With a job description like “technology journalist who specializes in deep analysis of social products”, you have to be pretty cutting edge, right? Or maybe completely full of shit. Probably the latter.
Josh Constine of TechCrunch lists that as his job, as well as two degrees from Stanford. He also once headed Inside Facebook, so he’s on the PULSE of America’s youth, the pulse I tell you! Just look at his photo! He’s wearing a hoodie!
4chan is a user community where people post literally whatever they want (mostly images). It was before reddit and Digg and the rest of those similar sites and it’s generally understood to be free, all-access, and no-holds-barred. Always great for a moral panic now and then, especially when something leaks down from 4chan into some actual media outlet, and groups like Anonymous were possible due to 4chan’s all-sharing boards.
4chan founder Christopher Poole aka Moot started the site himself as a tribute to similar Japanese sites developing on the internet at the time, and it took off. It has hundreds of millions of users and is globally popular, but by Poole’s own admission, has always been a rather lean operation:
We’ve had trouble making ends meet over the years — which comes as a shock to most people since 4chan serves approximately 575 million pageviews to 25 million unique visitors per month.
Most websites would kill for numbers like that. 4chan has banner ads to make a little revenue off the site for maintenance costs, and has now unfolded a new system where users can create custom ads for $20, which is one hell of a great deal.
The 4chan ad FAQ page says:
Self-serve ads are intended for anyone who wishes to promote a product, website, Kickstarter project, etc—or just for fun/to get a message in front of the 4chan community (“MODS=FAGS”, promoting a board or thread/contest, etc).
And for someone with his fingers on the pulse of these young people, it sounds more like Constine’s been fingering around the morgue.
Wait, what? “MODS=FAGS”? I told you 4chan was a little rough around the edges. That’s 4chan slang for “moderators of this forum are annoying,” a sign of the site’s rebellious users who hate even the tiny bit of censorship and restriction needed to keep the site usable.
The phrase has since been removed from the FAQ, but yes, 4chan was encouraging users to buy ads to call each other homophobic slurs. I’m not condoning that.
Let me collect myself for a minute, I had the vapors!
Constine attempts to explain it as “don’t blame me…I can’t believe those crazy young kids say words like that!”. Sounds more like your Grandpa than a savvy, hip consultant.
Constine continues:
But the suggestion may have been intended to show the site’s diehard community members that it’s still firmly rooted in controversial Internet culture even though it’s maturing and focusing more on advertising. And considering the gore, tentacles, and copious gay porn that live on 4chan’s racier boards, being offensive fits.
Gee, that’s a little homophobic, ain’t it? Singling out gay porn to compare to gore and tentacle stuff, calling it “offensive”?
This is why political correctness is the equivalent of putting a full-body cast over a papercut. When you try to cover your ass so much, you’re only going to sweat yourself into a rash.
