I feel a pang of longing, and something akin to nostalgia when I think of 4chan in the 2000's and 2010's. On sites like Encyclopedia Drammatica, you can scroll through countless articles about old chan culture. There are countless stories of jokes, memes, doxxing, raiding, hacking, trolling, and practically anything else you can imagine. I'm incredibly disappointed that I never got to experience any of this. I was born in 2005, and I first posted in 4chan when I was 17 in 2023. The site today feels like a ghost town compared to the stories of old. Nothing original happens here anymore; no major happenings, no troll campaigns, no doxxing or raiding, no new memes. Using 4chan in the 2020's is like living in the ruins of what was once a great civilisation. Its strange that you can feel nostalgia for something you never got to experience. I'm sad that I never had the chance to use the old 4chan. Instead I've only ever known 4chan as it is today; the dead husk of what was once the centre of internet culture.Anyway, thanks to reading my very long and pretentious post.
If any oldfags are in this thread, feel free to post any stories about times gone by. I'd love to hear them.
>>84327548You are reading the highlights. 99.9% of what was posted here was always garbage.
>>84327603It wasn't this bad though. People here (and everywhere else) now are permanently angry, afraid of being le cringe or liking anything without a protective layer of irony, and dishonest as shit. I only still come here out of habit.
>>84327548>>84327585I'm a 2014 newfag but I'm glad I got to experience HWNDU in realtime. That shit was hilarious.
>>84327585I 'member the /sg/ google maps autism triangulating ISIS camps that led to Russian airstrikes thanks to a 4chan-friendly military correspondent with connections to the syrian and russian military about a decade ago. That's about the highlight of my involvement with 4chan and I've been here since even a decade before that, so.
>>84327650The airstrike might be the greatest happening in the entire history of 4chan.
>>84327548There was way less politics, 4chan was rather apolitical in a sense that most users where teenagers who didnt care about politics. That doesnt meant things couldnt get heated, often you could have a nice thread going then ASUKAFAGS COME AND RUIN EVERYTHING. But that's besides the point.It was nerdier as well, less cynical, just generally younger, more naive. I have a folder filled with screencaps of jokes I thought was hysterical in 2007 and now I cant fathom why I thought it was funny (pic related), but I guess thats just age.Gamergate really ruined this site, to a degree that chanology doesnt even come close. Newfags were annoying, but they didnt change the nature of the entire site like gamergate and stormfags did.
Trolling the Shia LaBeouf streams was fun.
>>84327622Yeah it was. You can see the shartards trying to revive the traditions and how painfully stupid they look raiding a streamer with 3 viewers and so on, it wasn't different back then at all.
>>84327714Shartyfags are all also massive moralfags who unironically hate their targets as opposed to the old 4chan/ED ethos of doing it for the lulz.
>>84327548You really didn't miss that much oldfag culture is really retarded. Please live your own life. Have your own memories and nostalgia.
>>84327733>he thought he was doing it "for the lulz"yeah a lot of people was like 13 when they came here.
I don't care about raiding or how this place relates to the broader online culture. I'm just tired of the same shitty threads every day. We need more original content on here.
>>84327689Gamergate and the 2016 election truly were the worst things to ever happen to this website.
>>84327548I know this website is dying, but there is a community which is expanding. KiwifarmsIt has the feeling of old chan culture. It is more lolcow focused, like on the exploits of CWC, DSP, RTU, Styx, The Quartering.Kino Casino is streaming on kick, and they're fairly funny
>>84327879>Kiwifarms>It has the feeling of old chan cultureback to your contaimnet board bucko
>>84327689>There was way less politicsUnderstatement of the century. Some random nobody's political hot take on twitter will get more threads made about it here across 5 different boards than the fucking presidential election results did on /b/ in 2008.>>84327772>causefagYou were the cancer, you should like what 4chan has become.
>>84327914What board is that?I have had multiple friends of mine talk to me about how they posted on Kiwifarms, or they read something on kiwifarms.I subbed to Styx back in 2015 before the election. I unsubbed a while ago but I would occassionally check out his coverage. He started being gone for weeks at a time without uploading, and Kino Casino were the only ones I found talking about his multiple arrests and how he had warrants out for his arrest
>>84327930The absolute fuck are you talking about? Nobody cares about your keemstar knockoffs
>>84327548thats an idealized view of the past, 4chan was always mostly bad. even oldfags lie and exaggerate things for some reason. >but they were epic trolls!no. and when they say the site way apolitical they mean the teenager user base had jon stewart's politics. i dont miss the so called epic troll campaigns or the happenings (they were few and far between anyways) and i dont care if reddit or twitter got influanced by anything created here. i'll admit the overall quality of threads declined on all the bigger boards but thats it
>>84327956Keemstar doesn't hold the IP to "lolcow", he just has the lolcows on his payroll. He's one man in the ecosystem.
>>84328077who the fuck cares about internet fucking drama, are you 12?
>>843275484chan was at its best when the userbase's hobbies were anime and video games. Now the userbase's main hobby is politics which turn you into a soulless husk of a person. Imagine having a parasocial relationship with a politician or political e-celeb. That's 4chan's main interest now.
>>84327548I think the closest feeling to old 4chan was /aicg/ on /g/ from 2021-2024. Those threads were fucking insane with new tech being developed literally every single day.
>>84328095Remember the TORTanic drama?
>>84327548i wonder if there's a way to possibly bring this sort of thing back? you'd just have to really dedicate yourself to it. perhaps we can start by rigging a vote or competition, i'll try to see what i can find and share it with you guys if you're interested
>>84328247Mods will probably ban you for violating rule 4 if you do.4chan.org/rules
>>84328262It's funny how of all the big sites, 4chan is literally the only one where this kind of shit gets enforced. We need to go back to a more laissez faire approach.
its funny i was thinking about this like two minutes ago, I see so many cool things abt 4chan but i wasnt there for any of it. how depressing
