Big inspiration for the question is the assertion I’ve seen on Lemmy a few times that this user base is as bad/misogynistic/hateful. But also just curious.
Some number of years in my teens browsing mostly /b/.
Looking back it’s interesting to see how much the company you spend your time in makes you become like them. It pretty successfully radicalized me into many stereotypical right-wing beliefs. Then when Trump got elected I over-corrected to the other extreme. I’ve since settled somewhere in the middle and now it’s curious to see this exact same influence on other people I hang with. I was under the illusion that the thoughts and beliefs were mine but they weren’t. I simply adopted the views of the group wholesale. Then I discarded them all and did the exact same thing again from the other extreme. We’re so gullible.
Love the introspection here, way to grow :)
People assume propaganda is obvious, its actually very subtle when used effectively, breaking from a hive mind is difficult as, as humans we want accepted. I think a lot of radicalization is the exploitation of loneliness
Propaganda is not a term I’d personally use. Makes it sound more systematic than I believe it is. I’m sure that on every social media platform there are also the state-level actors wanting to put their thumb on the scale but how I see it is that there’s simply this Overton window of acceptable speech and views on each platform and it’s mostly set up by the loud minority of “activists” on that platform. People grow accustomed to encountering their views there and it becomes normalized and creates the illusion that this is a commonly held view among the userbase there independent of whether it really is. People quickly learn that expressing certain sentiment reliably gets them praise and approval whereas others result in them being attacked and ostracized. This then leads to an echo chamber where that small minority with the most extreme views basically holds the rest of the platform as hostage. If one tries to bring in nuance it tends to get viewed as opposition and that person gets labeled as the other. This leads them to then just self-censoring, remaining silent or simply parroting the same cliches even if they don’t agree on the details. It is in a way exploitation of loneliness because group membership is what it ultimately boils down to: if you want to be accepted to the group then here’s the stack of views you’re to agree with - please sign below or get the fuck out.
Good job being introspective.
None, ever, because I’m not a degenerate Nazi fuckbag
Yeah, mostly this.
My only exposure was screenshots of /r/ and /b/ posted to reddit
Not everyone who uses Lemmy is a tankie, right? Yeah the worst users on the 4chan spectrum are literally the worst humans, agreed. Used to be plenty of good shit on there though. Granted I used it most a decade+ ago. I’m a leftist and nothing I’ve ever seen there has swayed me from that stance.
None. I just know 4Chan from memes and !greentext@sh.itjust.works
I used to be a regular on /tv/ and /r9k/ between 2011-2015, I was even a tripfriend on /r9k/ for a while. It was very entertaining, all the interesting schizos were on the chans at some point. I even “drew” my own wojaks and pepes, lol, but only once each because I have no artistic talent, I’m just a big yapper.
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Outspoken monotheist, Muslim persuasion. 🤓 And I wasn’t then, lol, that’s a more recent development. At the same time, much of the content was just depressed teens being edgy, not necessarily evil or overly malicious. /tv/ was basically all memes! Let’s not forget the chans had blue and red boards and blue boards were sfw. Fashion, cooking, technology, and many other boards were pretty “normal”.
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Peace, brother. ✌️
/r9k/ was always a fucking trip. I only ever lurked but I used to frequent lot’s of boards. Now I solely see if theres a decent meme to find in a ylyl thread once or twice a week.
I lurked most of the time, especially when the captcha system got out of hand.
Mu, co, tv, r9k, trv, TG, v, fit, ck also, po & toy when I wanted something I wasn’t interested in doing but wanted to see something other people liked. Also the porn boards.
I visited pol to see news, but didn’t agree with the opinions there.
The site has a bad reputation due to b and pol. The other boards have a lot of interesting new culture stuff and honest opinions that are pragmatic and nihilist.
Unfortunately lots of astroturfing also happened there.
I also hung out in 420chan and britchan. Those were a lot slower, and RIP. It’s just a nice format for a board.
I forgot about 420chan
That’s because marijuana affects memory.
Lmao I never went there and hardly partook so that’s probably more the case
/b/ and /v/ semi randomly, /tg/ more when it was created. Then I took a year off snd the place was ruined with ragecomics and all the other zoomer bs.
Better question is “What year did you visit 4chan” because some people will say /b/, some will say “when /b/ was good” and others with say “/b/ was never good”.
I remember coming back some years later and everyone was talking about /r9k/ and /b/ was old news.
Look, all I’m saying is just triforce. That’ll say how long they were on there for.
▲ ▲▲HOW THE HELL DO YOU TRIFORCE?
/p/ (photography), /g/ (computer)
i used a filter in 4chanx to hide some words i find offending. it’s true there’s many hateful/misogynistic/racist people there, but there were also many interesting stuff. they have a very minimal moderation policy, i’m not sure if it’s a good thing.
haven’t went there much lately though.
/g/, because it was one of the only places I could ask tech questions without needing an account
I frequented /b/ a few years ago, and i would frequently see threads with nazi stuff, white supremacist bullshit, maga glazing, some actual delusional conspiracies (those where real fun) and just to spice it up, the occasional neighbourhood racist going on a bender. But all of the above was only like 10% of the traffic, the rest is litterally all porn and not even good porn ngl. If i had to say the stories are worse than the actual board, not a good place still but not as atrocious as its made out to be. Pretty much instagram reels but dialed up a bit
Exactly 0 minutes and 0 seconds.
Zero.
Used to look at /b/ fairly frequently. Eventually though it just turned into constant really boring porn (like, “rate my friend/girlfriend/sister” and a load of boring pictures of an attractive person who is almost certainly unknown to the OP)
It contained a lot of new, funny stuff, before then. A lot of racism and paedos, too, but I was never easily swayed on anything so it didn’t change my views. Back then I thought a lot of most extreme views were just ragebait, and didn’t take them seriously, due to how far away they were from any views I’d hear elsewhere (online or in real life) by serious people. With the Nazis coming out of the woodwork with Trump, I don’t know how true it was. I still tend to think quite a lot was not reflective of the views of the person posting it, but realise that a fair amount will have been.
I have never frequented the more mundane boards as I always felt like I could find that stuff somewhere else easier to use.
Yeah I agree with all of that.
I like ttrpgs so that board was fun
I also like arguing with people so /b/ was fun for me, but yeah “asshole of the internet” is polite term for the place.
I used to lurk /v/ and post semiregularly on /vr/.
Those are the most tolerant boards, and you can still get called a slur for liking ‘the wrong’ Pokémon game lmao.
I remember checking out /lgbt/ in college, and I think my mental health is still recovering.
