[ineedasername]

I took you up on that, and visited the technology interest area /g/

Post #1: Comment using the N word

Post #2: Someone using "fag" to insult people who, presumably, use Arch linux. (The term was Archfags)

Post #3: In response to something about headphones: "that deaf faggot [n-word]"

So it's funny. I've been browsing 4chan for 5 minutes and couldn't avoid racism & homophobia in the very first things I saw. Maybe you should actually visit the site instead of just spreading misinformation.

[Thorentis]

So we went from "it's nothing but pedos and porn" to "there are some bad words on there". If you find that offensive, maybe stay away from the internet.

[ineedasername]

Racism and homophobia aren't just bad words, and they were literally in the first three things I looked at.

If you find that hard to understand, maybe stay away from HN where we try to have at least some minimum of reason in our discussions: you either lack that by minimizing racism and hatred to "bad words" or you are a troll arguing in bad faith.

[Thorentis]

I think you are the one doing the conflating. You've jumped from "these words are sometimes used" to "these words are used solely for the purpose of expressing racist and homophobic feelings".

[ineedasername]

[flagged]

[Thorentis]

Please never visit /r/WallStreetBets. The humor will go right over your head.

[Blikkentrekker]

> I don't know what land you're in if it's a place where calling someone a "fa--ot [n-word]" doesn't get categorized into some sort of hate speech.

This is the main point of contention. No one denies that such words are a common occurrence on 4chan, but you believe these words are automatically indicative of racism.

Are you open to the idea that someone who refers to himself as “an Archfag” is simply communicating on his being an Arch Linux user, and not otherwise intending to communicate his sexual orientation, and certainly not to proffer a negative view of his own sexual orientation?

[solosoyokaze]

> "these words are used solely for the purpose of expressing racist and homophobic feelings".

There's no other way to use these words. They're always racist and homophobic. That's the point, /pol is a cesspool of racism and homophobia.

[hda2]

> There's no other way to use these words. They're always racist and homophobic.

The way this thread progressed was very fascinating to read.

First, an absurd baseless generalization was made. Then, when challenged, the generalization was narrowed down a bit. Then it was narrowed down again and again until we got this comment which asserts an outright lie.

These words aren't always used in a racist and homophobic way. 4chan is proof of this.

[solosoyokaze]

These words are always racist. It doesn’t matter what 4chan claims.

[throw7]

> There's no other way to use these words.

Try to step back and move into another level.

What are words?

What is this "vibration of air molecules" hitting my ear?

What is the meaning behind them?

Why so?

Do these certain "frequencies" always mean a certain meaning? Always?

[ineedasername]

I don't think that analyzing racial slurs at the level molecular interactions is a useful exercise in understanding racism or hate speech.

[Blikkentrekker]

They clearly can, and are in this case used, to communicate information where neither the listener nor the speaker is even thinking about race or sexual orientation, and no comment thereon is made.

If you wish to still call that “racism and homophobia”, then neither of which necessarily has anything to do with race or sexual orientations, or even disdain. — you should also know that your usage of these words is then quite nonstandard, and does not align with what most mean with them.

The word “nigger”, in particular, has been of particular interest of study in how depending on context the word can very much be about race, and negatively so, to a simple form of address that has no implications of race.

[cozuya]

What sites do you visit that you regularly see "f--" and the n word?

[matheusmoreira]

If you visit anonymous imageboards, it's because you want to be exposed to the widest possible spectrum of humanity. There's a bias towards being offensive simply because those things are not allowed to surface anywhere else. If you stick around despite that, you'll realize the site has a rather unique culture. Occasionally, you'll run into great stuff that could never be expressed in sites such as this one.

You mentioned /g/ -- there is a daily programming thread on that board with a very long history. I've seen some really interesting projects posted there. Some even made their way here eventually. SerenityOS for example.

[ineedasername]

I can understand that sometimes there's decent bit of non-hate content on 4chan, but what sort of great content would you find there that couldn't be expressed here, or in some other forum that isn't full of hatred?

[bumblelad]

Seeing your comments on a few other parts of this thread makes me think that it's probably better for you not to bother with 4chan. As others have kindly explained to you, insults on there are facetious as well as self describing, and of course, derogatory.

If you can't, or rather won't, see beyond that. Then it's just not for you. And that's fine.

[ineedasername]

You are correct, hate speech is not for me, and when possible I stay away from places where it would otherwise be unavoidable.

But what people have "kindly" explained have merely been justifications for racism and other hate speech that all seem to ultimately boil down to it being normal for 4chan. That, and the excuse of "oh but they don't really mean it" is pretty thin justification.

[matheusmoreira]

It is normal there. These elements surface on anonymous forums precisely because they are not tolerated elsewhere.

A very simple pattern of 4chan posting culture is to offend others in order to provoke a debate about what you actually want to discuss. It's the 4chan version of clickbait. The /g/ catalog is absolutely filled with people doing this. Want to talk about Linux? Pretend you're a superior Windows user and mock Linux for not having some feature. File picker thumbnails are a common example. This happens all the time and can generate some rather unique discussions.

Because it's anonymous, you'll see a lot of frowned-upon behavior which can nevertheless be interesting. Everytime some drama happens on GitHub or LKML there might be a random 4chan thread discussing it in the usual offensive tone. It's interesting to read about what people think, especially opinions they wouldn't express if they had to sign the post with their real names.

[nathanasmith]

>A very simple pattern of 4chan posting culture is to offend others in order to provoke a debate about what you actually want to discuss. It's the 4chan version of clickbait. The /g/ catalog is absolutely filled with people doing this. Want to talk about Linux? Pretend you're a superior Windows user and mock Linux for not having some feature. File picker thumbnails are a common example. This happens all the time and can generate some rather unique discussions.

I do this with investment ideas on /biz/ regularly, particularly in the stock market general thread and have had some very enlightening debates as a result.

[kderbyma]

technically....it's a culture clash. those words mean different things than Merriam Websters......

it's offensive to outsiders....to keep them out lol

[solosoyokaze]

It's offensive to everyone who's not a racist. Is that your definition of "outsider"? What do you think those words mean?

[Hacker29382]

On 4chan, the -fag suffix is barely offensive and can even be a term of endearment.

[solosoyokaze]

It’s offensive off 4chan, it doesn’t matter what they think.

[nathanasmith]

>it doesn’t matter what they think

A thought provoking message. Just quoting it for posterity. Carry on.

[scpedicini]

He specifically refuted the claim that it was "pedophilia and gore"; your response, while raising valid criticisms, has nothing to do with those two things.