Can I has stock quotes?

July 10, 2008 9:50 AM

The Wall Street Journal invites kids onto lawn.

Commence apocalypse.

posted by Sys Rq (63 comments total)

Murdoch's going to buy 4chan.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:54 AM on July 10, 2008

Yet, they totally missed the story about hypocrisy at Boing.
posted by found missing at 9:54 AM on July 10, 2008

I think this is a really good story. Not news, perhaps, but informative and right about a lot of things.
posted by grobstein at 9:56 AM on July 10, 2008

Well, you know, in the unlikely event that my mom ever asks me about memes or lolcats, now I have an article I can forward print out and mail to her.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:59 AM on July 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm glad WSJ readers have a link to follow to a page that has, at the moment, this text prominently displayed:

Latest Posts
* Anime/Wallpapers : No.515932 by Anonymous
* Paranormal : I would never do that! He's an...
* Toys : FUCK YOU NIGGER
* Fashion : I lol'd
* Auto : DO IT FAGGOT
* Photography : but it also likes to cuddle on...
* Technology : Poorly argued; I didn't say I never...
* Weapons : No.1759859 by Anonymous
* Anime & Manga : miss Ariel I know you're excited...
* Traditional Games : I'm me

"Oh," they're saying to themselves, " 'FUCK YOU NIGGER' and 'DO IT FAGGOT'-- those must be some of those 'memes' the Journal was telling us about. Fascinating! I must start using these memes more often so that my kids will think I'm hip!"
posted by dersins at 10:01 AM on July 10, 2008 [6 favorites]

Needs lolcat hedcut.
posted by enn at 10:02 AM on July 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

"Shock posts," or graphic images of violence or sex, occasionally mar the largest general interest board known as " /b/ ."

Emphasis mine.
posted by SpiffyRob at 10:02 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

"4chan is a quaint throwback to the earliest Web pages that have since been eclipsed in the newest iterations irritations of the Web."

There. Fixed that for them.
posted by spock at 10:04 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm conflicted, on the one hand, this is a pretty good article, on the other hand, thinking about either Wall Street Journal and 4Chan makes me queasy, thinking about both at the same time make me seriously consider excising the reading centers of my brain with the nearest handy implement (a spork).
posted by Kattullus at 10:06 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

4chan would be great if it had a professional-looking white black background.
posted by Mister_A at 10:07 AM on July 10, 2008

"4chan is a quaint throwback to the earliest Web pages core proof of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory."
posted by never used baby shoes at 10:09 AM on July 10, 2008 [4 favorites]

"It's like Craigslist -- hugely simple and highly useful."

And just like Craiglist, most of the people on it are total dicks!

I've had bad Craigslist experiences
posted by naju at 10:18 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

WSJ is the man now dog.
posted by breaks the guidelines? at 10:18 AM on July 10, 2008 [12 favorites]

Looks like a slow news day for reporter Brophy-Warren.
posted by grabbingsand at 10:20 AM on July 10, 2008

...it's like a bar without alcohol...

That's the most depressing thing I can think of, after "a bar WITH alcohol".
posted by DU at 10:21 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

4chan is quaint in the same way as that guy who shows you he's wearing nothing under his trench coat.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 10:22 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

The fuck?!

4chan? Seriously?

*shudders*

Last September, Ben Huh and a team of investors purchased "I Can Has Cheezburger," a site that aggregated the "LOLcats." Mr. Huh hopes to turn the 4chan-generated tradition into a meme empire with several other related sites in the works. The site now has more than 2.5 million unique visitors a month, according to Mr. Huh, and a book based on the site is coming this fall for Gotham Books.

*collapses. weeps*
posted by mr_roboto at 10:24 AM on July 10, 2008

you know what one of the most irritating web memes is?

"There. Fixed that for xxx"
posted by Mick at 10:25 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Hi, I'm the Wall Street Journal and I can [INSERT MEMEQDOTE HERE]
posted by blue_beetle at 10:26 AM on July 10, 2008

I have to applaud WSJ for using BankerCat.
posted by spec80 at 10:27 AM on July 10, 2008 [6 favorites]

This is the singularity, innit.
posted by everichon at 10:32 AM on July 10, 2008

i'm in ur newzppr, advrtzng mah wbsite
posted by DU at 10:34 AM on July 10, 2008

you know what one of the most irritating web memes is?

Are you trying to Godwin®™ this thread or something?
posted by not_on_display at 10:34 AM on July 10, 2008

Oh boy. It's worlds collide theory, tested in reality. Will business internets kill fun internets?
posted by fleetmouse at 10:37 AM on July 10, 2008

Pardon me, would you have any Cheezburger?

But of course!
posted by jimmythefish at 10:37 AM on July 10, 2008 [3 favorites]

you know what one of the most irritating web memes is?

"There. Fixed that for xxx"


Actually I believe it's:

"xxxxxxx"

"There. Fixed that for you."

(I think the only reason "them" was used in this thread was it referring to a newspaper, instead of as a response to a comment."

So....

There. Fixed that for you.
posted by Debaser626 at 10:38 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Umm, even worse is the meme I'm helping to propagate at the start of this comment.
posted by Mister_A at 10:41 AM on July 10, 2008

Pardon me, would you have any OH JESUS MY EYES IT BURNS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE ME NOT HAVE SEEN IT
posted by fleetmouse at 10:41 AM on July 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

I think this is an excellent article. Though I believe they missed the connection to Anonymous and Scientology. That came from 4chan, didn't it? A protestor in a Xenu mask outside the Toronto Scientology office told me that once.
posted by bicyclefish at 10:44 AM on July 10, 2008

They get rowdy -- it's like a bar without alcohol...

And God knows, teatotaling hooligans are the worst.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:46 AM on July 10, 2008

"It's like Craigslist...

Full of weirdos who can't spell or form complete sentences and things that you kind wish you could unsee, but if you hang around long enough, you might find something useful?

Ok, I guess I can see that.
posted by quin at 10:49 AM on July 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'd be willing to bet that 4chan sees a lot more drunk posts than a lot of other places (thought most of that alcohol probably comes from parents' liquor cabinets than bars).
posted by solipsophistocracy at 10:52 AM on July 10, 2008

I'm just glad the WSJ didn't get as far as copypasta. That juxtaposition would have violated some fundamental law of time and space.

And yeah, occasionally mars has got win an award for either worst euphemism or most grave misunderstanding ever.
posted by Skorgu at 10:58 AM on July 10, 2008

There are tons of news stories about MySpace, which in my opinion is about 10 times worse than 4chan, so I am not shocked and horrified about this.

Also, WSJ missed the part about Rule 1 & 2.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:06 AM on July 10, 2008

This is a great article, thanks for sharing. I too am wondering why the article didn't talk about Anonymous, seeing as it's one of the biggest things to come from 4chan.
posted by Meagan at 11:11 AM on July 10, 2008

If only it were linked to by Japanese websites, 4chan would be one of the prime endpoints for a game of google seppuku. As it is I take some comfort in knowing that 4chan is mostly a self inflected wound...

burnmp3s Rule 1: Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man.

Seriously, not being a 4chan regular, what's rule 1? All posts must include porn? All posts must include either vaginal lasers, dicknipples, or bestiality? Or is rule 1 a specialized subset of rule 34?
posted by sotonohito at 11:13 AM on July 10, 2008

I really want to like 4chan, but ...........................nah, I don't.
posted by mattbucher at 11:28 AM on July 10, 2008

not being a 4chan regular, what's rule 1?

If I really was a 4chan regular I'd just say "LURK MOAR" but here's the rules.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:31 AM on July 10, 2008

here's the rules.

Here's a slightly different version of the rules (NB: ED = NSFW), which includes a very important disclaimer: "There is no real set of Rules to the Internet, only a standard 3 on which everyone agrees (1, 2, and 34) and some bullshit rules that came out of nowhere."
posted by dersins at 11:38 AM on July 10, 2008

what the fuck, /b/ is fight club?
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:39 AM on July 10, 2008

The difference is that, once you skim off the ASCII art, meme-phrases, etc., that make up the coded language and community "fancruft," the original 2chan is a thousand times more informative and useful (discussions of literature, politics, Q&A threads more akin to something like MeFi) than its illegitimate Western offspring.

Also, 2chan has significant penetration in, and cross-pollination with Japanese society at large. Most folks know about it, whereas 4chan is, like all things co-opted by Japanese pop culture whores, a fringe community of Anime-loving tweens acting out their worst impulses. (too many adjectives)
posted by softsantear at 12:03 PM on July 10, 2008

That's it. From now on I'm telling people that I'm an undertaker. I am no longer publicly associated with the internet.
posted by rusty at 12:38 PM on July 10, 2008

They're different things, soft. Okay, so 4chan was inspired by 2chan, long ago. But "4chan isn't 2chan" isn't a good criticism of 4chan. It's produced some explosions of creative culture, and a big protest movement against an evil group. That seems pretty okay to me.
posted by grobstein at 12:42 PM on July 10, 2008

Hmm. Is it considered more civilized to wait until the memes get to Fark? Or is that like shopping at urban outfitters?
posted by condour75 at 1:24 PM on July 10, 2008

/b/ currently consists of three highschoolers named David and a bunch of forty year old men saying "NIGGER NIGGER" in an attempt to be in the scene. Oh, and femanon cumdumpster.

I hate to be one of those guys, but 4chan was so much better before it got HUEG LIEK XBOX.
posted by Dr-Baa at 1:51 PM on July 10, 2008

(although I do love me a good MS Paint relationship thread)
posted by Dr-Baa at 1:52 PM on July 10, 2008

That's it. From now on I'm telling people that I'm an undertaker.

ColdChef will pwn you, dude. There can be only one Undertaker to teh Intartubewebz®™.
posted by stet at 2:30 PM on July 10, 2008

also, cocks
posted by breaks the guidelines? at 2:46 PM on July 10, 2008

I hate to be one of those guys, but 4chan was so much better before it got HUEG LIEK XBOX.

Joined: December 29, 2005
posted by oaf at 2:53 PM on July 10, 2008

Does the reporter even know the story about expressing one's predilection for Mudkips? (ED, not safe for anything)
posted by Countess Elena at 4:35 PM on July 10, 2008

I can't decide if this is a strangely illuminating article about 4chan (they tracked down some of the people running the site!), one giant whitewash (shock posts "occasionally" mar 4chan?) or a bizarre bid to somehow take 4chan public (boy there's a lot of talk about how profitable 4chan could be!).
posted by chrominance at 5:19 PM on July 10, 2008

Also, there is a page with dancing hamsters that I hear is catching on.
posted by starman at 8:26 PM on July 10, 2008

It would've been better if they featured the lolcat and 4chan founder guy's picture in the hedcut illustration instead of actual photos.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:43 PM on July 10, 2008

Time, too.
posted by tits mcgee at 9:47 PM on July 10, 2008

They're telling normal people where 4chan is? Did they even look at /b/? Hell, why not just tell them where the city of R'lyeh is so they can pop open the door and take a peek?

Tomorrow's headline: "Thousands of stockbrokers burn down internet, spike out eyes."
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:53 PM on July 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

It's not like 4chan denizens are all obvious lunatics who surf the web from dumpsters outside of Starbucks. Many of them are probably "normals" who are just closeted.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:56 PM on July 10, 2008

Burhanistan: It's not like 4chan denizens are all obvious lunatics who surf the web from dumpsters outside of Starbucks. Many of them are probably "normals" who are just closeted.

I'm pretty sure most channers are long-term internet denizens. Most of them probably had years of fark, somethingawful, slashdot, etc. behind them. They've all been goatsxed, they've seen horrors, they've been in flamewars. They have internet resistance. The readers of the WSJ may be relative newcomers to the internet. They really don't know what awaits them. It will destroy their minds.
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:07 PM on July 10, 2008

I still don't have an answer as to why Anonymous/4chan//b/ decided to take on Xenu. I mean, it's obvious that volcano-spawned aliens arriving on intergalactic DC-8s are ripe for mockery, but beyond that, why? It just seems odd that a whole memetic protest movement would arise with the intensity and passion of LOLCATS or whatever, and it also seems suspiciously temporary.
posted by dhartung at 10:55 PM on July 10, 2008

Why would Anonymous take on Xenu? Most likely they were simply interested in seeing if it could even be done. Anonymous is fairly disenfranchised group of young people, many of whom aren't all that socially active, and there has always been a certain discontented disconnect between being a force to be reckoned with in the backalleys of the internet and the complete lack of any sort of real world presence despite the huge user base. Near total anonymity just isn't conducive to organizing casual meetups it would seem. Also, 4chan's culture takes its cues in part from things like Fight Club and V for Vendetta (as evidenced by rules 1 and 2, and the Guy Fawkes masks respectively) so in many ways it was a mindset and a movement in need of a cause. Scientology was a convenient target because it's totally ridiculous which is something Anonymous does well, plus South Park had already drawn blood in the fray, and, most importantly, Scientology's standard tools of retaliation (lawsuits and intimidation) would be fairly ineffective against a self organizing group of masked nameless protesters.

I think it probably was temporary and that those who feel really dedicated to the cause of fighting Xenu have already moved away from the main body of Anonymous, but at the same time I can't help but wonder if this is really the last we'll see of Anonymous in the public sphere. Things are swinging back the other way as 4chan's user base tries to make itself more insular after the recent spate of publicity and the new members that attracted, but once the growing pains subside and nostalgia for the protests kicks in (or a really good target presents itself) it's anybody's guess as to what will happen next.

As far as the article possibly being "a bizarre bid to somehow take 4chan public," it's much more likely that moot is trying to drum up advertising sales by publicly proving that 4chan is notable. The website's funding options are slightly more limited than most others because paypal won't touch them with a ten foot pole due to content issues, but there has been no indication that moot would really give up his personal playground unless it made him extremely obscenely wealthy. Speaking of, there's always the possibility that moot is simply trolling by being interviewed because he's notorious for going the extra mile to get a rise out of his user base, recently by playing on fears that he was shutting down /b/. The name he gave to the reporter of Christopher Poole is about as suspicious as that time he posted supposed vacation pictures of himself in Mexico which turned out to be of someone else entierly, but who knows, nothing tends to make sense about 4chan until well after the fact.
posted by CheshireCat at 12:18 AM on July 11, 2008

I can see where he'd have a hard time selling ads on that site. No one wants their ad to appear next to some dude's giant arsehole.
posted by chuckdarwin at 2:40 AM on July 11, 2008

...or pedobear.
posted by Tenuki at 4:22 AM on July 11, 2008

Joined: December 29, 2005

Yes, my MeFi join date can reveal to you how long I've been visiting 4chan. Good going there, David.
posted by Dr-Baa at 5:42 AM on July 11, 2008

Interesting that no one has yet noted that /b/'s headline today is:

hahaha
TROLLED, BITCHES

Also, "Christopher Poole" is the guy's name...

a.k.a. "C.P."

Also, "Poole's closed"

also, cocks.

(No links sfw)
posted by TheNewWazoo at 6:48 AM on July 11, 2008