I have a long history of experience with the internet, it's trolling and memeing, all sorts of nuances. Among the time I've spent on it in the last few years, I can, depending on whom I'm talking to, either contritely admit or proudly claim to have hung around 4chan alot. Before I hunker down to dodge the plentiful jeers I'm sure to recieve for that statement, allow me to qualify and quantify it.
I have for a long time been a being that has amalgamated internet community, mainly due to the diminished I feel from being part of it rather than a real life counterpart. 4chan was more than ready accept my niche attitude to everything, along with my nerdy fail at life attitude and ugly pumpkin head. Not only that, but the site was and still is, aside from images, relatively low bandwidth, which made trips through it fairly easy in the last few days of my dialup connection.
Originally I tended to stick to what was comfortable... which was mostly /b/ and /a/ at the time.Before I continue, I'd like you all to note I had and to some degree still have confidence issues,which stem from a few places (miserable school life being one of them), and my life seemed pretty dead-end at around the time I starting getting into 4chan (approx 4 years ago). Of course not long after this (approx early-mid 2005)I switched into the Hawk's Workshop.I'm sure most of you are PROBABLY aware of how much free time I had there, it was quite a bit.
Hence, my 4chan browsing increased dramatically. Like maybe 4 or 5 fold. This sorta stayed the norm for about 2 years until I left there. My 4chan addiction died off a little as of the start of this year (too busy with other stuff), so I really only stick around my core places.
Now as to the why I've hung around and it really isn't that complicated... You can glean some awesome comedy off the place when the iron is hot, the place is more accepting that just about EVERY other web forum out there. Except for blacks, 4chan haet black. Not only that, but under the almost paradoxical nature of the place sometimes, I can't help but feel there are some truely intelligent people on there. Sure, the real trick to 4chan is not to fall into the cesspit(s) that is /b/ or /r9k/ to avoid the real shit, but everywhere else, you'll probably find some intelligent life.
Which comes to my next point- newfags.
They really are the bane of my real world existance. Seriously, the number of dicks that I've met in the last 9 months who claim to be oldfags about 4chan. One especially bitches about overuse of epic and it's redundancy.. .which is a view I view I agree with, but to make it in the fashion he does, you know, excuding all his power levels to get his point across... it's excessively flamboyant and grinding on my core belief that the 4chan was something that you kept to your computer, or to yourself., not something you go flagging around. No, this wasn't all about power levels, this is about soiling a perception.
The same is true for just about every "4channer" I've met in the last 9 months- they soil the experience with their EFG masks, project Chanology(though a meritous projeect, I still hate that it is still linked closely to 4chan rather than branching off and growing). To add to addinjury to insult, thanks to the massive never-ending newfag summer of 2008, it's been grating more. So much so, that a few months ago, I gave it up entirely for a month and a half. I jsut got back into it in the last few weeks, and it seems that the summer is now starting to slow down, but alot of the big name tripcoders have vamoosed, which is a shame. *sigh*
So yes, I'm a *grits teeth* 4channer. I prefer the terms /a/non or /k/ommando to the former though, becuased they actually lug me in where I belong, rather than the generic umbrella. Don't mess with me 'cause I was there before they invented hacker-proof curtains.
Coming up next week - Tri.. I mean..Quadruple Review !
Alone in the Dark
Tenga Toppen Gurren Lagann
Seto no Hanayome
and the Wacom Bamboo.
