Howdy fellow /pol/lacks. I have been coming to this website since I was in middle school, around 2006/7. I started browsing /pol/ around 2012 when /b/ really started to die. I have always been a lurker. I post maybe once a year, but I have been a daily browser for all these years and I just wanted to document some of the changes I have noticed over time.First, in the early days, this board felt far more satirical than it is now, like everyone was in on some big joke. Around the time of Gamer Gate, it felt like everything became far more serious, culminating in the first Trump election in 2016.Since that time it feels like the board has been slowing down with every year that goes by. Nowadays, I can go to bed and some threads from the the night before are still up. This never used to be the case.I suppose that is why I wanted to post here now. I feel bad that the board has become so slow. I think it is a shame because this is one of the only places on the internet that is not driven by an algorithm, and so it is really the only place where ideas can spread organically.I am not really sure if people are going to care about this thread, but feel free to AMA if you want to know about some of the shifts in board culture over the years, or if you are interested in how this board has shaped my politics and lifestyle over the years.Regardless, thanks for always being there fellas.
I think one of the biggest reason for this is that users are getting old and new users don't come here and instead go to tiktok or insta or twitter,
>>545241016you better be dumping your image folder fag
>>545241160I think you're right. I'm not sure how many young people come here these days. It is disappointing because it feels like the algorithms have people so locked that sites like this don't give the same dopamine hit as a personalized algorithm feed.
>>545241265haha, I haven't had a regular folder since my old hard drive, but I will see what I can scrounge up on this one.
There's less posts because of all the anti-botting shit they had to put in, which largely removed the bots but also made it significantly more tedious for casuals to post
>>545241016its getting shittier and shittier because of the fed posting and racist jannies. You can post all the anti white crap you want but notice something and the threads get deleted. The extensive delays posting kills any real interest. The feds do not want any real political discussion because its a threat to democracy.
>>545241505>>545241552I suppose this is happening everywhere. I have to use two-factor authentication at my job multiple times a day and for some reason it just saps my will to live every time I have to pull it up.
>>545241016I remember coming here first in maybe 2009, but i didn't understand the place. Then i got kicked off every other site and message board i tried for years, until I came back here. A prodigal anon.What, if anything have you learned about yourself or the human condition in your time here?
>>545241552>discussion of ideas is a threat to democracyPeople don't think it be luke that, but it do
>>545241016Hiro sold us all out years ago, the bastard.
>>545241696I appreciate the question anon.On a personal level, I think this site has taught me to keep laughing. I think the complete lack of identity on this website allows for people to say some pretty original things without worry of community blowback. It is a riskless place, and so it allows for people to generate some genius and original ideas.As far as the human condition, man, that is tough. I suppose it again has something to do with 4chan being a totally ego-less and impermanent expression. I suppose i have noticed that with the rise of Reddit and twitter that the appeal of something that is totally anonymous no longer resonates like it used. I do feel like there is an old internet magic preserved on 4chan due to this format, but I am not exactly sure what it is. Good question man.
>>545242031I noticed the same thing in the wild that is observed here that tptb don't have good ideas, sometimes they don't have any ideas at all, they're just organizrd around neutralizing the ideas of others, particularly the ideas of the individual.
>>545241016You’re okay, OP. For a mutt. I do like the based lurkers and old fags. 2008 - 2013 4chan was such a vibe.
>>545242328How do you mean exactly? Obviously I understand that other websites engage in heavy censorship, if not outright then through filters and algorithms. But do you mean something else?
>>545241505This, and the lurker count. This thread feels like demoralizing the user base to claim the board is dying.
>>545242424Thanks leaf. the day of the rake will come.I loved that era of 4chan as well. Though I wonder how much of it I just affiliate with my youth and days long gone.
>>545242529Yes probably
>>545241016>Since that time it feels like the board has been slowing down with every year that goes by. Nowadays, I can go to bed and some threads from the the night before are still up. This never used to be the case.>>545241160>I think one of the biggest reason for this is that users are getting old and new users don't come here and instead go to tiktok or insta or twitter,Yeah, 4chan might have a third arc, but it's increasingly unlikely. You had newfags who kept coming here year after year. All of the memes and edgy content as late as 2016/2017 brought a lot of newfags here. People would make screen caps and post memes from here on reddit and other websites, and people came to 4chan to find out what was so interesting about this place. The fact of the matter is though, that we've won. That's why /pol/ and 4chan as a whole is largely dying. We've unequivocally won. Elon's buyout of twitter sealed the deal. In the 2010s, the only value of 4chan was that it allowed edgy content that all other sites censored. Since Elon bought twitter that's not the case anymore. There's really not much you can say here that you can't say on twitter. And they can post video with sound on twitter. The sad part is that 4chan could be improved. They could just tweak some stuff and allow webs with sound. eight c-han had webms with sound 10 years ago, but the people who run this site would literally rather do nothing than improve it for the long haul
>>545242482Derailing ideas, outright censorship, or countersignalling, shadowbanning and limiting the reach of posts, that sort of thing. They don't do that to bend people to their will, so much as to create the illusion that no one has any idea about any problem, except for their idea.Like when I was on twitter, whrn you would link an article, it came with a ready made description in your tweet, so you aren't giving your observation of an event, you are repeating someone else's idea verbatum. Meanwhile, the corralling effect of up and down votes on discuss, or reddit corral pepple's thinking into only expressing ideas which gain social approval. Then the out of the box posts get banned for term violations because they express non-approved ways of discussing an event; you get banned for having an idea.So when floyd overdosed the discussion was over whether or not people supported police, and how guilty Whites were for racism, but the idea that a drug addict dying of heart failure is meaningless, and that all public discussion was virtue signalling hypocrisy was a bridge too far. Or as you post a great deal of memre memes, if you ever read any gatestone institute sites, all the comments were about how dangerous islam was, and vague smuggery of 'well, i wonder if these jihadi immigrants will ever fit in with our western values', but the idea was to leave the readers mired in those non-starter positions and trap them there for years, as if the authors were going to come up with a solution, which they never did, besides facilitating the garland false flag. But point out that there is only one way that the islamic multiculturalism can possibly end, that is, if you cut to the chase and admit that everything is headed only for violence and the only question is over which side has the initiative, you're now 'calling for violence' and banned.They don't want ideas. They want us to waste our time on nothing while they push through their own ideas unopposed.
>>545243530> We've unequivocally won.On all levels, except physical.
>>545241016Good analysis, just don't get demoralized.
>>545241552>The feds do not want any real political discussion because its a threat to democracy.The feds do not want any real political discussion because it is democracy. Political discussion is the bare meaning of the term democracy.
>>545241016prove youre not a newfag. i’ll know.
>>545241016Gamergate was when gamers first started paying attention to what was going on with the media and then politics as a consequence. Gamers are very serious people and if GOP candidates keep attacking them, they will lose the election. The vast silent gamer majority is a voting block they can't afford to offend. Keep blaming them for everything and watch how fast they become socialists. As for the board, it will heal naturally if the parasites are removed. If 4chan dies, there won't be anything on the internet worth reading and the readers will go back to their books.
>>545241016I agree. Imo much of it comes from the Twitter/X free speech overhaul since Elon took over. It’s good for X, but we lost a lot of the talent as a result and with them went a lot of the meme magic. We’re still first place tho, just because 4chan is inherently more free speech than any social media platform could ever possibly be. But yeah, we need to do something to up the ante to maintain our top position
>>545241016Pol is a dump for racism and ignorance. That’s the joke that everyone is in on. If it seems like it’s dying out then good. People don’t go from being good people to ignorant racists, it’s usually the other way around. So maybe that’s what’s happening, more and more people are growing up and realizing how much of a pos jacka$$ that coming to pol makes them.
>545245152
>>545243866That's really well put, don't think I've noticed that before but it makes sense. On theme for this thread, this kind of insight is what made this place great. Now when I browse I'm always wondering if I'm just chatting with an AI or not, but I know an AI wouldn't have concluded this.
bump
One of my oldest pic that I still have is me shooting a tampon with a 10mm I posted to /k/ in 2011, I have been here longer. It was the paultards and /mlp/ before they made /mlp/."My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The fourth-generation reboot, developed by Lauren Faust, premiered on The Hub channel on October 10, 2010"
>>545241160A meme flag is always a LIAR
>>545245152You are incredibly naive.
