
4Chan user survey results. Not many surprises. - steveklabnik
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewanalytics?formkey=dHFQQW80aThDdFcwb1E3ODV1bVdCeUE6MQ
======
pmorici
65 people "discovered 4chan" in 2011... why was that even a choice, and what
makes people think that a group of people who take nothing seriously would
take a survey seriously?

~~~
jcfrei
I don't think 4chan users would be anymore likely to give wrong answers than
subjects of any other survey. - Very interesting stuff and probably one of the
best representations of the youth in the 21st century.

~~~
ericidle
Care to elaborate? How is this any representation of the youth of the 21st
century?

Thanks.

------
Anonomos
I monitored in live a similar poll that ran in /b/ around two years ago, maybe
earlier.

There were several questions about mental health (medically diagnosed
pathologies, suspected pathologies, ...).

The sex ratio was around 10 to 1.

All girls reported moderate to severe mental issues, whereas only 1 dude in 10
did.

:-/

~~~
adbge
This is self-reported, yes? Culturally speaking, I imagine women would tend to
report much higher numbers than men -- even in a scenario where it was a 1:1
split.

I'd take that poll with a grain of salt, and I sincerely doubt that 'femanons'
are 10x more likely to be suffering from moderate to severe mental illness.

~~~
rue
Being "bipolar", "depressed" or "ocd" is still considered fashionable in some
circles. I would assume fairly significant overreporting.

~~~
Anonomos
That's true, but why would women over-report disproportionately more than men?

~~~
araneae
It might not even be simple over-reporting; women have more diagnoses than
men. Women go to the doctor more.

This isn't to say it isn't still bullshit. I know two women with OCD
diagnoses, but neither present typical symptoms. One is the most foul-smelling
slob I know, the complete opposite of your typical OCD person. The other seems
relatively normal.

~~~
cactopi
Women are typically more communicative than men when it comes to psychological
and/or physical ailments -- that's just the nature of things. Have you ever
known a woman before?

~~~
araneae
I suppose one never does know oneself.

------
instakill
It's interesting that even a community as off-topic, perverse and thematically
unstructured as 4chan thinks that growth of its community is a bad thing.

~~~
redthrowaway
Not really, it's been a huge, longstanding issue for a very, very long time.
Spome light reading: <http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Newfag>

------
pyre
Heh. The graphic for the question: "What boards do you most typically lurk?"
is broken. Attempting to open it in a new tab results with the following error
message:

    
    
      Bad Request
        Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request.
           The parameter 'chs=345x1000' specifies a chart with
           345000 pixels, which exceeds the maximum size of
           300000 pixels.
    

Is this a bug in the doc? Or a bug in Google Docs? It would seem to be a bug
in Google Docs if the size of the chart was auto-generated based on the data,
but exceeded the limits of Google Docs chart generation. Especially since on
the resultant page it just looks like a broken image with no feedback to the
user.

~~~
mtigas
Looks like the list is far too long for the automatic Google Charts URL to
work since it goes over the API's limits. Bug in that Google Docs template, I
guess. Try this:

[https://www.google.com/chart?cht=bhs&chs=300x1000&ch...](https://www.google.com/chart?cht=bhs&chs=300x1000&chbh=24%2C6&chco=dc3f3f|d31111|e15d5d|ed9f9f|e05a5a|eb9595|e26060|d82b2b|da3838|d72828|e67777|ec9898|d51b1b|e57474|e77e7e|eb9292|d00000|d20a0a|e88585|dc4242|dd4949|df5050|de4c4c|d41414|db3c3c|e05656|d10303|e36767|da3535|e26363|d20d0d|e46a6a|e46d6d|d41717|d51e1e|e77b7b|e57171|d10707|ea8f8f|ea8b8b|ed9c9c|e98888|e88181|d72424|eea2a2|d62121|df5353|dd4646|d92e2e|d93232&chxt=x%2Cy&chxl=0%3A|0|911|1822|2733|3644|4555|5466|1%3A|%2Fr9k%2F|%2Frs%2F|%2Fx%2F|%2Fvp%2F|%2Ftv|%2Ftrv%2F|%2Ftoy%2F|%2Ftg%2F|%2Fsp%2F|%2Fsci%2F|%2Fpo%2F|%2Fnew%2F|%2Fn%2F|%2Fmu%2F|%2Flit%2F|%2Fjp%2F|%2Fint%2F|%2Ffit%2F|%2Ffa%2F|%2Fco%2F|%2Fck%2F|%2Fcgl%2F|%2Fan%2F|%2Fadv%2F|%2F3%2F|%2Fy%2F|%2Fcm%2F|%2Fic%2F|%2Fi%2F|%2Fwg%2F|%2Fw%2F|%2Fv%2F|%2Fu%2F|%2Ft%2F|%2Fs%2F|%2Fr%2F|%2Fp%2F|%2Fo%2F|%2Fm%2F|%2Fk%2F|%2Fhr%2F|%2Fh%2F|%2Fgif%2F|%2Fg%2F|%2Ff%2F|%2Fe%2F|%2Fd%2F|%2Fc%2F|%2Fb%2F|%2Fa%2F&chxs=0%2C000000%2C12%2C0%2Clt|1%2C000000%2C12%2C1%2Clt&chds=0%2C5466&chd=t%3A1012%2C4556%2C224%2C663%2C292%2C262%2C593%2C1343%2C625%2C401%2C438%2C188%2C179%2C119%2C288%2C901%2C142%2C208%2C1359%2C379%2C896%2C79%2C149%2C186%2C247%2C129%2C495%2C126%2C373%2C398%2C563%2C377%2C434%2C253%2C332%2C356%2C640%2C82%2C443%2C158%2C651%2C208%2C316%2C201%2C107%2C413%2C429%2C925%2C260%2C961)

EDIT: Actually, that chart is incomplete since the sheer number of items
renders off of the image area. Awesome.

------
jdp23
Would you let your kids visit 4Chan? 61% said no.

------
Helianthus16
Man, that makes me feel all warm and nostalgic. Of course everyone's young,
learning about the freedom of the internet and using their creativity for the
first time. In my day it was LUE on the GameFAQs forum, though I was more of a
Forumite at the time...

------
cskau
I think the most surprising info in there is the fact that there seems to be a
rather normal amount of homo- and bisexuals. You'd think the often hateful
language towards such would mean there'd be fewer than normal.

~~~
steveklabnik
It's just a thin veneer, actually. For instance, there are quite often threads
with dudes dressed as women, and they receive a lot of attention and praise.
There's also a decent number of gay threads, too. Even the furries have
Fridays...

The culture isn't genuinely hateful, they're just trying to get a rise out of
people. Besides, 'fag' is an affectionate term to a /b/tard...

~~~
m-photonic
>Besides, 'fag' is an affectionate term to a /b/tard...

Case in point: at the bottom of the page the survey author says to contact him
at "resultsfag@yahoo.com" :-)

------
wizawuza
Maybe it's just me, but the link doesn't seem to work. Just shows "Summary"

~~~
cookiecaper
Not just you, I get that too. Using Chromium.

~~~
steveklabnik
Now I'm getting a server error.

I bet 4chan, Reddit, and HN all hitting a Google Doc at once probably wasn't
expected.

~~~
andreyf
Considering this is probably stretching the design limits of docs in both
dataset size and number of people accessing it, here's a dropbox-hosted copy:

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/404957/4chansurvey/survey.html>

------
Sybil
I can't believe people are taking this crap seriously.

------
olalonde
3% of the people who completed the survey don't speak English. Just a friendly
reminder to take this and any survey with a grain of salt.

~~~
whimsy
Or, 3% did not answer the optional questions.

However, given the propensity of 4channers to troll, I'm sure the confidence
levels on all these answers must necessarily be very low.

------
ericidle
With all due respect, how is this HN worthy? I don't see this as deeply
interesting. There is nothing meaningful about it, there is no underlying
pattern.

4chan is a cesspool, and it is not representative of youth or any interesting
demographic.

~~~
steveklabnik
> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
> for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going
> to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this;
> there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also
> comment that you did.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

------
icefox
>50% keeping a porn collection

I can only imaging what a teenager is able to amass these days with TB hard
drives and what others might think when they go through it. From a security
perspective if [they] suspect that [you] have a porn collection would it be
prudent to keep a small and neutral porn collection somewhere easily found on
their system? With the percentage being so high they (parents) might keep
looking until they find something.

~~~
klbarry
What is the advantage for those who want to watch erotic materials in storing
pornography? Streaming it is easy, safe, and is harder to catch from the
individual computer, and the supply of different porn materials is essentially
unlimited? I never really understood this.

~~~
SageRaven
My guess is that porn downloaders, like may other media downloaders (warez,
music, videos, etc.), have a hoarding/pack-rat mentality. All too often I see
people amassing various collections of digital media so huge, they'd _never_
in a lifetime be able to consume it all.

------
FooBarWidget
4% report themselves as gay/lesbian while 19% as bisexual. I don't believe any
of this. Is claiming to be bisexual a new fashion trend or something? Assuming
it is a fashion trend, I don't understand where the trend came from; most
4chan users are male, men tend to be homophobic and if a man is bisexual then
he also sleeps with other men. This doesn't make sense.

~~~
klbarry
In one of OK Cupids fascinating data reports, they showed that the vast
majority of people who labelled themselves bi-sexual only contacted one
gender.

~~~
gcb
sauce?

~~~
steveklabnik
[http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-
online...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-
dating/)

Control-f for "I'm bisexual"

------
norswap
There's 10% of criminals on 4chan. Boy I feel some people had fun with the
survey...

~~~
ZachPruckowski
3.1% of Americans are either in prison or on parole. When you realize that
kids and the elderly are going to be underrepresented in prisons, and that
prisons are like 90% male, it's not surprising that a group like 4chan would
have a lot of people who had been convicted of crimes there.

And then you have self-identifiers. Between filesharing, underage drinking,
speeding, and pot, you're going to have a hard time finding anyone between 18
and 30 who hasn't committed at least one crime, even if unconvicted.

~~~
zzeroparticle
The reported number does sound pretty low since a not insignificant part of
4chan is dedicated to anime and there's got to be quite a few people who grab
fansubs and read manga scanlations, both of which are clearly illegal.

I'm also wondering what the Drug User questions looks for. People who are
taking illegal substances or people who are taking prescribed medication. It
sure is interesting to compare that percentage to the criminal question.

~~~
mukyu
Copyright infringement is normally a civil matter, not a criminal one. Just
because it is illegal does not make it criminal.

~~~
ZachPruckowski
[http://www.video777.com/images/general/FBI%20Copyright%20War...](http://www.video777.com/images/general/FBI%20Copyright%20Warning%202.jpg)

There are criminal penalties for copyright infringement. You'd have to really
piss off the judge and prosecutor to get charged with it for private piracy,
but it's technically a criminal issue.

~~~
mukyu
The NET Act criminalized many instances of copyright infringement, but they
are not normally pursued in that manner.

Also, criminal and civil are not mutually exclusive. They can be both.

------
mgcross
Location data surprised me some... within US: CA, AL, TN, TX? AL has 408,
while CA only had 648? [Disclaimer: I live in AL; not a 4chan user].

~~~
fliph
Alabama would have been the first (and default) option in the list.

------
callmeed
What is a "raid" in the context of 4chan?

~~~
mukyu
The classic example is when a bunch of them go to Habbo Hotel, dress as black
men in suits with afros, and block the ladders into a pool while yelling 'THE
POOL IS CLOSED DUE TO AIDS'. Anything where a bunch of them get together to
cause mayhem and/or destruction would be a raid.

------
Jamiecon
I think the questions are more revealing than the answers. Interesting stuff
whichever way you look at it.

------
starpilot
How was this survey conducted? Surveymonkey, or manually collecting responses
via threads?

~~~
steveklabnik
Since it's a Google document, I'd assume a Google Form.

------
elvirs
that website hosts a crowd of interesting (in a way) people O_O

~~~
citricsquid
Definitely, but it's not unique. Almost every website will be the same, I
wouldn't be surprised if even hacker news had similar varying results in
person, even when the "type" of person here will match the others.

~~~
redthrowaway
I don't think 28% of us would say we're into child porn, however.

------
cagenut
gee exactly 420 transexuals

channers cannot resist gaming these online surveys/contests, even if its their
own.

~~~
uxp
I'm sure every result needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but there isn't
anything obvious of foul-play besides a couple that are most likely
coincidences. I'd expect there to be more blatant gaming in the poll if there
was any at all.

Remember the demographic, which is mostly 14-23 year olds. Definitions of
things aren't necessarily always correct in that area. I'd expect a lot of the
self-identifying transsexuals to be more bi-sexual[1] than legally defined
transsexuals.

[1] Specifically, confused individuals who are unsure of what it actually
means to be gay or bisexual that do have feelings that aren't aligned with the
straight public. Just because a guy likes other guys, for example, doesn't
mean he's actually feminine, despite feeling feminine.

------
itistoday
For the genres/fetishes, it would've been interesting to see how those differ
between male/female survey participants.

~~~
varjag
You mean between male and male-pretending-to-be-female participants?

~~~
blots
And what about the female-pretending-to-be-male participants?

