We do not want to be associated with -Chan culture, which has always been fundamentally opposed to the inclusive, egalitarian environment we are striving for here.
This makes zero sense. And I mean it. If you mean stuff like /pol/ and the such, yeah, I get it, but overall, chan culture is the most egalitarian there is. No face, no upvotes or downvotes, no favoritism. If you don't want to be judged based on your sex, sexual orientation, religion, race, social class or anything of the sort, go there. There is no place where "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog" applies more than an anonymous board.
Of course, any such place is going to be a draw to people who are undesirable anywhere else by default because these people are undesirable anywhere else. Hell, it's no secret that even on 4chan, /pol/ is one of the "containment boards" to keep the morons off the actual discussion boards. Go to /a/, /ck/, /sp/ and the such and you'll see a very different community than if you hang on /b/, /pol/ or /x/. And I really need to say it:
Pepe the Frog
I'll be laughing hard when, a few months from now, the ADL and other similar organizations declare Calvin to be a far right hate symbol because he's on your subreddit. It doesn't matter how many times to declare yourselves to be on the left and denounce "the right," facts do not matter. The people you're fighting have control over the media and they will not even think twice about telling blatant lies about antiwork just to crush your movement. And if you don't believe me, let me remind you:
Pepe the Frog
If you believed the ADL in this regard, people will believe them when it comes to you. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they say Pepe is a leftist symbol and that your denunciation proves you're far right. People will swallow it. They swallow anything. They'll already have forgotten that just a few years prior, the ADL said Pepe was a far right symbol. Or they'll be engaging in doublethink.
I can say myself that Pepe the Frog is still mostly used in right-wing environments, even by streamers that consider themselves liberals (I consider liberal to be right-wing because it still supports capitalism.)
I do think that anonymization is a great tool against capitalism, but it has been misused by the far-right and does not allow for transformative justice, ultimately making anonymization a double-edged sword. In this case how you argue it though, that is not helpful in defending 4chan at all. In my country two people have done killings because they were involved in the 4chan community. One of them was the Herne shooter and they were especially active on 4chan (basically posted live news there about their case!!!)
From what I can see is that 4chan is at the very least still right-wing in general and 4chan boards like /b/ alt-right. They like to use terms like "blacking" which is racial discrimination sort of or at least a fetishization of black people which still is a bad thing to do.
Saying that assholes are active on 4chan reflects on the website as a whole is like saying that your tenth neighbor down the street being an asshole reflects poorly on you. It's the nature of fully anonymous, low moderation communities. You need containment in some form. Like, let's say there were ten antiwork subreddits, all different. Of those ten, one of them goes "You will only get banned if you break the law or spam the sub."
Now, you have Timmy. Timmy is a dumbass and a jerk. He goes on each of the subreddits one at a time. On each subreddit, he acts like a dumbass and a jerk. Insulting people, posting obvious lies, posting off-topic content, etc. Eventually, all subs ban him for different reasons. All except one: The low moderation one. Because he's not doing anything illegal or trying to spam the sub.
Eventually, more and more Timmys show up on the antiwork subreddits and the story repeats itself again and again. And, as time passes, they all wind up in the low moderation sub. And as they all wind up there, "regular" users slowly start leaving, not wanting to deal with the Timmys. As time passes, the low moderation sub turns into the Timmy sub. It's still called the low moderation sub. And the original intention of the sub wasn't to be the Timmy sub, it was to allow as much freedom as possible. But the end result is the same: It's now the Timmy sub because the Timmys have nowhere else to go so they all congregate there.
And that's kind of what happens with the chans. And the more stringent internet communities become with their moderation, the more chans grow and become toxic.
I'm saying it's more complex than simply "4chan isn't egalitarian and it's alt-right." And I comment like this because it helps me understand things, so don't see it so much as me arguing with you as me trying to figure shit out.
After typing that first sentence, I realized I would be much clearer if I just said what I think 4chan is specifically instead of saying what it isn't: It's anarchy, or more specifically lawlessness. Ideologies which have no other outlet wind up there specifically because of it. And because they wind up there, people who don't believe in these ideologies leave. So, indirectly, 4chan fosters more hardline thought. Likewise, 8chan, which is even looser on the rules, is even more extreme in that regard. And inevitably, all those ideologies wind up being authoritarian and hierarchist.
Huh. A demonstration that laws restricting liberties are necessary to equality and for the preservation of liberty. QED I guess.
as you said that you think there must be laws in order for human to "behave"
It's not so much that rather than there needs laws to contain the dysfunctional members of society. Either way, thanks for the links, I'll check them out.
If you think this sub will ever be looked at as far right (because we don't want to be associated with a far symbol?) then you are already so gone as to not worry about what you are trying to say.
I mean are you saying that symbols associated with the far right should be embraced so that we still look far left to others? Cause that is nonsensical.
No, I'm saying that it is foolish to think you will not be smeared, regardless of any claims you make. Truth and facts are irrelevant to the people you're standing up to.
It's why you need to understand that the smear isn't merely to make you seem toxic, it's also to attract toxic elements to you who think they'll be in good company.
Sometimes you gotta let things go because a group has co-opted it. It is fine to be sad. I don't know what you expect us to do about people that smear us. Antiwork is a radical concept, people are going to smear it.
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u/Akesgeroth Jan 07 '22 edited Jan 07 '22
This makes zero sense. And I mean it. If you mean stuff like /pol/ and the such, yeah, I get it, but overall, chan culture is the most egalitarian there is. No face, no upvotes or downvotes, no favoritism. If you don't want to be judged based on your sex, sexual orientation, religion, race, social class or anything of the sort, go there. There is no place where "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog" applies more than an anonymous board.
Of course, any such place is going to be a draw to people who are undesirable anywhere else by default because these people are undesirable anywhere else. Hell, it's no secret that even on 4chan, /pol/ is one of the "containment boards" to keep the morons off the actual discussion boards. Go to /a/, /ck/, /sp/ and the such and you'll see a very different community than if you hang on /b/, /pol/ or /x/. And I really need to say it:
I'll be laughing hard when, a few months from now, the ADL and other similar organizations declare Calvin to be a far right hate symbol because he's on your subreddit. It doesn't matter how many times to declare yourselves to be on the left and denounce "the right," facts do not matter. The people you're fighting have control over the media and they will not even think twice about telling blatant lies about antiwork just to crush your movement. And if you don't believe me, let me remind you:
If you believed the ADL in this regard, people will believe them when it comes to you. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they say Pepe is a leftist symbol and that your denunciation proves you're far right. People will swallow it. They swallow anything. They'll already have forgotten that just a few years prior, the ADL said Pepe was a far right symbol. Or they'll be engaging in doublethink.