"It's a part of his life that was incredibly complicated, incredibly sad, incredibly controversial and incredibly gratifying all at the same time," said Alfonso, who has interviewed Poole. Unlike the site he popularized, Poole - who was a 15-year-old when he created 4chan - has grown up a bit. Because of this dark side of the site, its influence often gets shrugged off by the mainstream media." Its influence is vastly understated in the media because 4chan is known as the place for misogyny, racism and pedophilia. When asked about the true scope of 4chan, Alfonso told Mic, "4chan has been a change agent in the internet era for well over a decade. Here are a few examples: getting a swastika to appear at the top of Google's Hot Trends chart, hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's email, causing a massive stock plunge for Apple by fabricating the death of Steve Jobs, allegedly telling teenage Justin Bieber fans to slit their wrists in support of the singer, leaking a number of high-profile celebrity nude photos and targeting several women in the video game industry with threats of doxxing, rape and death in what became known as Gamergate.Īnd that's just the tip of the iceberg. After Poole's identity was published by the Wall Street Journal and Time in 2008, the site went on what 4chan expert and former Daily Dot writer Fernando Alfonso III described as a "trolling tear." The effect was so profound, Astley thanked Poole in a write-up for the the latter's profile in Time.īut 4chan wasn't associated with positivity for long. Several weeks later, Astley performed at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. In November 2008, Astley was voted Best Act Ever at the MTV Europe Music Awards. The practice spread outside the image board and became so popular that it revived Astley's career. Rickrolling - the act of sharing a hyperlink that contains presumed information, only for it to open to a music video of Rick Astley's 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up" - became the ultimate online prank after its birth on 4chan in 2007. It didn't take long for 4chan's community to make an impact in other ways. One of these memes in particular, "I Can Has Cheezburger," was the inspiration for a comedy site of the same name, which went on to become a multimillion-dollar company generating millions of page views. These LOLcats took the internet by storm, eventually landing in Time magazine by July 2007. 4chan's first major contribution came in the form of cat images with broken-English text superimposed underneath. Over the next 10 years, 4chan would give rise to some of the best and worst content available on the web. And with that, 4chan was on its way to becoming one of the most influential websites in internet history. With the financing, Poole purchased his own servers to keep 4chan afloat. It was enough to keep the site running - and even reject a $50,000 buyout offer. "This site simply does not support itself it's a sad fact but it's the truth," Poole wrote on March 1, 2004, according to the Daily Dot.īut Poole was able scrounge together anonymous donations from the 4chan community.
Poole couldn't pay for the servers without funding from advertisers, who were repelled by the site's pornographic material. A glance of 4chan today shows the array of forums that have since been created: alternative sports, origami and personal advice boards, to name a few.īut running such an endeavor came at a price - literally.
4chan collected a million hits within its first six days of operation, and Poole added over a dozen distinct boards for various topics. With no names or information to hold members accountable, 4chan became a breeding ground for "anything goes" content. Participating in the threads did not require registration, meaning the majority of users commented anonymously. 1, 2003, by a 15-year-old student named Christopher Poole, who called his 4chan handle "moot." Originally launched out of Poole's bedroom, 4chan was intended to be an online image board for discussion on anime, manga and Japanese culture for English speakers.
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