4chan's anonymous image boards, especially /b/, generated much of the internet's meme vocabulary in 2010 and gave rise to Anonymous, which attacked PayPal and Visa in December in support of WikiLeaks. It was crude, fast and hugely influential.
- Domain in 2010
- 4chan.org
- Launched
- 1 October 2003
- Founders
- Christopher Poole (moot)
- Owner in 2010
- Christopher Poole
- Status today
- Still active
What people used it for
- Anonymous image-board threads
- Raids, pranks and meme creation
Interface characteristics
- Pale yellow and green board themes
- Threads that expire quickly
- No accounts; everyone is Anonymous
Notable features
- /b/ random board
- Rules of the Internet
What happened later
Poole sold 4chan to Hiroyuki Nishimura in 2015; the site remains controversial.
Archived on the Wayback Machine
Archived pages open on web.archive.org (Internet Archive). They are historical captures, not part of this exhibit.
Related
- CultureSupported
Rage comics
FFFFFUUUU, Trollface, Forever Alone, Me Gusta, Y U NO
Rage comics were crude, four-panel MS Paint strips about everyday frustrations, drawn with a shared cast of stick-figure faces. Born on 4chan in 2008, they peaked in 2010 and 2011 on Reddit's f7u12...
- WebsiteSupported
Something Awful
The forums that cost ten bucks
Something Awful's forums, where an account cost $9.95, were one of the most influential communities on the 2010 internet. Goons popularised Let's Play videos, ran early Minecraft servers and produced...
- CultureVerified
Anonymous attacks PayPal, Visa and MasterCard for WikiLeaks
In Operation Payback, Anonymous volunteers used the LOIC tool to knock the websites of companies that had cut off WikiLeaks offline for hours.
