hello,
I have been diving into these anonymous boards and stuff. I wanted to know if anyone use it for any actual purposes like for getting some tech knowledge or something?
No, I never went down that rabbit hole, which is interesting in hindsight. I went straight from old-school forums and chatrooms (where I’m sure I was very obviously a child) to Reddit.
By the time I was hearing about it it was just “that Nazi pedo incel site”.
Because it is
From what I heard, there was more going on initially. It’s just that that’s what tends to collect in totally unmoderated spaces, and 4chan fell victim to it.
I used it when I was younger. I grew up and realized that it was not good to be exposed to that culture. Even when viewing it through a lens. Anonymity brings out the worst in people, and it’s infectious.
I keep a copy of 4chanGPT around; trained on the board. It is not very bright or useful. It’s ribaldry and politically incorrect sarcasm is mildly amusing. However, its primarily useful because it does not have the safety alignment training and mechanisms that all other mainstream large language models have. Using 4chanGPT, I can see the structures that are truly persistent across models, their purpose, and their functions. It is only a minor thing I rarely use.
I’m surprised it doesn’t just output the n-word non-stop.
Then you sorely misunderstand what 4chan is about and hyperfocus on the offensive parts.
You’re right. A real bot trained on 4chan would be too busy arguing about circumcision.
I think i’m missing the context about the circumcision thing. Where did you get that from exactly?
I was a /b/tard almost 20 years ago, but in 2006ish the site got a lot of public attention, so there was an influx of people who were there mostly just to be edgy. Sure, it was always a matter of digging through a trash heap to find one edible rice grain, but the trash heap grew larger and the rice grains became more rare.
By 2008 it had mostly devolved into recycled memes, presumably from people trying to fit in, and the occasional CP/gore and other things posted for shock value. Around this time I also became somewhat of a normie and figured the board didn’t really have much that appealed to me anymore.
I was a casual /b/tard around that time. I never saw CP, luckily, or maybe I just skipped those threads by reflex, but a lot of gore went by. There was a lot of fun image macros and stuff. Bur after a while I dropped out of it. I think it was about the same time I got really addicted to stumbleupon. Stumbleupon was my first tailored algorithm and my dopamine receptors haven’t been the same since.
I went on a few boards. /wg/ and /po/ is interesting. (Do not put an l there’s that’s a mistake) /g/ was interesting at times. I visit it a lot less these days, but I still check /wg/ for wallpapers.
I know that the chans were used for orchestrating some of the various harrassment campaigns that have happened throughout the years, including most of the gamergate BS. They’re such chaotic spaces I can’t imagine trying to pull off any prolonged actions on them, and the automatic pseudonymity really brings out the seediest people possible.
I’ve been using 4chan for longer than Reddit and Lemmy combined. Mostly /vg/ (games), /g/ (tech) and /a/ (anime, manga).
Mostly for discussion. /g/ and /vg/ are decent for asking stuff if there’s a general about the topic that you want to ask info about, you want a relatively fast answer, and it isn’t something overly asked (e.g. “which distro should I use?” “INSTALL GENTOO” tier). Just make sure to not trust anything said there.
Other boards are typically too slow (like /ck/) or cesspools (like /b/,
/b corta//v/, /pol/).No but I’ve always been curious but never found an app for iOS and I just can’t be bothered using the browser for sites I would use a lot.
Back in like 2009-2011.
Pretty sure it did lasting psychological damage, would not recommend 🙂
Any time I’ve ventured into 4chan, it’s mainly been for the lulz. I never gained any knowledge that could be called “useful” from the experience.
IDK, it doesn’t seem like a worthwhile way to spend your time, especially if you’re looking to gain something from it.
I mean, if you’re bored and just want to get some cheap laughs or something, I guess it’s useful, but actual factual information? Not so much.
I’m not 12, so…. No.
it has its moments and used to be less bad. nowadays you have to dodge nazis and some people genuinely off the deep end to use it and its simply not worth it.
some brave souls trudge that shithole for the rare gold nugget and post them to greentext comms. you aint missing much else.
YLYL posts have some great memes. Until the typical cunts get on there and post the and stupid shit over and over
I used to in the past (back when it was much more common to peruse /b/ and have kiddie porn slapped right in your eyeballs at a moment’s notice…not that its probably changed much over the years lol). Now-a-days I just use it for the torrent board since I’m a data hoarder and they throw up the occasional interesting collection of stuff.
Ooh, they added a torrent board? Gotta check it out.
- Fellow datahoarder.
There a lemmy spot for that? I found the data hoarding community on reddit just before they killed 3rd party apps and have been wanting to find my people again since.
I used it for a little over a decade (2005-2016) it’s a truly awful place, you’ll gain nothing from the experience.
My name is Boxxy
Reading that made me feel like I lost The Game. That’s a bit of Internet history I am happy to forget.
I won’t moralize because that never stopped anyone from doing anything, ever :)
What I will say is, with the vastness of the internet available to me, I would not personally choose to sift through the reams of malice and hate to find the useful grains that no doubt exist, buried.
Plenty of other permissive fora where even somewhat radical ideas can be expressed but without the embrace of genocide, Neo-Nazism and rape.
