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stay woke (quokk.au)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/peoplemastodon
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[–] 2 points 9 months ago (5 children)

And? 4chan was a shithole. I don't know why I'd be defensive over it.

I just thinking blaming edgelord neckbeards with terminal online syndrome for the current political landscape is a cop-out and naive at BEST.

If that's a defensive position to take of 4chan your bar is extremely low.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)

    There is a lot of blame to go around but 4ch was the face of it and the place to foment, it's not a cop-out to suggest that in the same capacity GamerGate was the direct project of Steve Bannon there is a degree of "culture-bending" by people who see the culture's stress points. The scars go back to the foundation of the country sure, but people actively work to keep the wounds open and weeping. How do they do that? Were they supposed to take power through one-off wing nuts like Timothy McVeigh, Randy Weaver, William Luther Pierce? Those guys could be incendiary but they couldn't penetrate the culture itself, the right had to come up with a way to sell their shit in the 21st century. 4chan brought them all onto the information superhighway, merging the culture of Something Awful, Stormfront, and every contrian-filled anime BBS board. It doesn't all trace back to Epstein but it does all trace back to class war, white supremacy, sex trafficking, and patriarchal chauvanism, and these were the tools available to them.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    I think I agree with everything you said except that 4chan was the face of it. Even in the digital realm alone, there are far larger and far more toxic avenues, and one of the largest is staring at most everyone in the face every day. Facebook has been far worse imo than 4chan could ever dream to be, for the very same reasons 4chan is condemned.

    I'll concede that could be my subjective viewpoint tho based on my interactions with both of them.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    A cop-out from what?

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Appropriately attributing blame to those who perpetuate it. It is possible that 4chan was a useful tool, but 4chan itself is hardly invested it keeping everyone divided to pull people away from actual issues.

    They also pale in comparison to the influence political leaders, mass media, and billionaires have.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    But the internet is mass media.

    Billionaires that want to influence people find them in places like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and yes, 4chan.

    The fact that 4chan is a wild west, rules-less zone is why nazis congregate there the most (or used to, Twitter is basically rules-less now), and that's why it was able to operate as a cultural think-tank.

    I take it back, I don't think you're defensive, I think you just find the idea of funny green frogs unraveling democracy too embarassing to consider.

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