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| ▲ | albroland an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| Few thoughts: in context it's not nuts at all: - moot was fundraising for his VC backed startup during the years the emails are in, and he was likely connected via mutuals in USV or other firms. These meetings were clearly around him trying to solicit investment in his canv.as project. - /pol/ was /new/ being returned; the ethos of the board had already existed for a long time and the decision to undo the deletion of /new/ was entirely unsurprising for denizens at the time, and was consistent with a concerted push moot was making for more transparency in the enforcement of rules on the site and fairness towards users who followed the rules. /pol/ didn't start a culture war at this time any more than /new/ had previously - it just existed as a relatively content-unmoderated platform for people to discuss earnestly what would get them banned elsewhere. |
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| ▲ | mikkupikku 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Besides /new/ there was also /n/ (not at that time about transportation.). Moot's war with people being racist on 4chan had many back and forth before /pol/ was created. |
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| ▲ | acessoproibido 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I always wondered how much of a cultural etc influence 4Chan actually had (has?) - so much of the mindset and vernacular that was popular there 10+ years ago is now completely mainstream. |
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| ▲ | jazzyjackson 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ah, a rare opportunity to share a blog post that had a big effect on my political outlook back in 2016, Meme Magic Is Real, You Guys Who can say what effect it had on the world, but a presidential candidate reposting himself personified as Pepe the frog was still weird back then, and at least a nod to the trolls doing so much work on his behalf https://medium.com/tryangle-magazine/meme-magic-is-real-you-... (dismissable login wall) |
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| ▲ | mort96 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Just to substantiate this a bit: I remember a gleeful consensus in certain circles being that /pol/ and /r/the_donald had "memed Trump into the White House". It's much more complicated than that, but there's certainly an element of truth there. |
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| ▲ | dopa42365 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Given the "nature" of 4chan (only a few hundred posts and a few thousand comments at a time, the vast majority of it shitposts and spam), it just can't do that. The imageboard format and limits basically prevent any scaling and mainstream success. If you follow any of the general threads in pol or sp for a while, you'll spot the same few people all the time, it's a tiny community of active users. |
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| ▲ | thatguy0900 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the logic is Pol didn't need to reach the masses, the masses only consume content they don't create it. You only need to radicalize the few people who then go on to be the 1% of people commenting and posting. | | |
| ▲ | mort96 44 minutes ago | parent [-] | | There's an old joke that 9gag* only reposts stuff from Reddit and Reddit only reposts stuff from 4chan and 4chan is the origin of all meme culture. This joke was widespread enough to reach myself and my friend group back in the day, even though none of used 4chan or Reddit. If you radicalise the 0.01% of people who are prolific meme creators, you radicalise the masses. * I did say old... |
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| ▲ | shrubble 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don’t agree with this analysis. The reason I don’t agree is that moot banned any Gamergate discussion and those people then went to 8chan, a site which moot had no control over. And it was Gamergate that put some fuel on the fire which (IMHO) increased support for Trump. The 8chan site grew a great deal from it, then continued from that first initial “win”. |
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| ▲ | kmeisthax an hour ago | parent [-] | | From moot's perspective, it can be as simple as being convinced by some rich guy you've never heard of to bring back the politics board. He doesn't need to have an intent to start a fascist coup, that's Epstein's job. GamerGate is just the point at which moot realized he'd fucked up and destroyed 4chan imageboard culture by letting /pol/ fester. |
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| ▲ | kipchak 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Which meeting are you seeing? That search doesn't seem to work for me, I'm only seeing the one Jan 2012. |
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| ▲ | GaryBluto 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| /pol/ in no way started the American culture war. It was brewing for a while. |
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| ▲ | WetMinister an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | You’re acting as if https://doge.gov does not exist. Ask yourself under which presidency, administration and kind of politics such is allowed to even exist with a straight face. | |
| ▲ | _--__--__ 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | pol was made to contain all posting on the American culture war so it could be banned from the other (more active) boards | |
| ▲ | actionfromafar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well, broke the levee if you will. Otherwise, explain Pepe. | | |
| ▲ | GaryBluto 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I hardly think an internet image of a cartoon frog heavily influenced American elections, despite a surface-level co-option by various Republican politicians. | | |
| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | actionfromafar an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I agree completely. I'm just saying, it's a symptom. The crazy found critical mass, broke containment. From there it was laundered in millions of Facebook groups and here we are. |
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| ▲ | jahsome 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | In no way? |
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