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by matheusmoreira 1888 days ago
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.
1 comments
ineedasername 1888 days ago
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?
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bumblelad 1888 days ago
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.

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ineedasername 1888 days ago
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.

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matheusmoreira 1888 days ago
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.

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nathanasmith 1887 days ago
>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.

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