Anyone still here from 2003? Was 4chan different then?
Do you wish you could go back?
2005 reporting in. It's a very different place, everyone takes themselves so damn seriously and you can't just be stupid or silly without getting called a troll or something. That goes for pretty much everywhere though, online and off. And yes, I'd go back to 2005 in a heartbeat, though mostly for reasons unrelated to 4chan.
We used to joke about how the internet was serious business so much that someone started listening and believing it.
>>25351071
That sounds way more fun. I get called a troll a lot for being stupid.
>>25351071
Another 2005fag here.
The absolute worst thing is that chan "culture" leaked out and infected the rest of the internet. You really can't appreciate the effect this had without having browsed both 4chan and regular forums and seen the change for yourself. Around 2007 is when I first started noticing other internet forums start adopting the lingo and memetic crap and taking it at face value.
It's horrifying. It's like making up a joke religion with your middle school friends and watching it become a global cult collecting sacrifices on live television.
>>25350850
I would go back to 2003 to play w3 back in its original days and rape ass, not for this shit website fuck it all.
2003 faggot here
No racism in the start
There was ironic racism after 05
When news came in it became real.
>>25351248
What do you think about the internet being minimized to just a few major sites? Forum culture is pretty much dead, with only this site somehow surviving and even thriving at some points.
>>25351108
Somewhere along the line the youtubers and shit decided "troll" meant "someone with a different viewpoint/understanding" instead of back then as well.
>>25351248
This is really true actually. Participating in chats and shit pre-4chan was really different, and it actually felt like real conversations. Afterwards it's all meme shit and online jargon. LOL and BRB and stuff actually meant things.
> It's like making up a joke religion with your middle school friends and watching it become a global cult
Let's not get into the whole pastafarian shit.
>>25351306
Nice revisionism, faggot.
We were always at war with Eurasia, right?
I really, really, really miss the pre-2007 era. Almost everything seems to have gotten more and more insane since that year.
>>25351338
It's a travesty, but it's really only an extension of what has been happening since the early days of the internet when everything was on BBSes and newsgroups. Old communities die, and new communities take their place. The only difference is that the new big "communities" that have popped up since the mid 2000s are owned by billionaires who want your soul and won't rest until everyone is jacked in to their hubs.
Sadly, one of the ways to get a hold of that old feeling of community is to find a general thread on one of the chans for an interest or hobby. Threads on /vg/ quickly create their own culture, and while it doesn't approach how old forums were, it's still much much closer than a Facebook group or subreddit could ever hope to be.
I'm here from 2008 can anyone tell me how shit that year was.
>>25351449
You came during the first popularity boom.
Bad times.
>>25351071
2007 here, the place was much better without tumblr jackshit though it didn't last long from when I got involved
the internet definitely started appropriating 4chan jackshit like bandwagoning, greentexting and probably many more things that don't come to mind
most of stuff aside from raids
>>25351446
Yeah, I see what you mean. It's fucking weird that people use reddit and see themselves as part of a community when everything they submit is being evaluated, including comments in a discussion. Same with facebook, twitter, etc..
Literally every oldfag says racism was ironic.Is this real? Even my boyfriend whos been here since 07-09 tells me this shit
>>25350850
I remember a time when memes were called image macros.
I remember a time before quest threads took up half of /tg/.
I remember a time before the word cuck was integrated into board culture.
I remember a time before gamergate.
I remember when you could have a genuine discussion about video games on /vr/ (lasted about 6 months, but it was nice).
Things were better then, but of course every generation says that.
>>25351248
Holy shit, I miss old message boards. I got on 4chan in 2007 and have been on here pretty consistently, but it was message boards I grew up on the most. I made good friends on those fantasy forums I used to post on as a kid, some my age, some a couple years older. They were my only genuine friends back then. I haven't had as strong of connections since. I wish I would have stayed in touch with them all. I wonder what they're doing now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
>>25351650
>my boyfriend
kys my woman
>>25351793
Those aren't very oldfag experiences at all though.
It was dumb then and it's dumb now. The only difference is that it was funny before instead of a hugbox for virgin baby manlets.
>>25351248
Another anon phrased it pretty. "Stuff like Pure Pwnage made fun of hyper-competitive gaming culture. Outsiders saw that and assumed that that's what they were supposed to behave like to fit in. After a few years that behavior became the norm instead of something to be mocked."
>>25351368
Try posting an argument that says more than "I disagree."
>>25351793
>I remember a time before the word cuck was integrated into board culture
>I remember a time before gamergate.
christ, this is what makes someone old now? that shit feels so weird and recent to me. i've really wasted a lot of years of my life in this place, wow
>>25351793
Most of this shit happened this year and 2014 lmao
>>25351793
>I remember a time before the word cuck was integrated into board culture.
>I remember a time before gamergate.
So 2014?
These threads make me sad for two reasons.
>I'm nostalgic for an Internet that will never come back and can't be recreated.
and
>I have spent my youth on the Internet that my only happy, nostalgic memories are of time wasted on message boards
>>25351650
Yeah. It's a thing. We'd call each other niggers and spics and whatever racial slur there was, but nobody got offended because, as I said earlier, the internet wasn't very serious business. The vast majority of people just said shit for amusement and didn't literally mean it when calling someone a double nigger or something like that.
Irony permeated every bit of board culture there was back on /b/ years ago. We literally made fun of everything, including ourselves.
>>25351817
I feel you. Me and 5 other guys are still on a zetaboards forum, we met almost a decade ago.
>>25351071
2006
>We used to joke about how the internet was serious business so much that someone started listening and believing it.
i think a good way of looking at how this place came to be the way it is is that we joked about certain stuff so much that people started believing it.
if we sit around and ironically act like idiots we will sooner-or-later become surrounded by genuine idiots who see what you are doing and believe themselves to be in kindred company.
which is pretty much what's happened
It's not that old, but I really miss the early days of [s4s]. Everything from the mockery of SRS (are they even around anymore?) to the dubsposting to thinking, "shit, what do we do now" on April 2nd to the discovery of topkek and the founding of topkek.tk and lupchan and the first newspapers and kek vs lel and everything else. It's stagnant now, but [s4s] used to be nothing but new, a blindingly self-aware collaborative work of postmodern art.
>>25351861
Did you make that image?because it's shit
>>25352060
i think a different element of it was that we were also all generally a lot younger than we wanted to admit at the time and thought being edgy was funny. and then there was the added novelty of being able to anonymously post "niggers tongue my anus" on the internet and suffer no actual consequences
>>25351861
Too fast of a progression
The feminist shit didnt come til like 2011 really
>>25350850
2004 here, the internet was better then
lot more fun than it is now
i really miss that time
mmorpgs were better too
>>25351071
this so much
taking things serious used to be a joke
all in all, i might be a nostalgic fool
i dont like change anyway
might be autistic
but i miss the early 2000's
>>25352056
To think, the average person when they think of nostalgic memories think of spending time with their friends and childhood girlfriend, losing their virginity, taking drugs, going out. These are experiences the majority of people have in their lives. What do we have? Wasting our lives playing shitty MMOs and browsing the internet. Suddenly I am not so nostalgic with my memories
>>25350850
Came in around end of middle school/beginning of high school, around 2006/2007.
I really miss flash animations, they had a certain simple charm.
Fuck I still remember shit like flashplayer/ugoplayer.
>>25352190
The internet in 2003-2006 was GOAT. Also a lot of spirte comics, flash, and creative shit
>>25352207
>I really miss flash animations, they had a certain simple charm.
if you ever want to feel weird go look at the front page of albinoblacksheep now.
>>25352179
Do you think the average age of /b/ has increased with time? I started browsing as a teenager because I thought it was cool, but it could be that kids aren't attracted to it now. This is pure speculation, but it's possible that the 4chan window is closed and almost everybody who's interested is already inside.
4chan died in the winter of 2013/2014.
There's a definite sharp divide between the 4chan culture before and after which we are living in today.
I remember discovering /b/ back in 2007 when I was 11. I also remember my first fap which happened shortly thereafter.
>>25352179
You can't deny that the social and political culture changed to make everything more politicized and polarized, which made everything on the internet seem like serious business.
I remember when 4chan was fairly left-leaning politically. Sure there was always racism, but it was never malicious in the way that it is on 4chan today. /new/ was the turning point.
>>25352256
Not him but I honestly think that reddit spills so many people over here with shit like /r/4chan that the popularity will just grow and grow
>>25352273
It wasn't just 4chan. I remember a lot of communities on the internet turning inwards and cannibalizing their own users, as well as maliciously attacking other communities. It was like the internet was in a state of war with itself.
Anyone remember what happened during that winter?
>>25351865
BUEN mimema you bango mango nigger faggot kys
>>25352256
i teach high school and have heard kids discuss 4chan, /mu/ in particular.
i also get the sense that tumblr (which high schoolers fucking fawn over) has introduced a lot of people to 4chan, just because tumblr also positions itself as a clear element of "internet culture" and talks about itself as such... and you can't really claim to discuss internet culture without at least mentioning what happens/happened here
i don't think there's that same draw that there was ca. 2005-2006, where 4chan represented a place on the internet you could do retarded shit with other anonymous internet people and your parents wouldn't find out. teenagers today get a lot of other opportunities for anonymous internet identities, and they're persistent (unlike anon posting here) which appeals to people with egos.
i also think it's generally true that teenagers today are a lot worse at using the internet beyond the most surface-level activity (twitter, instagram, tumblr sometimes, facebook?) because we were early adopters of technology and had to figure it out as it developed, but now it's all so user-friendly that there's no need to have to learn about the internet the way that we did
i'm rambling but tl;dr there are kids still coming into /b/ to this day for some of the same reasons, but it's via different media and a lot of the context is different
>>25352221
yeah, remember ytmnd and newgrounds?
wasn't the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny from around that time?
and nigga stole my bike with all the edits
i remember how amazed i was at ragnarok online, was my first mmo experience
i couldn't comprehend that so many people were enjoying that game together
then came ffxi, with all it's awesome drama
i've never been more emotionally invested in a game than i was in that japanese crap
holy shit, the feels were so deep
people complaining about bad players or not getting a drop or stealing a mob on allakhazam or vnboards
dont even get me started on irc
sigh, good times
>>25351446
Facebook groups have always felt like reddit, where everyone is just posting links and there's no real discussion outside of the occasional e-drama.
I was a 2006 summerfag.
boy do I miss the internet in general around those times.
I miss my friends.
>tfw a forum i posted on died recently
>everybody but me is on facebook now
>>25352357
>there are kids still coming into /b/ to this day for some of the same reasons
Is /b/ still the common entry point for most new users? I look at that board now and I see nothing of what it was in 2007 when I started coming here.
>>25352315
Shit, I remember all those threads making fun of Christians. Posting that today would make you a literal reddit fedora.
>>25352280
>people on this website are born in 1996
Fuck me I'm old
>>25352307
there was and is definitely some kind of cultural shift, i agree, but in many ways i feel like it's largely an internet-centric thing and we just feel it most strongly because we are people who spend a lot of time on here, remember how it used to be, etc.
internet culture is also so mainstream now that changes in the way things work here tend to cross over into irl.
i think it's some of what's at the heart of gamergate or whatever, and while that entire movement/thing is a legitimate ouroborous of autism, i do kind of sympathize with people who get wrapped up in "culture war" kind of shit because they miss the old days of the internet
>>25352421
Sounds about right. Gamergate destroyed the old internet culture.
And it did really pick up in winter 2013 like >>25352273 said, which is why everyone started seeing SJW's and other political boogiemen everywhere.
>>25352357
>a lot worse at using the internet beyond the most surface-level activity
I would make fun of them, but I barely use anything outside of 4chan + some auxiliary websites like soundcloud or warosu. It's embarrassing, but unless I need to solve a problem I have no reason to leave the bubble.
>>25352360
ytmnd was how i branched over into 4chan back when i was in middle school or something
i actually feel like project chanology was the first time 4chan really dropped the "internet is serious business" meme and genuinely tried to make it serious business. like, yeah, obviously scientology is evil but it was like a vocal element of this website decided it was time to move a thing that only worked on the internet into real life.
>I will never go back to spending everyday after school in text-based RPGs in fantasy message boards again
2007 here.
It was worse.
>>25352503
oh man... i remember that autistic shit
some friends in community college did that
one of them had a forum that i used to visit
i was never good at RPing though but i liked to read how others did it
that fucker went crazy, now he's a tranny that posts angry atheist videos on youtube as reply to christian channels
he even has a page on ED cause of all the cringeworthy shit he does
>>25352489
chanology made 4chan mainstream (lulz is a corruption of lol) for a lot of people.
and now they're attacking ISIS lol srs bsns
>>25352131
i too felt like s4s was a highly confusing and insanely futuristic collaborative art work. it was amazing. it's also amazing how much lel/kek has spread out of that one little board
/r/circlejerk had a similar moment when le reddit was very new
>>25352199
Well I'm happy with what I could get at the time. Certainly if I could go out and have friends and a girlfriend and all that good stuff, I would have done it. That doesn't mean I have to devalue the good times I did have doing my own thing.
Well, moot and his buddies didn't know jack about administrating a website. They ran the site on the clunky Japanese code for months before making any beneficial modifications. They didn't even fix the fucked up thumbnailing.
The most obvious difference was the name/tripfag situation. The People used their SA/RH name if they were from SA, their name/trip if they were from world2ch, then trip codes as they found out about them, or nothing at all if they were from Japan. This dropped off after the first few weeks, but the concept of "omg this is an ANONYMOUS imageboard guise" probably didn't kick in until mid-2005 when shii did something autistic.
I actually met a lot of close friends through 4chan (miss you, Tragu ;_;)
>>25352615
the concept of "anonymous" being a somewhat political entity that the news talks about is staggeringly weird to me
especially when lulzsec or whatever was in the news. "anonymous is targeting [x]" was super common. like, who the fuck are these people?
i don't doubt that various cabals of internet people get together and try to do stuff, but "anonymous" is such a misleading moniker for that kind of shit. like, anons raided habbo hotel in 2006. i remember, we all sat around in a bunch of threads and talked about what we were going to do, where to form swastikas, what to wear, how to ban evade, etc.
i must have missed all the threads where we sat down and discussed how we were all going to hack kim jong un or isis or whatever.
i swear the other day i heard someone say "anonymous is officially backing bernie sanders"
>feel nostalgic from this thread
>look up one of the message boards I used to post on religiously around 2002-05
>it's all gone
Maybe it's for the best.
>>25352736
Hoping for this 2bh. I posted a lot of dumb shit with the same username that all my class mates would have recognised
>>25351071
Nobody asked you fuckface. He said 2003. Learn to fucking read.
>>25351650
a good analogy is the way people used to post CP
was everybody who posted CP on 4chan a genuine pedophile? sure, there were probably plenty. but there were also plenty of people who knew how to use 7 proxies and posted CP because it got a rise out of people and because it was an edgy thing to do on what seemed like the wild wild west of the internet
there were certainly plenty of genuine nutjob racists, but everybody sitting around calling each other "double nigger" was more often doing so because it wasn't a big deal and was just edgy humor
>>25352728
Anonymous the Official Organization split off from 4chan at some point after Chanology. I remember they formed a site called "What is the Plan" but that seems to have dissolved. It doesn't help that any script kiddy who wants to be notorious can claim to be part of Anonymous and who can disprove it?
Came here in 2006 after discovering Encyclopedia Dramatica and watching Habbo Hotel get raided. I was12.I have'nt left since. Am I part of the generation that killed 4chan?
The main thing I remember is that I very rarely have bursts of uncontrollable laughter like I used to. Maybe that's cuz I'm older.
>>25352806
right, i get that, but it's still incredibly stupid and makes talking about the internet substantially more confusing.
a bunch of people who want to whiteknight irl using the internet as a medium (i.e.
Anonymous) isn't the same thing as the collective actions of a largely-anonymous group of internet autists (i.e. us, anonymous)
>>25352806
Heard Terrorists and Islamic Extremists were infiltrating Anonymous.
>2006 anonymous: edgy kids
>2015 anonymous: sjws and terrorist in disguise
what a disturbing and frightening metamorphosis
>>25352816
>The main thing I remember is that I very rarely have bursts of uncontrollable laughter like I used to.
i too remember this
i miss the feeling i got in stomach from laughing til it hurts, some shit even had me in tears
now most funny shit doesnt even get a giggle out of me or more than a grin
fuck this thread for making me nostalgia
life was so much simpler back then
even though i felt out of place in classes and pretty much everywhere outside the house, i felt home here
I wish the internet never existed tbqh lads
lets face it it always sucked
>>25352899
>lets face it it always sucked
But that's the opposite of true.
>>25350850
No way. I love the bitter cynicism here now. If I went back, it'd be a bunch of cringeworthy memes and humour I've probably outgrown.
>>25352899
>>25352911
/b/ was always shit
pissing in a sea of piss etcnice dubs btw guys, good job
>>25352843
One possible solution is to keep doing what we do and hope for headlines like "Anonymous Harasses Children in Online Penguin Game" and "Anonymous Sends Explicit Photos to Members of Mothering Forum."
im from 2004
/b/ is the same shit full of pedos and racism
i love it to use the word "meme" back then now i hate it cuz i see it everywhere.
We see less massacres and shit like that nowadays.
chyet
>>25352942
welcome to the "4chan"/"Anonymous" dichotomy
>>25352816
>Am I part of the generation that killed 4chan?
Very literally the final nail in the coffin for old /b/ culture. The Habbo raids were always destined to kill this site, shock trolling 12 year olds in a flash chat with nigger spam and swastikas has none of the spirit or intention of the original flash chat raids into bargiko and other jp sites. It's the turning point where malicious assholes and useful idiots began to flood the site and push the worst forced memes because the concept of lurking died.
>>25352199
>losing their virginity, taking drugs, going out
still only matter because of chemicals released in your brain
how those chemicals are released has no real significance
also drugs are for hedonistic degenerates
i wish we could go somewhere and pretend its pre-2005 again
>>25353288
that is to say people that do drugs are annoying and I don't like them
>>25351948
>Those hard drives still exist.
MSPaint wasn't even big back then.
Did 4chan in 2003-2004 have any types of moral standards, or was everything allowed?
>>25352704
>shii
I wonder what he's up to nowadays.
>>25354267
didn't he join some japanese cult
>>25354295
I wouldn't know, I completely forgot he existed up until you brought him up. I wonder what all the original 4chan mods/administrators/"programmers", etc. are up to nowadays. My life has sure as shit changed a lot in the eight years I've been on here.
>>25351071
I'm a relative new fag that came in 2012 and even in three years every has become such an uppity faggot about everything that you can't have a discussion without someone being the tumblr equivalent of a red pilled tryhard.
2006 here. The place has really changed. 4chan has become too popular and has attracted a bunch of underage kids. The taboo feeling has lost it's touch about 5 years ago and it's become nothing but the same garbage reposted ever since. No OC. No raids, no fun shit like that guy with the grenade. It's just tfw no gf, ylyl, cringe/beta threats, etc. It's become a Reddit for people too hipster for Reddit.
>>25350850
4chan was small and only a few knew about it
Now everyone and there mother knows about the evil hacker 4chan.
>>25354267
He's an avid editor for Wikipedia.
>>25354237
>Did 4chan in 2003-2004 have any types of moral standards
None that could really be considered sincere. 4chan was still in its "novelty" stage at this point and its userbase consisted mostly of hardcore otakus and SomethingAwful SS, both of which gave less than a shit about morals and just wanted to be entertained.
>>25350850
>Was 4chan different then?
The internet in general was more gullible, more golly, and less cynical. 4chan was too.
Basically the people we laugh at today, we were them yesterday.
I found 4chan in 2005
it was pretty much muh secret club back then and you only posted if you were spending 24/7 on the internet, the culture was really fun since people would actually produce OC and get up to raid shenanigans, but also didn't take politics dead fucking serious like now adays
I'd say it went really down hill in about 2011, I think literally because smartphones got popular so now every normie who isnt so into internet culture they sit at the desktop all day can log on throughout their day and have fun reposting memes, taking everything very seriously and being a generic boring retard in general
I can't even really use internet culture as an example if you havn't been on the internet for at least a decade since what I mean basically is forum culture, but that's pretty much dead and internet culture now adays means complete normie things like buzzfeed
Found in 2008 but only got addicted in 2009-10
Can't really remember what it was like desu
My friends used to be in awe of how much I knew about the internet; they still talk about "meme pictures" and stuff because I never bothered correcting them
>>25352899
Sometimes I wonder what I would have spent all those hours doing if the internet didn't exist
2006 here. Anyone remember when Jessi Slaughter got on good morning America and /b/ became nice /b/ for a day? That was fun.
I feel like the start of the decline for 4chan started in 2007 when the Scientology protests happened. 4chan gained all this unnecessary media attention and it attracted the kids who took everything at face value who literally thought 4chan and anonymous was this super secret rebel hacktivist group.
Before then 4chan(specifically /b/) was still shitty but was good shit and had good conversations. But as other anons said in this thread, 4chan became mainstream around the 2011-2012 period.
>>25351650
It still is mostly ironic there's just a million and one faggots getting triggered by it now so people ramp it up to 11
>>25355326
That was summer 2010 haha
>>25355326
The Scientology shit ruined everything, I tell ya.
>>25352806
what is the plan, in my opinion, circu 2011, was the peak of anonymous, wikileaks, occupy, and the 2012 end of the world meme. In my life it was the peak of the internet and everything has been downhill since. Back then, in that moment, it was as if we were winning the fight. No one takes that spirit seriously anymore.
>>25350850
I'm not even oldfag, joined the web around 2007 and 4chan around 2008 but even then internet was much comfier and way more charming, even YouTube used to be fun to browse. Now, I can't stand it but I have nothing better to do.
It was the massive influx of normies that ruined it.
used to not have catalogs. basically there was just less people here. less tumblr fags. a lot of oc and less OMFG YOUR A NEWFAG GTFO KEKEKEK, FUCK YOU FAGGOT,ETC. It was mainly lurk moar or tits or gtfo. more actual discussion going on as well. you could post on threads and come back to it a week later.
>>25352816
>tfw looking at lolcats used to make me laugh until my stomach hurt
>fucking lolcats
>>25350850
Yeah, was there before chanology fucked it up. They used to be pretty tolerant of pedos and CP, too bad I was not really a pedo back then to actually appreciate it like I would have now
>>25357807
also, no CAPTCHA
>>25356338
Nah fuck that shit. We weren't winning any fight. Wikileaks is good, but all of that Occupy shit was controlled opposition; it was infested with useful idiot, leftist retards. Anyone claiming to be "part of Anonymous" is probably a fed.
All of this anon-e-moose shit, in general, just became really cancerous and super srs. Has anyone seen the stupid documentary called "The Hacker Wars", where there's this scene where these edgy hipsters hack into a Fox News bulletin to make it say "The right wing is destroying the American middle class"?
so fuggen gay
>>25351248
>It's horrifying. It's like making up a joke religion with your middle school friends and watching it become a global cult collecting sacrifices on live television.
This so much
You newfags don't realize that Chan culture used to be here and here only
>>25352315
yup Christfags were always made fun of but now if you do that you'd get fedora replies exclusively
4chan used to be pretty leftist
>>25354336
You're tryin way too hard m8
only been here since September, its interesting, but I like it, I hate signing up for accounts to post.
Glad I didn't see any "log in with Facebook".
I heard this place has funny pics and memes but its more then that
>>25358187
>wake me up when September ends
We were doomed from the beginning.
>>25352816
I've been here since 2008 when I was13. I remember seeing images and posts referencing the Habbo raid, like some great battle that had gone down in the annals of history. Shit was hilarious.
I think that due to the hyperconnectivity of the internet these days, it's no surprise you see 'meme culture' everywhere as opposed to just being confined to this one site.
>>25358291
Yeah, I was actually fairly liberal back when I first joined too, I was 13 at the time, at first the 'nigger' and 'faggot' everywhere shocked me. Then I grew up and now I'm more conservative but still atheist, the 'fedora' didn't get popular because of Christians but because people got really tired of atheists being fucking cringey all the time. God, I can still remember those "relgiion is dum' threads.
>>25351928
>mfw most counterstrike kids will never know FpsDoug
>>25352131
It's still a nice place
2005. 4change went to shit after the INTERNET HATE MACHINE shit happened. I didn't think it could get any worse, then Project Chanology happened.
Now the majority of this place is cancer.
>>25358495
I went to check on it right now and it's not that bad. Keep on keeping on, [s4s]quatch.
>>25352728
>implying we won't ALL vote to make American great again
>>25352939
/b/ is the offical newfag filter of 4chan now.
>>25352131
>I miss the early days of s4s
but why, when moot made the board I thought it was a joke, it literally is a containment board for b, and forced old things from b (such as predicting fortunes) on there
>>25354336
>2012
>the literal peak of cancer flooding the site
>>25358409
Even if you're joking, even if you're not, please don't post things like this.
>>25358584
Sometimes I post NiceThreads in b and try to spread the love for a little while. I like to show new friends what they are ruining.
>>25352131
[s4s] is too rude now. Too much porn and swearing and not enough memes.
2007/2008
This board is nothing without what it is willing to do. Don't condone personal army requests. Fuck it. The real hackers will hack into real shit, let the screaming anonymous masses do what they do best and fuck up random things for the lulz. After so many years I can assure you the quality drop doesn't happen from committing the wrong raids. Habbo and Gaia brought people over but they were hardly the end-all for the site.
/pol/, extra heavy nazism and unfunny antisemitism (as opposed to actually funny antisemitism) is relatively new, 2012+. It's garbage and the site can be without it.
The people who create OC here are all gone. Or, if they aren't gone, they also visit places like Reddit and Tumblr without thinking about your stupid, shitty website cultural politics. Remember that when wanting something new from /r9k/ or wherever.
The problem is that black people have way too much influence on modern culture. Every single thing modern teens enjoy is nigger tier (rap music, twitter, slang). You will never view another thread for as long as you live that doesn't have at least one person doing the t bh salty fa m bruh 100 fire mixtape shit whether it's ironic or unironic it doesn't matter its a fucking plague either way. The next hot "black humor" meme comes out and everyone clings onto it for a few months until they forget about it and start abusing the next meme.
tldr black people, white normies and teens ruined the internet
>>25358456
He taught me how to go faster. I miss you doug.
I actually heard of 4chan from Habbo, since I was actually playing it back when all of the raids happened and decided to see what 4chan was all about.
Things are very serious now, every time someone makes new OC it is immediately considered "reddit" and gets purged especially on /tv/. Everyone is trying incredibly hard to not be reddit and tumblr because granted those websites are shit, but we're also ruining 4chan a bit in the process.
Not all the changes have been bad though, I still like newer 4chan alot.
>>25352207
What happened to Flashplayer anyway? It just redirects to fucking IGN now.
I found 4chan in mid 2007, found it being talked about on a long dead forum, breaking rules 1 and 2 of the internet. No doubt it was also being discussed on other forums. Interestingly, these forums I used to lurk on started to die around the time 4chan started getting noticeably worse around 2009/2010 (to me at least).
>>25351071
Nailed it one post, my friend.
Everyone treats the internet like its real life now, and it drives me fucking nuts.
>>25359598
even Nicki Minaj stole pepe
>>25351861
>green day can never wake up
I guess I first came here in about 2006, since I joined a bit before the first Habbo raid.
I mostly hung out on /b/ then, but I eventually spread to other boards, mainly /v/ and /g/.
It's changed a lot, but that's because I think the more people found out about this place, the more people tried to fit in here, and basically made this place what they thought it should be - a miniature stage for pantomime.
Frankly, I kind of like it now. We almost have this established identity and the speed at which posts go makes it kind of fun.
>>25350850
Mid-2004 here. It was different, the community was smaller and more creative. I would go back. it sounds hipster as fuck but 4chan is too popular now.
>>25351650
It was, of course there were actual racists, but it was mostly people pretending to be racist to scare thin skinned people away, like when people use to dump guro and shit to scare people away after /g/ - Guro became /g/ - Technology.
After all you need to remember:
>The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
>Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.
I remember being here at least since 2009, although I have no specific memories of the time.
>>25360614
I remember someone posting an advice dog with the text 'There's a point where we've got to stop, and we've reached it'.
We should have listened.
Either late '03 or early '04 here. It was just after 4chan's first big outage and before it switched from .net to .org. I remember posting my first car here right after buying it, and I got it in March '04.
I've typed too many nostalgic walls of text in threads like this before, so I won't really do it again. The only major point I'll make is that a lot of shit turned from tongue-in-cheek inside jokes into shit people on 4chan actually internalize and believe.
If I could go back to 2003, honestly, I'd tell myself never to waste my damn life on this website.
Anyone else came from ebaumsworld forums to here?
>>25350850
>using hashtags in 2003
'05 here
There must be a fairly significant chunk of the current 4chan userbase who are now 30+ or approaching it?
4chan has sadly lost any sense of collective community it once had. Some of the best memes were often the most short lived, absurd fucking things which may have only lasted a day at best. You don't really get that anymore, /s4s/ being the containment board for every possible contrivance of forced memery.
/b/ has always been a shithole but it once had genuine humour. Now its just another porn board basically. I miss /b/. Haven't visited it in years
And yes, I would definitely go back. Being in my early 20s again being the sole reason
didn't come here until 2010, but I remember the streams I used to watch with /b/ back then.
>>25360729
I feel like most of the old guard of 4chan has moved on with life by this point. The vast majority of the userbase is 16-21 year olds.
No one browsing this board right now was here in 2003. If they say they are, they're lying.
>>25360886
I would like to move on with my life, almost did. Then I came back for some stupid reason. Please delete /r9k/ again.
>>25353309
You don't even know me. How can you already not like me? Don't put me in a box, bitch.
>>25360886
You mean all those former shut ins and anime geeks actually grew up and got out of this place? And to think I'm relatively normal compared to them and I'm still addicted as I ever was
2011 here. Not oldfag by a longshot but this place was always shit. Rulefags are the worst desu.
>>25360937
But this is Oldfag sanctuary, where we stay till we die.
>>25360729
>>25360886
I'm 29 and was 17 when I started coming here.
I quit 4chan for quite a few years (starting around '09) and only found myself coming here regularly again in the last year or so. I'm in kind of a slow period of my life right now and have found myself with too much free time and not enough to do with it, and the rest of the internet is a lot less interesting than this site.
>>25360997
They acted a lot less socially awkward than 4chan users do now, they were still weird semi-shut ins and anime geeks, it just never seemed to be on the same level as it is now.
I think everything really changed now that the internet reaches more people than ever before and the younger millennials and the generation after them raised entirely on the internet are coming to 4chan.
>>25361053
What was the real world like? D-did you bring back any memes?
I discovered 4chan in 2004, but didnt really start browsing til 2005. Things were fun back then.
I miss the days of mudkips and when we made the news for more then making some 12 year old kill herself or a shooting. ;-;
>>25361093
different 29yo here
what's scary about the modern world is that IRL really is full of memes. it's pretty awful desu
>>25358438
It WAS a great battle in the annals of history.
t. nigra warriorholy fuck that was 10 and a half years ago
>>25361090
I sum up the difference between old 4chan and new 4chan by saying that in the old days, we were a bunch of nerdy but relatively normal guys pretending to be socially inept retards, and now, we actually are a site filled with socially inept retards.
>>25361093
>>25361154
This actually raises an interesting question. The world was much less meme-filled in the old days, "nerd culture" was less mainstream, etc. Has 4chan become as extreme as it is now as a result of needing to maintain its separation from the "real" world?
2008 fag reporting in, I missed the fun shit but I feel like everything's gone downhill from 2011 onward thanks to /v/
>>25355326
>decide to look up Jessi Slaughter again
>her dad molested her, went to jail and is now dead
>she identifies as a male now
>the accusations were probably real
wow
>>25360886
I'm 27, where else are we supposed to go?
Must of us got jobs and some of us are hardcore neets.
/r9k/ probably have more of the younger crowd though.
>>25361154
Those are so none-dank, I'll stay away.
>>25350850
>remember when literally the worst thing on 4chan was people saying "desu"
>now there are SJWs trying to explain why censorship is good
>now there are trannies talking about their mental illness every day
>now there are cutters and kids who legit enjoyed Yugioh
>now we have people pretending 4chan wasnt racist as shit ten years ago, and /pol/ is brand new
>now we have janitors who delete posts that are un-PC
>now we have boards for furshit and Simpsons porn
>/rs/ is gone
>now we have /lgbt/, /soc/, and /mlp/
>now we have dubs
This place is a shadow of its former self
anyone remember 4chanpranks? A ventrillo prank phone call group that used to make threads on /b/ back in like... 08 or 09?
That guy Tyrone got arrested for calling in bomb threats to schools in exchange for donations.
>>25361353
Nah, /b/ filters well.
>>25361431
/b/ is literally a webm porn board now, it filters nothing.
>>25361441
It filters the kids coming in that want shitpost city.
I actually have real-world experience with the old-school anons of 4chan, and haven't written about it here, so might as well
In 2005, 2006, and 2007, we had 4chan meetups at Anime Expo. I actually organized the '05 and '06 ones.
Those first two years, the group was pretty casual and consistent. We were all in the 18-24 range, and regularly normal as anime con guys go. We just hung out, talked about anime shit, spewed some memes, etc. There were actually some cute girls too, who showed up dressed as meme stuff, I remember one of them was WT Snacks-tan, and I kept in touch with her for a few years after that. (I wonder what ever happened to her...)
I only recall one outlier in '06 year, a guy who was already infamous as a toxic tripfag and showed up in a mask that covered his face. He was extremely confrontational, totally inappropriate for a public occasion, and was the only member of the gathering who harassed people that weren't part of it. He later got banned from AX for physically assaulting a cosplayer.
'07 was a huge change, though. The same bunch of us showed up and found the pool surrounded by something like 100 13-17 year old kids, chanting memes, trashing hotel property, mobbing normal people and cosplayers, etc. It was the transformation of 4chan from a gathering place for like-minded individuals into an aggressive mob of puffed up high-school kids, viewed in real life. The "oldfags" among us took off within 10 minutes, and later heard that the gathering had turned into a huge fiasco that got the con in trouble and caused any kind of organized 4chan event to be banned forever.
>>25361472
It really doesn't and hasn't for a long time, when it had actual content people use to stop at /b/ alone, but it doesn't have any actual content anymore so people filter into other boards to have actual discussion and pop back into /b/ to look at loli threads and shit.
Forums, big-boys.com,b0g,ogrish, ytmnd and then finally here in about 2007. Pretty late bloomer I guess. Born in '89 so the 00's were my adolescent and teen years. Hard for me to say a point where things started degrading since I was part of the first wave of newfags but for an educated guess I'd say 2011 marked a new age. An age where everything was starting to be taken seriously, sure Scientology was pre 2011 but we now have something of that scale once or twice a year now vs once a decade with years of cooldown.
>>25361053
>>25360729
I'm 19, and I was 8/9 when I was introduced to 4chan. this was back in 06/07
Don't remember much except for the gore threads, I loved looking at that shit, still do.
I don't know whether or not being here for half my life is something to be proud of
>>25361686
>I was 8/9 when I was introduced to 4chan
You never stood a chance. Christ.
I miss when 4chan was truly a wild west environment.
>>25361709
is it THAT bad? I mean, I was already looking at gore with my sister on b0g,and shit. I just thought going on /b/ back then was pure comedy gold
Came on 4chan in 2003. Left on 2007 due to massive cancer. Came back in 2010 and now I'm back here again.
I remember when 4chan was still .net and not .org
Back in 2003 there used to be a loli board. /b/ was absolute shit and a containment board, just like it is now.
Literally more than 50% of the users used to tripfag.
AMA, if you want.
>>25361686
That's pretty damn young but desu your literacy and argumentative skills probably benefited somewhat.
>>25361874
Oh, and also:
If there are any other originalfags in here, anyone remember world2ch? I wonder what happened to golgolmois. ;_;
>>25361686
Why are you lying on an anonymous image board?
>>25360569
The repetition of "posted here" bothers me. I guess it's too late to change it.
I'm totally a 2003fag [Insert common knowledge about how 4chan used to be here].
Any questions?
Does anyone remember the DJ who would stream sets for /b/ a few years ago? I tried looking him up but justin.tv is kill.
>>25362024
It seems, I have caused you emotional trouble. Do you want to talk about it?
>>25361874
remember the epicfailguy threads?
4chan has lost its charm, too many normies. But thats the whole internet being honest. People used to separate thei meatspace life from their online life but now thats all gone.
>>25361987
I'm not though.
I had to look up argumentative, and I still don't understand. And yes, I am retarded, and most likely autistic.
>>25354334
>>25354267
I remember looking into what shii was into a year or two ago and didn't come up with anything too interesting. moot is the only one with an interesting post-4chan career, mainly because you can't post about it without getting banned.
>>25361878
>>25362067
Oops, fucked that up real nice.
>>25362065
Eh, EFG was alright. I didn't browse /b/, never have and never will.
But you're right about the charm. We used to act retarded just to be silly, with the occasional discussion and OC. But then Chanology happened, cancer and retards found their way to 4chan and thought it was shitposting central and only delivered low-quality content.
Fuck them.
I came here in 2015 when I was 23. It looks like I've missed a lot.
>>25360886
That picture, holyshit so much nostalgia.
>>25362274
Well, it probably means that you, unlike a lot of us, had better things to do during all those years.
>>25358040
only if i could relive the past for just 1 day
Daily reminder that if the internet never happened our society wouldn't be so bluepilled about everything and we all would be in better places
>>25359340
>/pol/, extra heavy nazism and unfunny antisemitism (as opposed to actually funny antisemitism) is relatively new, 2012+
>2007/2008
yeah, bullshit, stop lying
/n/ was around in 2009 and pumping out even more racist content than /pol/ does nowadays
the evil racist boogeymen were always around
>>25352315
4chan has always been reactionary
when the mainstream leaned right, it leaned left, and now it's the reverse
>>25351406
you are not wrong
06fag here, the barriers of entry made it more communal,respectful and a lot of the 'culture' that's taken seriously now was ironic then.
I was here in 2007 or 2008.
I remember actually laughing hard at the things I saw.
/x/ was cool back then. I spent most of my time on it. It has been a few years since I have even clicked on it now.
It's fucked up to think I've been on here every day since I discovered 4chan
/r9k/ was good back then, too. Now it is trash.
I used to think 4chan was full of murderers and hackers.. haha
One time on /b/ I saw a pic of 7 girls from my high school flashing their tits.
They were in grade 10 at the time. That was probably the craziest thing ever. I live in a extremely small town.
Too bad that wasnt a pic when they were in grade 12 and 18.
>>25361385
>>/rs/ is gone
I miss downloading random files off it just to see what I got.
>>25351071
>anime poster
>two years after OP asked
Try killing yourself you stupid cooze
>>25355326
>Jessi Slaughter
I still can't believe how much /b/ fucked her life over.
>>25362581
Stop being an aggressive cunt over the internet my man. Stop being a fucking normie. Be nice to your brothers, you infidel.
I don't see why ancient 4fhan is praised around here
It was like another one of those shitty meme websites like membase
We are living in a more euphoric era of 4chan, memes now are ironic. Memes back then we're not ironic
I prefer this era
>>25350850
Goon from 2003. Finally jumped ship to /b/ in 2008. Oldfags had already left for 7chan. Chanology and moralfags were the worst, Habbo raids were still a thing.
Luggage lad was missingno and all was wrong with the world.
>>25352728
everytime i hear the name anonymous now I feel sick
>>25362762
It's the mask more than the name for me.
>>25361347
>tfwmay have picture of her roastie
>>25363025
Post for nostalgia?
Started on /b/ when boxxy was a thing and occasionally browsed /x/, then shortly moved over to /v/ then /vg/ when it came out then back to /v/. I can't remember when I first came to /r9k/ but I remember when moot deleted the board then bought it back and how different and mature it was back then.
I'm almost 22 and rarely go on this site anymore except for when shit goes down online and I need info from here and the holidays to see how awful peoples lives are to make me feel a little better about mine.
>>25350850
But we didn't have Britfeel then.
Haha, guys, remember when Dragonforce was a huge meme on /b/? What would that have been, like '06? It must have been around then, because I remember that I had to pirate their stuff to hear what they were all about because youtube didn't have every song in the history of the universe at the time.
My music player apparently remembers, because I have my library on random and it just started playing one of the songs I downloaded way back then.
Somewhere on the Internet, there's a hidden site with a good community, lots of great content and fun place too be.
>>25363291
even private trackers are filled with redditfags now.
>>25352415
there are probably people younger than the site itself at this point 2bh.
>>25363025
>>25363091
wasn't she underage in those pics?
roastie is an understatement to be honest
she had serious beef curtains
>>25363256
The Dragonforce meme went on much longer on /mu/. There were the experts as well back then.
I recognise nothing of that board now.
>>25351248
Am I the only person who got the 20th Century Kids reference?
>>25362073
>mainly because you can't post about it without getting banned.
wat?
>>25363364
yea hence why no deliveran
from 2012 here. even i think it has gone downhill in the last years. i could only imagine how great it must have been
I miss the old "friend" feel in boards. Now everyone is overly aggressive to each other and looks for a chance to insult them. There were still assholes of course in the past but when we shared our sad experiences or felt depressed before, people on the board usually felt with you or talked to you with sympathy. Now it's just insults and anger. I miss everything from old 4chan.
>>25363952
That friendly feel used to be what made Krautchan so good. Unfortunately it disappeared after a while, but it's back now.
i started lurking 4chan in around 2004 (maybe 2005) before i entered high school. mainly for the porn, which kept me a satisfied lurker for a year or two. i started posting around the time i was in high school, mainly on /v/ and then /sp/ when it became a permanent board
part of me would like to go back and make significant changes in my life as well as my internet habits, but i realize that i've already played the video games from that time period that i am interested in and i already know the results to all the sporting events i am interested in. i'd rather just push forward, regardless of how shit things have become
>>25363952
Go back to your fucking hugbox.
>>>/reddit/
That's how they act most of the time.
The friendly feeling is still there though for some boards, but only if you follow their etiquette.
>>25363967
/r9k/ also had this feel a year ago, I could get really comfy in some threads. Now it's just trolling and insulting each other, thank god we still have /fit/ though, I would never found motivation to start losing weight if it was not the encouragement I got from them.
>>25364064
I think you are the one who needs to go back there, I've been on 4chan since 2006 even fucking /b/ could be friendly in their most shitty phase. People now just act aggressive now because they think anonymous=being an aggressive asshole for no reason and they are mostly retarded redditors.
>>25363291
And they'll never advertise on 4chan because they know we'll ruin it.
>>25364157
>That's how they act most of the time.
I remember shit-talking about /a/ on /q/ just because I could
I almost felt bad for the board during the two days of N/a/ruto though
>>25352342
You're probably gone but that was around when Gamergate and other such "Gate" events happened.
Basically people started feeling they had to take sides and everything got a lot more super serious. It's what inevitably happens whenever the majority gets in on a thing, wars.
>>25363665
I tried to post about it on /g/ and apparently there was a wordfilter in place specifically to block posts about it and ban the poster.
>tfw only got here in 2013
>tfw missed everything good about this site and the internet
Feels bad being a 1996fag, it really does. I try my best not to shit up the place anymore than it already is, but I've never felt like I "belonged" here or anywhere else on the internet.
>>25364157
>thank god we still have /fit/ though, I would never found motivation to start losing weight if it was not the encouragement I got from them
good for you man, keep it up
i know its probably not much but im a former fat fag too and it makes me proud to see guys like us change their life around
>>25364588
I'm suffering from low energy levels and severe depression lately and it slowed down after losing 40 lbs. I need some motivation but can't muster any, thought I changed my lazy ways but I guess nothing changed.
>>25364562
Fabric?
>>25364670
I can't look into your lifestyle but are you making sure you're getting enough nutrients?
Losing weight rapidly pretty much poisons your body so drink plenty of water and eat healthy.
I know it affects my moods when I don't.
>>25351817
The friendships you used to be able to make through forums could be amazing. Over years I got to know alot of people through certain forums until loads of the regulars basically became one massive family. Alot of these people went on to marry each other, have kids, etc. People you got to know in these forums would even offer you jobs, offer to bail you out in shit times; just good things basically; even had people in there who'd do illegal things for you if needs be. We were virtually all sickfucks who spent alot of time insulting each other and laughing at twisted shit. Eventually these forums died after people started taking it too seriously.
>>25362719
You don't understand.
Memes as a concept wasn't as overdone as it is now, it was new and exciting.
Just a bunch of spergs having fun together, everything wasn't so fucking serious.
>>25364961
I don't drink much water that might be it, I think I eat okay. Lots of vegetable stews and meat, fruits and nuts.
>>25365118
Yeah just try it out a few days, see if it helps
