Ask HN: What makes 4Chan Unique? Why people love it? - startupflix
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hluska
I was in my late twenties when I discovered 4chan. At the time, I loved it
because it was a bastion of unrestrained creative thought. A lot of the
content was fucked up garbage and everything was ephemeral, but that made
taking part in the brilliant content way more rewarding.

As I've aged (I'm almost 41 now), I'm sure the same brilliant ideas surface
from time to time, but I can't sift through the garbage anymore. I don't know
if that's because the people have gotten worse, or whether I'm just getting
more conservative as I age.

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angersock
Good question.

I'd say some big factors are:

 _It 's more authentic than almost any other site._ Moderators/janitors are
pulled from the userbase, content is sourced directly from the users, and
there isn't much behind the website beyond "we have stupid high amounts of
traffic, let's get some ad revenue". The site is honest about what it is.

 _The site has a core feature set and doesn 't do anything else._ It's like
Craigslist--it does one thing, and doesn't mess about with other things.

 _The site is remarkably uncensored, favoring containment boards._ So, love it
or hate it, 4chan is very free in the speech allowed. Everybody on the site
knows the culture of whatever boards they visit, and there is a culture of
mockery for people who are too thin-skinned. The flip side of this is that
content that people really don't want to see (furry stuff, political stuff,
etc.) has a clear place to go. This is the best strategy for that sort of
work, since it keeps resentment from building up and makes it easy for users
to avoid stuff they don't like.

 _Users feel empowered to enforce norms._ Even using archaic tools, users feel
directly responsible to call out ("sage") things that don't belong on their
board. By contrast, a lot of sites have userbases who basically whine at mods
and don't take responsibility for their culture.

 _The site has room for everybody, but it doesn 't take itself seriously._
There is a cooking board, a board for hardcore pornography, a board for
papercraft and origami, a board for torrents, a board for animals, a board for
nazis, a board for lgbtq+ folks...basically, there are clear communities
available for everybody. And every board makes fun of itself.

 _Users are anonymous and posts go away._ This is the one that always gets
brought up, but the fact is that by having ephemeral accounts and posts,
people are free to speak their mind and to change their position later without
ill effect.

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m0ck
>Moderators/janitors are pulled from the userbase

Just a technical note, I believe this is not true. AFAIK only janitors are
recruited from users, the moderators (those with real power) were all personal
friends of m00t (at least not so long ago). Maybe it changed since hiroyuki
took over, but I have not read anything about it.

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krapp
I've come to appreciate the value of a "social media" platform that has
anonymity and ephemerality by default. I like being able to participate in
discussions without being expected to trade my identity or privacy for the
privilege.

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potta_coffee
It's the last bastion of what I call the "old internet". (There are other
sites out there but it's the most well known one). It's amazing how much
content filters from 4chan to the mainstream without anyone realizing it. It's
not for the easily offended which is a huge plus. It's the best site on the
internet.

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jabgrabdthrow
Whew I wonder which of your sentences caused downvotes

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technion
In addition to the great points people have raised, there is a slew of 4chan
clones that are at least as functional, which never took off, or started
taking off then died. There are several open source projects around people
have run up over the years.

It's also not necessarily the most "uncensored", several such clones were
famously a lot more open in certain discussions despite being effectively
dead.

And finally it's not totally ephemeral these days, with several mirrors
showing up.

At some point, any social network continues operating due to its critical mass
of users.

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mabynogy
Because they are anonymous and can reply with an image.

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rajacombinator
One of the only “free speech zones” on the internet.

