Hacker News Reader

Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

> Everywhere else on the internet, you'll get banned for posting something even a little politically incorrect.

No you won't. 4chan's strain of political incorrectness is endemic throughout the internet. It's suffused internet culture and become normalized in the mainstream. It's found in every comment section on every social media platform, and the terminally edgy have an entire ecosystem of alternative forums, platforms and alt-accounts when the normies are just too square for their tastes. It's even becoming commonplace on HN. There is literally no demographic more heard than edgy 4chan shitlords.

View on HN

I think that the most remarkable thing about the website is exactly its cultural force, even while being near universally maligned by traditional media and the "polite" sides of the internet. No where else can you "get away with" saying something that you couldn't elsewhere, and suffer absolutely 0 consequences for voicing actually controversial opinions. Everything there is anonymous, unverifiable, and yet oftentimes it rings more true than what you might here from a "reputable" source.

> No where else can you "get away with" saying something that you couldn't elsewhere, and suffer absolutely 0 consequences for voicing actually controversial opinions.

I'm not sure you fully understand the issue. 4chan is nothing special, let alone remarkable, with regards to "getting away with" saying something. It's just a popular spot and the only one you know. I assure you that there are a myriad of forums and chatrooms all around the web that have the same sort of contents and even worse, being exchanged. The key difference is that 4chan is the mainstream, generalist forum, and a huge one at that with millions of unique monthly visitors.

Claiming that 4chan is unique in it's content reads like claiming that Pepsi is a small unknown soda brand that is almost secret.

There are many, many small forums where people can air the most controversial opinions--I don't disagree. But the fact that there is one MASSIVE one in the public consciousness means that people aren't automatically filtered into these mass, heavily monitored and controlled forums like reddit, facebook, instagram, etc. but instead can easily find a place where nobodies opinion, voice, or resistance to what is considered polite and "acceptable," and speak there.

In the old days what you're saying is true, but we're not in the old days, we're in the days where everyone uses the internet and the internet is vastly profitable. Where corporations, the state, the news-media, relentlessly seek to manipulate public opinion to their own aims. In all that, something as remarkable as the continued existence of 4chan stands directly opposed to power and everything in society that seeks to regulate and control behavior and discourse.

> 4chan's strain of political incorrectness is endemic throughout the internet.

On 4chan it used to be pretty common to just refer to everyone with slurs. I'm assuming it hasn't changed much but maybe it's tamer.

I really don't agree with you that 4chan culture somehow permeates all the internet, especially not some kind of political incorrectness.

Many memes and jokes come from 4chan yes, but only the most tame ones that are ok to share. The really politically incorrect stuff generally stays there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com