hello,

I have been diving into these anonymous boards and stuff. I wanted to know if anyone use it for any actual purposes like for getting some tech knowledge or something?

  • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    17 days ago

    I used it when I was younger. I grew up and realized that it was not good to be exposed to that culture. Even when viewing it through a lens. Anonymity brings out the worst in people, and it’s infectious.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    17 days ago

    I’ve been using 4chan for longer than Reddit and Lemmy combined. Mostly /vg/ (games), /g/ (tech) and /a/ (anime, manga).

    Mostly for discussion. /g/ and /vg/ are decent for asking stuff if there’s a general about the topic that you want to ask info about, you want a relatively fast answer, and it isn’t something overly asked (e.g. “which distro should I use?” “INSTALL GENTOO” tier). Just make sure to not trust anything said there.

    Other boards are typically too slow (like /ck/) or cesspools (like /b/, /b corta/ /v/, /pol/).

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    16 days ago

    No, I never went down that rabbit hole, which is interesting in hindsight. I went straight from old-school forums and chatrooms (where I’m sure I was very obviously a child) to Reddit.

    By the time I was hearing about it it was just “that Nazi pedo incel site”.

  • VeryImportantUser@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    17 days ago

    No and I would stay away from anyone using it. Full of bigotry, racism, antisemitism and transphobia. It’s hard to find a site more disgusting than 4chan.

  • neidu2@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    edit-2
    16 days ago

    I was a /b/tard almost 20 years ago, but in 2006ish the site got a lot of public attention, so there was an influx of people who were there mostly just to be edgy. Sure, it was always a matter of digging through a trash heap to find one edible rice grain, but the trash heap grew larger and the rice grains became more rare.

    By 2008 it had mostly devolved into recycled memes, presumably from people trying to fit in, and the occasional CP/gore and other things posted for shock value. Around this time I also became somewhat of a normie and figured the board didn’t really have much that appealed to me anymore.

    • virku@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      17 days ago

      I was a casual /b/tard around that time. I never saw CP, luckily, or maybe I just skipped those threads by reflex, but a lot of gore went by. There was a lot of fun image macros and stuff. Bur after a while I dropped out of it. I think it was about the same time I got really addicted to stumbleupon. Stumbleupon was my first tailored algorithm and my dopamine receptors haven’t been the same since.

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    16 days ago

    it has its moments and used to be less bad. nowadays you have to dodge nazis and some people genuinely off the deep end to use it and its simply not worth it.

    some brave souls trudge that shithole for the rare gold nugget and post them to greentext comms. you aint missing much else.

    • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      16 days ago

      YLYL posts have some great memes. Until the typical cunts get on there and post the and stupid shit over and over

  • GeekFTW@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    17 days ago

    I used to in the past (back when it was much more common to peruse /b/ and have kiddie porn slapped right in your eyeballs at a moment’s notice…not that its probably changed much over the years lol). Now-a-days I just use it for the torrent board since I’m a data hoarder and they throw up the occasional interesting collection of stuff.

      • Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        16 days ago

        There a lemmy spot for that? I found the data hoarding community on reddit just before they killed 3rd party apps and have been wanting to find my people again since.

  • Trent@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    17 days ago

    No. I checked it out twice, looked around, and noped out. Haven’t been back since.

  • datavoid@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    17 days ago

    Back in like 2009-2011.

    Pretty sure it did lasting psychological damage, would not recommend 🙂

  • BigPotato@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    16 days ago

    Back in the day, when it was light-hearted things like Habbo Hotel raids, Triforcing, and secretly hiding CP in the images you upload so that other people help proliferate CSAM.

    If you can’t tell by that last part, I don’t go there anymore. /b/ was never good and all that.

    Every now and then, I check it out though. I’m obviously old and certainly not anyone’s personal army so I look at a page or two of porn and gore and shrug, click out, and let time march onward.

  • j4k3@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    17 days ago

    I keep a copy of 4chanGPT around; trained on the board. It is not very bright or useful. It’s ribaldry and politically incorrect sarcasm is mildly amusing. However, its primarily useful because it does not have the safety alignment training and mechanisms that all other mainstream large language models have. Using 4chanGPT, I can see the structures that are truly persistent across models, their purpose, and their functions. It is only a minor thing I rarely use.

        • Toribor@corndog.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          16 days ago

          You’re right. A real bot trained on 4chan would be too busy arguing about circumcision.

          • Semperverus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            16 days ago

            I think i’m missing the context about the circumcision thing. Where did you get that from exactly?

            • Toribor@corndog.social
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              15 days ago

              I’m making another generalization about the dredges of content on 4chan. Go to any 4chan porn board or thread from the last 20 years and eventually it devolves into an argument about circumcision.

  • twinnie@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    17 days ago

    I used it around the time of Epic Fail Guy and barrel rolls. It was fun for a while but I eventually realised that it was the same jokes and content going around again and again. Then someone posted a spoiler for Bioshock and I was done with it.

    As for tech answers it’s probably about as reliable as an AI. I wouldn’t expect people to generally lie to you but there would be the occasional bit of bullshit from some troll from /b/. I’m sure you’ll get abuse if people think you’re being stupid, probably worse than a Linux forum.