 7chan, except they're not pedos defending their right to post illegal jailbait and loli images this time.

By everyone I mean the guys who frequent /pol/, /b/, and /v/. Most of the other boards are pretty much unaffected.
Lot's of people from /k/, /a/ and /sp/ also jumped ship if the relevant 8chan boards are any indication.

Also Hotwheels announced a collaboration of 8chan with 2chan
 

xDarc

New member
Feb 19, 2009
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People are getting tired of this I guess, but I'm not. I'm still mad as hell. Gamers want to other gamers to drop it so we can go back to just doing video game stuff. But just knowing there's other people who want us to just go back to being revenue generating sheep, lining the pockets of people who want to tell us how awful and misogynistic we are pisses me off. It's not going to get dropped. You want to see Social Justice? I was getting shot at with rubber bullets and tear gassed in the late 90s at WTO protests; I think I can be pissed off on the internet when people who hate me want to make money off of me. It's the least I can do.

It seems like gamers are on strike and rightly so. Now we just need some cadences/street chants.

WHOSE GAMES? OUR GAMES!

NO ETHICS! NO PEACE!

It works better when you're yelling yourself hoarse shoulder to shoulder on a city street surrounded by riot cops than on a message board. But yeah, that's about how pissed off I am.
 

BiscuitTrouser

Elite Member
May 19, 2008
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I thought 4chan was alright in my book after vivian james. I liked the concept, i liked the idea. So i thought, lets go to /v/, it seems like a cool place after all and hey i dont mind the usage of "fag" all the time, i aint THAT sensitive despite being a tumblr goer.

first thread "Theres an interesting/attractive lesbian in this game i cant fuck, stupid SJW's ruin everything".

With comments like "Bioware aim for the tumblr market, thats why they add interesting women you cant fuck, only feminists want there to be lesbians or interesting women, and being unfuckable is stupid feminist bullshit".

The upshot was "We dont want any lesbians, and if we do we dont want them to be interesting or attractive because thats SJW bullshit".

Unless the entire thread was total and awesome satire then its obviously a place for every stereotype for MRA's ever by the looks of it. I read through like 100 short comments ALL of them to this effect. All.

Instantly decided i was totally wrong nor will i take any SJW arguments from /v/ members seriously. If writing/wanting/liking an interesting lesbian character makes one a social justice warrior then the terms a joke and i claim victory in every debate regarding it ever by default. I'm still appreciative/supportive of vivian james but jegus. Terrible/stupid people can make some good art/ideas i suppose.

OT: In light of that, colour me unsurprised.
 

Huxley

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Sep 23, 2014
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BiscuitTrouser said:
Don't fall into the trap of thinking any forum is a monolith. 4chan is just a collection of anonymous people. There's no central guiding ideology. Without usernames, there's no guarantee that a single person from that thread contributed to TFYC, you could be dealing with two completely different groups of people. Also, people tend to flock to threads that they agree with. An openly sexist thread is likely to attract sexists.

Which is not to say that there isn't a great deal of unsavoury people on the board or that you ought to like it. I only warn against thinking they tar the work/opinions of supporters/creators of other people just because they shared a space. No-one really represents the site, and there was a large contingent of vocal critics there against funding TFYC and creating VJ on 4chan itself (still is).
 

Doclector

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Aug 22, 2009
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My first thought was "People were harassing Emma Watson? For one, she was queen of the internet long before Jennifer Lawrence turned up, and for another, her speech about feminism is one of the only things to recently emerge from social justice that have actually been sane and a genuine force for good"

Then I remembered this is the internet, and then I stopped being surprised at all.
 

SonicWaffle

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Oct 14, 2009
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Huxley said:
Don't fall into the trap of thinking any forum is a monolith.
Which is why it's always so amusing when posters here whinge about how left-leaning, feminist and SJW the other posters are. The Escapist is overwhelmingly left-wing progressive, for reals. Just ignore all those posts about the evils of feminism and how Zoe Quinn is the antichrist (but it totally isn't about her anymore) or accusing other posters of White Knighting. Total SJW grouphug!

OT: Amusing, but...meh. Fuckwits gonna fuckwit, and the decent people are going to get shouted down by the noisy dipshits. Rather than improving the rep of places like 4chan, better to jump ship and let the morons turn it into an echo chamber for their fuckwittery. Mud sticks. Build something new rather than trying to repair the irreperably broken.
 

Dakkagor

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Sep 5, 2011
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Mr.Doh said:
Wait, people still think that 4chan is a HIVE MIND? What are you smoking? It is simply a place where people come to to have conversation anonymously. I know that's putting it lightly, but to think it is some kind of INTERNET BOOGEYMAN, somehow powered by people in this hive mind is insane.

Oh, and do you know 4chan is actually one of the most equal place on this earth? Think about that for a second.
I don't think anyone on this thread has so far claimed 4chan is a hivemind. Infact, I thought I made it clear (with the schizophrenic Hydra analogy) that I don't think 4chan is a hivemind. Its one creature with many voices and personalities competing for attention.

And I really doubt 4chan feels very equal to some people, considering what its members come up with some days. Like coming up with fake news stories about the death of feminist celebrities, or threatening to leak naked pictures of female role models.

My point is that as long as 4chan doesn't control its idiot misogynists, people will keep treating it as the Internet bogeyman, whether it deserves that treatment or not. I'm not surprised the mods have finally dropped the hammer, even though they may have dropped it on the wrong people.
 

Muspelheim

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Apr 7, 2011
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Leave it. 4chan is the way it is. It's not a collective with a goal. Think of it as the sewage piping of the internet, where all the silt that isn't particularly welcome elsewhere usually ends up. Of course, sometimes people flush down diamond rings down there.

It, as a whole, don't need good PR or an approachable image. It's not going to run for prime minister. People will, and does, treat it as some sort of dreadful cancer of the internet, but I imagine the /b/-bers rather like that image.

I hesitate to call 4chan the internet's metaphorical toilet, but I just did, so there. I don't mean that as an entirely negative comparison, either.

(Not to mention, 4chan is more than /b/. The entire site isn't centered around trying to fit "******" into as many sentences as possible. There are many different subforums with their own customs and expectations and so on. But then again, No True Scotsman, We Have to Draw the Line Somewhere, arf arf arf)
 

Urgh76

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May 27, 2009
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Dakkagor said:
Can you at least try and make it look like this actually happened?

One look at this thread and it just looks like someone took all the shit that they hear about 4chan and just slapped it on a cleverbot conversation.

Jesus dude. Not one respectable member on there, practically any board, who could ever hope to represent anything from that site has ever said "We are x" within the past couple years
 

GJHenry

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Sep 21, 2014
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dragoongfa said:
4chan is no longer affiliated with GamerGate after the banning of the discussion a week ago.

Nice joke though.
I deliberately tried to put some to GG side by giving out arguments or points. I know my voice is small if I speak to that community, but it wouldn't hurt if I try even if the site is deemed not affiliated with GamerGate. The threads that I have bumped had been archived instantly (read only document) or pruned instantly. I still try because to tell you honestly, I learned about the movement from that site.
 

dragoongfa

It's the Krossopolypse
Apr 21, 2009
200
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GJHenry said:
dragoongfa said:
4chan is no longer affiliated with GamerGate after the banning of the discussion a week ago.

Nice joke though.
I deliberately tried to put some to GG side by giving out arguments or points. I know my voice is small if I speak to that community, but it wouldn't hurt if I try even if the site is deemed not affiliated with GamerGate. The threads that I have bumped had been archived instantly (read only document) or pruned instantly. I still try because to tell you honestly, I learned about the movement from that site.
It's useless to try and post about GG there. Certain topics and keywords are automatically scrubbed and everything GG related is the new addition to the filter.

Funny how much I learned about chan mentality in the month I visited 4chan and 8chan.

8chan is a far superior platform btw.
 

GJHenry

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Sep 21, 2014
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dragoongfa said:
GJHenry said:
dragoongfa said:
4chan is no longer affiliated with GamerGate after the banning of the discussion a week ago.

Nice joke though.
I deliberately tried to put some to GG side by giving out arguments or points. I know my voice is small if I speak to that community, but it wouldn't hurt if I try even if the site is deemed not affiliated with GamerGate. The threads that I have bumped had been archived instantly (read only document) or pruned instantly. I still try because to tell you honestly, I learned about the movement from that site.
It's useless to try and post about GG there. Certain topics and keywords are automatically scrubbed and everything GG related is the new addition to the filter.

Funny how much I learned about chan mentality in the month I visited 4chan and 8chan.

8chan is a far superior platform btw.
I still firmly believe that I could persuade two or more voices. I just discovered about the movement 2 days ago and this was during the time that censorship was at large. I manage to think of ways to post without endangering myself from keywords/filters even lasting my posts for more than the average life of a thread. I agree with you, 8chan is now more superior due to advocating free speech. Additionally, 4chan got famous enough that it opened up to "new people" which downgrades the content being posted therein.

If you put another perspective, 4chan is somewhat an entry level job. You learn a lot of things, you learn new perspective no matter how radical, and you basically learn their kind of forum etiquette.
 

Lovely Mixture

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Jul 12, 2011
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BiscuitTrouser said:
I thought 4chan was alright in my book after vivian james. I liked the concept, i liked the idea. So i thought, lets go to /v/, it seems like a cool place after all and hey i dont mind the usage of "fag" all the time, i aint THAT sensitive despite being a tumblr goer.

first thread "Theres an interesting/attractive lesbian in this game i cant fuck, stupid SJW's ruin everything".

With comments like "Bioware aim for the tumblr market, thats why they add interesting women you cant fuck, only feminists want there to be lesbians or interesting women, and being unfuckable is stupid feminist bullshit".

The upshot was "We dont want any lesbians, and if we do we dont want them to be interesting or attractive because thats SJW bullshit".

Unless the entire thread was total and awesome satire then its obviously a place for every stereotype for MRA's ever by the looks of it. I read through like 100 short comments ALL of them to this effect. All.

Instantly decided i was totally wrong nor will i take any SJW arguments from /v/ members seriously. If writing/wanting/liking an interesting lesbian character makes one a social justice warrior then the terms a joke and i claim victory in every debate regarding it ever by default. I'm still appreciative/supportive of vivian james but jegus. Terrible/stupid people can make some good art/ideas i suppose.

OT: In light of that, colour me unsurprised.

Unless /v/ changed in the last 3 months, I think you've misread their views.

Let me tell you my understandable impression of /v/'s issues with Bioware.

Bioware focuses on diversity and broad-appeal before good writing, and any criticism is either ignored (they admitted they don't even browse the forums anymore) or ruled as unfair criticism. To the whole of /v/ (as well as myself at this point), Bioware's writing died at Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 was the dropping of the 2nd shoe.

In short, Bioware and Bioware's audience has become the "diversity for the sake of diversity."

There is a portion of /v/ that actually WANTS visually attractive and diverse characters (these people are likely supporting TFYC), but they also feel that the SJWs in the audience will be critical of characters looking too pretty and showing skin. It doesn't help that Bioware's models are generally ugly these days.