
“for the lolz”: 4chan is hacking the attention economy  - inmygarage
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/06/12/for-the-lolz-4chan-is-hacking-the-attention-economy.html
======
NathanKP
Here is the comment I submitted to the article on Danah Boyd's blog:

 _I disagree that 4chan is a community of hackers for one simple reason: to me
a hacker is someone who gets things done. 4chan and other sites that focus on
memes are attention diverters, full of people who jump from one lol to the
next.

In contrast a hacker is someone who is willing to focus time and attention on
one thing until he excels in it. The 4chan mindset is not a long term, viable
one, because the lulz distract from any real good that can be done. Sure you
can pick through the porn, rubbish, and hate in 4chan and come up with
examples of great things being done, but if you look at real hackers, such as
the internet entrepreneurs that are creating web startups at
<http://news.ycombinator.com> you see many great things being created with
little rubbish, not a few great things mixed into volumes of lulz.

I don't look to 4chan to create long term internet change. They are great for
creating laughs, but the next Facebook, the next Twitter, the next great
internet technology will not arise from them. It will arise from true hackers
who still hack in the traditional sense, by writing code and coming up with
innovative technological ideas._

~~~
philh
You could say: _a 4channer is someone who is willing to focus time and
attention on getting lulz until he excels at it_. (See: Time 100 poll.)

Sure, the lulz is a distraction from doing real good, but so was phreaking. It
turns out that the skills used in both lulz-getting and phreaking can be used
for good as well as evil. (See: Project Chanology, Dusty the cat.)

They're not hackers in the same sense that many of us are. But that wasn't how
the term was used in the article, so big deal.

~~~
NathanKP
Project Chanology is pretty much a failure. Sure they got together and did
some funny things, but scientology is still around. Dusty the cat was nice,
but as I said, that is just one small thing amid tons of rubbish.

To say that 4chan is a way to do good is like saying that rolling dice is a
good way to get the answer to an addition problem. Sure, you will occasionally
get a good answer, but it would be much better to use a decent technique to
get good results consistently.

I think 4chan gets too much credit for the few good things they do. They are
like an application of the monkeys pounding away on typewriters theory.
Eventually those monkeys might produce a few interesting words, but most of it
is just going to be a mess. Likewise, 4chan may occasionally produce some good
results, but in my mind any good they do is far outweighed by the bad.

Clearly, the term hacker is broad and holds connotations that vary from person
to person. Personally, though, I don't view 4chan as a community of true
hackers, just a community of clowns that occasionally does some good, but a
lot of bad as well.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
Project Chanology wasn't a failure if you look at it on a "how many people
know what Scientology really is" level. The "raids" were widely reported, at
least at first, and really pushed some of the info into the minds of the
general populace.

------
hack_edu
Social Engineering has a long history in 80s and 90s hacker culture. Kevin
Mitnick and Kevin Poulson utilized some sort of social disruption in nearly
all of their hacks, skills cultivated from when they were younger and more
abrasive.

To further back up the thesis, Kevin Mitnick, grew up as a Ham in the midst of
the amateur radio boom. Before the big days of phreaking kids would do the
exact 'for the lulz' routine, disrupting and confusing a system full of
weaknesses to probe and abuse.

~~~
adamdecaf
And before Ham kids would run around town and wreak havoc, either at the local
bar, shop, or stall. Why? Because kids are curious and "do it for the lulz".

------
adbge
Once you understand 4chan, you don't want to analyze it. I'm convinced that
anyone who posts an analysis regarding 4chan does not have enough experience
to accurately analyze 4chan.

The author makes a couple good points, but I think her writing would be better
served by not tying in 4chan as some sort of example.

~~~
stcredzero
_Once you understand 4chan, you don't want to analyze it._

Only those who don't understand 4chan say that.

~~~
robotempire
I heard true Scotsmen truly understand 4chan.

~~~
antipaganda
Only Irishmen bring up true Scotsmen all the time.

------
BoppreH
A quick correction: all articles that I've seen mentioning "4chan" actually
mean "/b/."

Sure, the board is huge and by far the most famous, but it's not even
responsible for the majority of the site traffic. There are dozens of
different boards and, with very few exceptions, they are mostly sane.

I bet the people who write those articles don't even know about the literature
and science boards that are just like any other forum, but without the user
names. But I guess that cooking, animals and fitness don't bring enough
pageviews to be mentioned.

~~~
hugh3
Y'know, I wasn't aware that there was a science section on 4chan, so I decided
to check it out. At this very moment the front page of it is:

1\. Someone comparing black people to chimpanzees

2\. "Hey /sci/, in the future, will we be able to use stemcells and nanobots
to turn into IRL furries?!" with a picture of a furry

3\. Something about how we should get more science funding by convincing
everybody that an immensely fuckable race of space babes lives at Alpha
Centauri

4\. "I am thinking of growing a beard. Will it improve my science?"

5\. An atheists-vs-Christians flamewar (or an attempt to start one, I don't
know whether any Christians actually showed up)

And so forth. I wouldn't say "mostly sane". On the other hand you could
probably call it _relatively_ sane.

~~~
jrockway
The hentai forums tend to stay on topic.

~~~
hugh3
I'm going to file that under "stuff that I'll take your word for"

------
jk4930
First, it's "for teh lulz". Second, it's not 4chan but ebaumsworld. Third,
tits or gtfo, Danah.

~~~
steveklabnik
She actually says at the bottom that she spelled it 'lolz' because she prefers
it that way.

Trolling is an art.

~~~
sp332
illustrated: <http://moronail.net/img/1286_moot_trolling_is_a_art>

~~~
steveklabnik
This is actually why I've reverted to saying "is an," because then people go
"oh, no, you messed it up."

And then I smile with that face.

It gets too deeply recursive too quickly. Trolls trolling trolls who troll
trolls.

~~~
count
It's trolls all the way down.

~~~
stcredzero
You've just confirmed all of my worst fears about the true nature of human
beings. Time to move on to psychopathy.

------
stcredzero
_I would argue that 4chan is ground zero of a new generation of hackers –
those who are bent on hacking the attention economy._

The very term "attention economy" is a key bit of awareness. There has always
been an Attention Economy or Attention Ecosystem. It's central to culture and
politics. It's central to media. It's especially important to the web. It's
fundamental to human dominance mechanisms and decision making.

I think there's more than just marketing here. I think this is more like a
cultural movement, with a network of personal relationships, an ideology, and
differing levels of involvement.

------
mootothemax
Oh for goodness' sake _move on_!

I'm struggling to think of _any_ capitalist adventure that won't go against
the ire of 4chan. Which is great 'n' all, but one should know one's target
audience.

Target appropriately and you will succeed. Fix someone's problem, and you'll
get money for it. Even 4chan users' money... I hope.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Incidentally, I've been trying to advertise on 4chan and they will not return
my emails.

------
robotempire
Media is already late to the game. Guaranteed there is already a replacement
for 4chan of which we've never heard but is spewing memetic galaxies like a
dorky black hole.

~~~
bitwize
It's called Reddit. Where the bacon have you been, man? Everybody knows that
bacon narwhal narwhal bacon bacon goes great with Guile.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
Reddit seems to act as a filter between /b/ and the SA forums
<http://forums.somethingawful.com/>. Much of the bullshit and extreme
racism/gore/child porn/other distasteful content is skimmed over, and the true
amusing gems are pulled into the (more) mainstream reddit/digg worlds.

------
nickzoic
Still trying to work out if "at the tale end" is a dumb typo or an incredibly
subtle pun.

------
c00p3r
I probably biased against 'MS researcher', and phrases like 'I grew up in a
community of hackers', but... =)

4chan is, in the first place, the strong illusion of a crowd of young, non-
serious people. It is totally different from any other community, where mostly
mediocre and quite selfish people are trying to show up, praise themselves and
impress others (read: facebook), where social exhibitionism and friend-
counting flourishes.

4chan, with its anonymity, is definitely a time-wasting, the main activity of
any young generation. =) And of course, it is also a slot machine, with
several positive feedback loops, especially if you're admire and love
'freshness' and youth.

btw, its sub-culture and slang are self-evident, not a rocket science. It is
just a cyber community of nonconformist youths, along with a bunch of various
freaks. You may find something like that in any city's outskirts. =)

------
mkramlich
I liked the quote on the lower left-hand side of her post the best. Since
still relevant to web culture, reprinting here:

"Facebook is so endlessly social and inclusive it sometimes reminds me of one
of those mega-nightclubs from the late ’80s (Palladium, the Limelight, etc.),
only without the music, the alcohol, the drugs, the lights, the sweat, or — it
must be said — the people."

\-- Lucinda Rosenfeld

