[oscribinn]

>Most of the outside-the-overton-window discussion on 4chan is discussion of national socialism, with an occasional call for genocide.

If your impression of 4chan as a whole is just /pol/. 4chan as a whole is much more ideologically diverse than reddit due largely to the site's format and lack of censorship, but if you're an outsider to 4chan's (often outlandish and intentionally offensive) cultural norms you're just going to think it's a nazi site. Mainstream media has tried and failed to understand it for decades now.

[krapp]

>Mainstream media has tried and failed to understand it for decades now.

Yes... because even after decades of industry-wide integration with the web and a generation of people working in media who have grown up with it, somehow they still can't grasp the true nature of this one forum full of shitposting edgelords.

[oscribinn]

You're actually on point even though you're being sarcastic. Communities aren't hiveminds, and the edgiest members of a group don't constitute the whole picture. Upvotes and downvotes definitely work to make communities act more like them, however.

[9HZZRfNlpR]

4chan is very much mainstream and much more than /pol/, it's one of the most popular websites on the internet.