
Apocalypse whatever: 4chan's religion of nihilism - kapitza
http://reallifemag.com/apocalypse-whatever/
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rednerrus
When an intellectual, a privileged position in society, writes "Only someone
who has always had enough privilege to never have to reckon with the
consequences of one’s words could participate in such a movement and keep up
with the profound disengagement it demands. Kierkegaard’s ironist, in other
words, has to be a straight white man." about guys who work in gas stations in
rural America, I have a hard time taking them seriously.

~~~
striking
I can't believe someone took the time to compose this article, honestly. I
read your comment and thought "perhaps it's a cherrypicked quote; the whole
article couldn't possibly read like that!"

Nah. Someone wrote a postmodern analysis about a bunch of kids stitching
together green frog pictures in Photoshop and screaming "DUBS GET" because
they have nothing better to do.

But I read it. Who's the fool here, the author or the reader?

~~~
rednerrus
This was the other point I was going to make, these people don't have anything
going for them for the most part. They don't have anything else to do.

------
angersock
This author clearly doesn't understand what it is to do something _for the
lulz_. FWIW, it's not a masculine v. feminine thing, or a white vs. nonwhite
thing--it's the same urge that helps children across the globe torture animals
and set things on fire out of boredom. That's perhaps one of the few truly
universal human quirks.

Throughout the article, the author really really wants to present the
'channers, the alt-right, and white supremacists as being the same groups,
interchangeable in motive and person. Further, the author invokes a lot of
Western (like, cowboy-western) imagery with references to the Alamo, Lone
Ranger, and other shibboleths in a pretty naked attempt to go painting the
folks as searching for lost masculinity. Finally, in a cheap shot, she then
basically calls them cowards for not dying for their memes while still
lamenting that their candidate (Trump) won.

It sure reads nicely, but it misses--in my opinion--a big part of the context
these actions are taking place in.

These folks are reacting to a world where truth is really just another
convenience to use or alter as a selling point, where systemic issues with
politics and corruption are ignored beyond being used to build peoples'
careers as progressives, where racism is suddenly _de jure_ no longer an issue
but _de facto_ pretty obviously used to prevent critical speech, and where
sexism and misogyny have been so widely and indiscriminately accused that they
no longer have real and common meaning.

So, in the deepest throes of nihilism (which the author should've explored
further instead of deciding to play the "mean young white male" card) this
culture has evolved.

~~~
internaut
Happy Christmas Mr Sock.

I see what you're saying but am still not sure the traits you've described are
separable from the psychology of men and women. I think the author would have
been more balanced had she compared and contrasted 4chan with its opposite,
tumblr.

There might be men on tumblr and women on 4chan but it always struck me that
tumblr was somehow psychologically female and 4chan was intrinsically male. If
you did a genomic survey of their users you would surely find the allele
frequency was very different.

4chan can be pathologically cruel while tumblr exhibits every impulse a
Victorian doctor would associate with hysteria. It's also interesting how
4chan is self aware they are 'raiding' (for the greater lulz), which I think
is the instinct of hunter related genes, while tumblr is ground zero for
spreading information about 'Outrage of the Week' and does not consider its
participants as part of a mob action even while urging 'somebody do
something'. These are very gendered characteristics.

Men and women respond to 'being thrown out by the tribe' differently. To be
thrown under the bus is a bigger deal for a woman than a man. That is why
tumblr's infamous SJW culture is so often purging their ranks of people who
don't totally conform.

On the other side 4chan's raiding parties do indeed target outgroups from
their tribe. It is not weird that alt-right has a 'spiritual' connection to
4chan. I don't like the term 'hate group' because it has lost meaningfulness
but if they are then it is a broad church where the real requirement that
validates you as a member is the extent of how much you dislike the outgroup.
In fact you could be a member of the outgroup as long as you despise them
enough!

I don't think 4chan or tumblr are evil or good. I think they are simply our
human nature. The words are strongly overloaded because of the last western
war but I also believe 4chan/tumblr are the embryonic form of the mass
psychology that generated the political ideologies of communism and fascism.
These are intrinsic parts of our makeup and we cannot really escape them. I
treat them as collective survival instincts. Present society is concerned with
the elimination of one or both, which is like trying to lift your feet from
off the ground with your hands. If we genuinely want a positive future, we
ought to be thinking about harnessing these instincts, not obliterating them.
Right person, right place.

------
yalue
It's too bad that the author conflates /pol/ (known to many other 4chan users
as a "containment board" for the most racist users) with the entirety of the
site.

While pol may be the most active board on 4chan for the time being, it hasn't
always been and may not always continue to be (sadly, painting the entire site
as a club for nihilistic Trump supporters makes it less likely to attract
different users). Much of the rest of the website offers a great discussion
format for focused topics, and I wish I could admit to enjoying the other
sections of 4chan without needing to qualify my statements by explaining that
the entire site isn't dedicated to racism and porn.

~~~
angersock
The funny thing is that _everybody else on the site_ hates the /pol/ folks as
they tend to derail conversations (/k/ is a victim of this).

------
nether
I've met a handful of people via 4chan. All of them have been kind,
intelligent, and thoughtful people. And a lot of fun. I'd much rather hang out
with a random 4channer than someone from the US population at large, assuming
both are around my age.

I think the really nasty ones avoid meeting irl though.

------
kincardine
There is so much promise here. Unfortunately, the author is horribly
undermined by her own ignorance, and also, somewhat ironically, by trying to
attribute larger aspects of internet culture to a specific group of racists,
misogynists, and Trump supporters.

------
Neliquat
Missing the point: the essay.

