4chan’s Chaos Theory

Vanessa Grigoriadis, Vanity Fair:

In this explanation, 4chan seems so innocent. After all, it’s Facebook that is now using facial-recognition software to identify people in candid photos. But then you go look at 4chan, and it’s a weird world (not that anybody is blaming Poole, any more than they do Zuckerberg for Facebook’s content). About a third of the traffic on the site goes to a board called “/b/,” also called “random.” And it’s definitely random. The quintessential troll board, /b/ is a bizarre mix of topics such as hacking, porn (including really messed-up porn like furry porn and “lolis,” which is a Japanese portmanteau for kiddie-porn anime), odd stuff like horse penises painted tie-dye colors, and everything else that can be found buried deep inside a certain type of fragile adolescent male ego: pain over unrequited love, abusive parents, racism, sexism, and the searing sensation of isolation that comes with never fitting in. One member described his involvement in the site this way: “I was a lonely teenage hate machine, with a new computer and an old routine.”

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[via loving winter]