this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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It’s likely that there will never be a site like 4chan again. But everything now—from X and YouTube to global politics—seems to carry its toxic legacy.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250422233152/https://www.wired.com/story/4chan-is-dead-its-toxic-legacy-is-everywhere/

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[–] vestigeofgreen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

I'm glad it's dead.

I love the idea of imageboards. I love "anonymous" posting as a default. I love ephemeral threads.

I thought generals were pretty good. Board culture was real. People would make nontrivial 4chan optimized original content for what I assume was love of art.

There was something special about 4chan that I don't think exists in forums, lemmy, tumblr, tiktok, or the other forms of social media we have now.

But the place was a shithole.

Split as it was by boards and threads, I could insulate myself from it to some extent but the culture on 4chan was getting worse year by year. The famous boards attracted the MAGA crowd and population had a large effect on what threads lived and died. I had so many threads hidden and yet I would still get a wave of revulsion looking at the catalog on my favorite board.

There are other imageboards. There are open source imageboard projects. Without 4chan's shadow, I hope that imageboards and imageboard culture develop in different directions.