Order and Chaos in 4chan

*I’m sorry for the lack of posting, being a college student can be rough. I’ve been thinking and fleshing out ideas for future posts and I hope to write them soon. Thank you, for your patience, loyalty and understanding.

There’s a discussion that has been generated by moot’s recent inclusion in Time’s Most Influential List, about 4chan. I’m sure most people who read this blog are aware of 4chan.org‘s existence, and realize that the inclusion of moot has the potential to ruin or make 4chan into a completely new entity. If you know about 4chan, just scroll down until you see the picture of the kitten (after of course, you click the read more button).

This picture is actually related, for once.

For those of you who are unaware of 4chan, please click on link above. That’s not 4chan, that was something that was born out of 4chan. RickRoll’D, an Internet meme, along with dozens of others are born out of 4chan as posters post anonymously about whatever they want. The most famous section of 4chan is the /b/ directory, or the ‘Random’ board. In this board, users can post whatever they feel like (In other areas posters are confined by the subject of discussion: i.e; video games, anime, etc) as long as it doesn’t violate the few ‘rules’ 4chan has. The official rules are as follow:

1. Do not upload, post, discuss, request, or link to, anything that violates local or United States law. This will be severely punished and strictly enforced.
2. If you are under the age of 18, or it is illegal for you to view the materials contained on this website, discontinue browsing immediately.
3. Do not post the following outside of /b/: Trolls, flames, racism, off-topic replies, uncalled for catchphrases, macro image replies, indecipherable text (example: “lol u tk him 2da bar|?”), anthropomorphic (“furry”), grotesque (“guro”), or loli/shota pornography.
4. The posting of personal information or calls to invasion is prohibited. Advertising (all forms) is also not welcome—this includes any type of referral linking.
5. All boards that default to the Burichan (blue) theme are to be considered “work safe”. Violators may be temporarily banned and their posts removed.
6. The quality of posts is extremely important to this community. Contributors are encouraged to provide high-quality images and informative comments.
7. Submitting false reports or otherwise abusing the report system will result in a ban of indeterminate length.
8. Complaining about 4chan (its policies, moderation, etc.) on the imageboards can result in post deletion and banishment. The administrator will address your questions, comments, complaints, and concerns via e-mail.
9. Ban evasion will result in permanent bans. No exceptions—DO NOT EVADE YOUR BAN. Instead, wait and appeal it!
10. No excess spamming or flooding of any kind.
11. Impersonating the 4chan administrator, moderators, or janitors is strictly forbidden.
12. Remember: The use of 4chan is a privilege, not a right. The 4chan staff reserves the right to revoke access and remove content without notice

The most ‘free’ and area that gets the most attention is the /b/ thread. The /b/ thread is the ‘Random’ section of the site and has the most lenient rules.  Users who post there are loving referred to as /b/tards. If the Internet is somehow governed, /b/ represents anarchy.  My favorite description of /b/ is ‘the cesspool of the internet’, and is often used to describe the content of 4chan in the media. It’s important to highlight here that 4chan, and especially the random section is only for 18 year olds and above, and is considered an adult website. Children should not be participating in 4chan as it is clearly laid out in the Terms of Service (ToS) [Rule #2 listed above].

In summary the most ‘prohibited-oriented’ rules are as follow:

1. Do not post child pornography
2. Do not attack other websites (Denial of Service Attacks)
3. Do not make threats in real life
4. Do not pose as a 4chan administrator, moderator or janitor

Other things 4chan is known for (besides the Rickroll I highlighted before), is LOLcats, hacking Sarah Palin’s email account (Although users of 4chan claim he was a ‘newfag’ or a new poster), and Anonymous vs. Scientology.

Ok Let's Get to my Point....

You might be wondering why I’ve named this piece ‘Order and Chaos in 4chan’. Well I’m aware of the attention that the media will have with respect 4chan if moot wins Time’s Most Influential Person. My purpose here is to prove to you that 4chan isn’t as anarchical as one may believe, it in fact has rules and laws what can be attributed to people’s own moral compass.There is order within 4chan, and I hope to highlight it.

When people first visit /b/, they are often disgusted as racism, porno-graphical materials, and general hate is rampant. As I mentioned above, people often think, ‘this is the pinnacle of human indency’ as people post without guilt or connection to their words. People are free from any repercussions as they are unlikely, or seem unlikely that they will be attributed to their post. This really allows ‘anything goes’ mentality.

When people accuse the /b/ section of being the ‘cesspool of the internet’ they are forgetting something that is important. Anything that is posted there is quickly forgotten, posts are gone just as quickly as they are made. Also, the only way people are negatively affected by the content of /b/ is if they actually read it. Just by posting no one is actually endangered. When people are actually endangered, the community as a whole is awakened and mobilized to protect people.

The Scientology Case is important and is probably the greatest mobilization of Anonymous, but I’m afraid Egmont is much more familiar with it, so I will let him discuss it (If he chooses to). Instead, I will highlight Jake Brahm, Dusty the Cat, and 4chan loyalty.

Jack Brahm was 20 years old when he posted on the /b/ that he was planning on  bombing football stadiums in the United States. Eventually, the Homeland Security was notified, and Jake Brahm was found and arrested. He was put in jail for six months as the FBI and other investigatory agencies concluded that it wasn’t an imminent threat. He posted the message which included: “The explosions would be lauded by Osama bin Laden, and the aftermath of the near simultaneous blasts would be civil wars around the globe. Global economies will screech to a halt. General chaos will rule” [Emphases added] on 40 other websites, including 4chan. This is in direct violation of the law, so I will like to point to other cases before I make highlight the order within 4chan.

As I mentioned above, 4chaners and /b/tards love cats. So when a user poster images of abusing his cat, the community responded and found out his identity, and saved the cat. While some may say that by posting images of abusing an animal is clear violation of the law (and thus rule #1), the users of 4chan and the /b/tards were no way required to report this offense to the police, they did it on their own. Truly this is evidence of some moral obligation that posters of 4chan feel.

With the recent addition of moot into Time’s Most Influential People (I’m sorry, this will be the last time I mention this, I swear), 4chan has been awakened. Inside 4chan there has been numerous attempts to upvote moot, and to downvote the competition. As of writing, moot is in the lead with 80%  favorably with 2nd place going to Rain with 29% favorably. That’s a drastic difference, but it’s not the first and last time Time’s Most Influential People vote has been altered due to some craze loyality (See Shigeru Miyamoto, Rain and Stephen Colbert). Of course, the voting is taking place on the internet, who does Time think will actually vote?  Lastly…

They fight...for whats right.

One of the most popular phrases on 4chan is “4chan is not your personal army”.  Often people are mistaken, by the news of Sarah Palin’s hacked email and the attacks against Scientology, that 4chan users just like to cause trouble. This is not the case at all. /b/tards do not like to be bossed around, and most don’t have an interest in spreading hate around the Internet. Like I mentioned above, they may post racist, sexist, pornographical images but they aren’t hurting anyone. These images are just intended for the viewers gain, as they attempt to cheer people up.

While they do exhibit loyalty to the board itself (Something that moot needs to realize), they have no loyalty to each other, and that is because the anonymity that 4chan has. The users are dedicated to the bigger purpose of the boards ‘being’, than to each other. I believe that the Denial of Service attacks that happen to 4chan are not attributed to users of 4chan, but instead users of other boards. To further highlight the order of 4chan, the case of Jack Brahm, 4chan didn’t care if the threat was fake or not, they actually did not want anyone to get hurt. Dusty the Cat is another perfect example as users went the extra mile to track down the report themselves as they felt a moral obligation. There is order within 4chan, and it’s self regulated and beautiful.

From this, we can make conclusions about the nature of mankind, but I may save that for another time.

-PushDustIn