It’s likely that there will never be a site like 4chan again. But everything now—from X and YouTube to global politics—seems to carry its toxic legacy.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20250422233152/https://www.wired.com/story/4chan-is-dead-its-toxic-legacy-is-everywhere/
When I first used 4chan, more specifically /b/ in like 2009 and it was wild. There were definitely a lot of horrible people, but it was far from the majority of the posts there; there was actual interesting content and interesting discussions at times.
Every time I’ve been to /b/ over the last 5-10 years has been nothing short of horrific.
The content of /b/ over the last however long would variably look like this:
Extremely racist thread
Thread of actual gore showing severally mutilated human beings or less frequently animals
Trans hate thread
Intimate pictures of people you know viewed as porn thread Another racist thread
Another trans hate thread
4 more similar pornographic threads
Another gore thread
Rinse & Repeat
Fuck 4chan and virtually everyone who’s been active on /b/.
The right literally used it as a dog whistle to get their people on a site they could be fed info. That’s why 4chan was central to being seen as white supremacist by fox news. They announce it is, and so they go there to check it out.
Over the last decade it really has been a decay, of even the porn threads being nothing but race focused. I think it was around the time Pepe started becoming another connection with 4chan, that’s when it got noticeable.
By the end /aco/ and /gif/ were haltingly slow. Even gif didn’t have threads reach the limit and start a continuation anymore.
Porn is a very dominant way of convincing people. Its half of why ai is so adored. You can make them believe anything through suggestion or outright flattery.