A study on 4chan’s culture, history, and future through the lens of identity in a hostile online space. 10 years later, it proves to be just as apt but, unfortunately, far more broadly applicable.
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I can tell none of these researchers have actually been on 4chan because most of this type of behavior is only found on /b/ and /pol/. Pretty much all of the other boards stay focused on the topic at hand and rarely get the troll/sexist/racist posts.
I’ve been interested in the degree to which this is true, so I did a sample of some other boards. I always picked the first thread per board to avoid cherry picking results.
- /fit/ had a dick size thread that obviously turned sexist
- /mu/ had a kpop thread, it seemed okay
- /an/ had a big cat general with nice photographs in it :)
- /g/ had an AI chatbot general. I only skimmed the beginning and that already had outright pedophilia in it.
- /a/ had an Evangelion thread with a mix of genuine discussion and softcore coomer pics of the underage girls in it
- /c/ was just cute pics of an anime girl
- /int/ discussed taking showers surprisingly
- /his/ had a thread about Anne Frank, with some users posting antisemitic content and others pushing back against it
After those I got tired. Overall I’d say the SFW boards are a very mixed bag, with some of them actually being nice.