
What Happens When You Taunt 4Chan: Story of Lacey Vicich  - iProject
http://betabeat.com/2012/09/what-happens-when-you-taunt-4chan-the-story-of-lacey-vicich/
======
Ensorceled
"I think I will poke this bear with this pointed stick I'm holding ... what
could go wrong?"

Not defending 4Chan here but, wow, this is "walking alone in the bad part of
town at midnight" type of stupid.

~~~
kaonashi
That's not even dangerously close to blaming the victim; that is blaming the
victim.

~~~
nathanb
You are conflating two independent ideas: was it wise to behave as she did,
and was 4chan's response OK. The answer to both is "no". It was unwise for her
to do what she did, but that does not justify the response. Don't accuse
people of blaming the victim for pointing out her unwise behavior.

If I go for a walk in a minefield, it sucks that my leg got blown off...but I
could have perhaps exercised better judgment regarding the location of my
evening constitutional. That doesn't make it OK to deploy land mines, that
just makes me an idiot for walking into the minefield.

~~~
wam
Spoken like someone who has never been slut-shamed. Or had his/her leg blown
off by a landmine. People don't actually get maimed because they stupidly
walked into a minefield. They get maimed because someone put a minefield where
they live and grew up, and they can't live life at all without being in
constant danger. Women don't get slut-shamed because they did something to
deserve it, they get slut-shamed because they live in a culture where our
first reaction to anything having to do with women and harassment is to look
for a reason why she had it coming.

Someone doesn't have to say "I blame the victim" to blame the victim. Usually
what they say is something along the lines of "I'm not blaming her, but..."

~~~
marshray
_Spoken like someone who has never been slut-shamed._

Classic ad hominem.

 _People don't actually get maimed because they stupidly walked into a
minefield._

The operative term here is 'hypothetical analogy'. By insisting on the
accuracy of the morbidity statistics of real-world minefields you're
intentionally confusing the point and trying to derail the discussion.

~~~
wam
I don't know. The only rail I see in this discussion is "wow, she should have
known better." Nothing about how pathological the response was, nothing about
the culture that encourages that community to retaliate with such vengeance
and mirth. All of that is in the story, and in the background, but we're not
talking about that... we're talking about whether or not she should have known
better. That's the rail.

~~~
icebraining
Discussing the response is useless, because there's nothing much to discuss,
we'd just be agreeing with each other and patting ourselves on the back. I
know that some communities enjoys such circlejerks, but I expect HN to be
above that.

------
veb
I remember when this started happening, something trickled over to Reddit and
so I investigated to get the full story.

Needless to say, it was rather quite horrible and I really did feel for the
girl. At the same time, I was utterly confused as to why on earth she tried to
poke a hornets nest...

It's a shame that people are _still_ trying to ruin her life more. It's almost
like _some_ people think if something is done over a computer, it's not
"real".

~~~
dmix
I didn't feel bad for Timothy Treadwell when he got eaten by a grizzly bear as
covered in the film, Grizzly Man. It was almost expected given his actions.

~~~
andreasvc
That's a pretty callous thing to say. How do you get from a person was being
misguided to they deserved their horrible fate?

~~~
dmix
I try to evaluate things rationally.

Just as I give both Timothy (who had spent 13 summer living among bears) and
this girl (who as the article says was an old time /b/ user) the benefit of
the doubt, that they rationally knew the extreme dangers that existed.

There's already enough tragedy that happens in this world - due to pure
circumstance and things out of our control.

I only have a limited amount of energy and time on this planet. My empathy is
better spent on the latter individuals than on those who knowingly put
themselves in direct danger of being harmed.

~~~
andreasvc
Ethical and emotional matters are typically seen as separate from rational
concerns. Empathy is not something that healthy people have a short supply of.
Time and energy is another thing, but a person being eaten generally makes
people feel bad.

~~~
dmix
But I didn't say I don't feel bad when people get killed by bears in a general
sense. Context is really important.

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sharkweek
without looking too much into this... she runs a porn channel, has an
understanding of how /b/ works, and is now getting a ton of publicity?

am I missing a detail here or is she getting exactly what she wants

~~~
insane_man
True, this isn't 14 yr old Jessi Slaughter. However, spreading her paid porn
videos around for free must make a dent in all of this.

I don't know if the publicity will be worth it if they're desecrating graves
now.

~~~
eurleif
She might be hoping to make money by exchanging messages with people
(MyGirlFund charges for that), or by doing live webcam sessions. The free
videos might help as marketing for that

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saxamaphone69
There is more to 4chan than just /b/.

Yes, /b/ seems to be the only reason people hear or know about 4chan. But /b/
has done this sort of stuff in the past for massive 'lulz', and they have also
stopped stuff like animal cruelty, or even that one kid who decided to post a
pic of his feet in people's salad (which got him fired).

Good times here, <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tom-green-raids>

There's another 50 boards on 4chan ranging from animals to papercraft.
Explore.

~~~
NotaFingah
Why would I want to explore a place that hosts a filthy cesspool crawling with
loathsome sloths and immature rejects from all walks of life?

Thanks for your great advice, but I think I'll just stay as far away from that
place as possible. I'm sure I'll be able to read about it somewhere else, the
next time these mindless children decide to go too far.

~~~
icebraining
Because it's interesting.

------
ihuman
Reminds me of a quote by Stephen Colbert (at 1:35):
[http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-
videos/37542...](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-
videos/375428/february-24-2011/corporate-hacker-tries-to-take-down-wikileaks)

~~~
bsphil
My exact thoughts. The quote for those who don't have access to watch the
video:

"Anonymous is a hornet's nest, and Barr said, 'I'm gonna put my penis in that
thing.'"

------
awakeasleep
I feel that somewhere in the progress of western civilization, our culture
lost track of some of the important but nasty sides of human nature. We
censure them, and to an extent refuse to believe they exist.

I hope that the 'wild internet' reintroduces society to the fact that people
have a tendency to lash out and hurt others, and that reintroduction serves to
help us put value back on thoughtful and caring behavior.

~~~
andreasvc
This is a perverted view of history. In fact, in small hunter-gatherer tribes
it was easier to keep track of each other and hold each other accountable, so
crossing someone would be risky. Today, with large societies that are
increasingly anonymous, one can more easily get away with screwing people over
--you can always move someplace else. So I don't think being nasty is
particularly natural for humans, it just comes out in the right conditions
where people are likely to get away with it.

~~~
sltkr
On the other hand, when people have nowhere else to go, they are extremely
vulnerable to exploitation of those in power.

(Go watch Dogville for an exploration of that idea.)

I think it's a bit naive to suggest that if people lived in smaller
communities, nothing nasty would happen to anyone.

~~~
andreasvc
Outcasts are vulnerable, yes, but that's why you try to prevent becoming one.
I have seen Dogville, but I don't see why this fictional anecdote would refute
my thesis which is based on what I believe is the consensus in modern
anthropology. I didn't imply that 'nothing nasty would happen to anyone',
that's a straw man. I merely pointed out a contrast between small close-knit
groups vs. large anonymous crowds.

------
nvmc
So some little camwhore decided to try and viral her porn site and it
backfired? I'm struggling to find any sympathy.

------
JackFr
Florida Golf Coast University?

~~~
Kopion
I think they mean 'Gulf'

------
Kopion
Pardon my naivety, but what is this '/b/' they cite?

~~~
macchina
boards.4chan.org/b/ [nsfw]

4chan has different boards which pertain to different subject matter. For
example, /mu/ for music, /sp/ for sports and /v/ for video games. /b/ is the
"random" board where essentially anything goes. It is also the most popular
board on the 4chan. /b/ is sometimes referred to as "the asshole of the
internet" proceed there at your own risk.

------
rulesofwriting
Hey guys, I'm a journalist for a smaller news organization. If anyone has info
or wants to comment, I'm trying to do a story on this. My e-mail is
rulesofwriting@yahoo.com. I've seen 4chan in the news before, and I actually
go on there for images since I do photography and film for fun. In any case,
hit me up.

------
89a
No idea what she was thinking. She must have known about "Jessie Slaughter"
and that they would see through a pathetic attempt to promote her porn site.

Shame they took it so far with her though

------
younata
...

I'd love to read this, but there does not appear to be a way to read the full
article on an iPad.

~~~
tzs
There is a thingy on the bottom that opens a tray on the left. That contains a
link to the desktop site. You can then read the article without their fucked
up interface.

