Throwaway account here. Been browsing 4chan since I was 13. Have now essentially grown up with it. The site is now 17 years old, and I'm about to hit 30. I'll be there forever.

I'm going to explain to you the current state of the site, as an unfiltered source, sort of like gonzo journalism. This comment will probably be buried (and possibly flagged and deleted due to the expletives used), but hey, maybe someone gets some insight, and I'm genuinely bored right now. I also hate dipshit tourists that claim they figured the website out because they did "research" on reddit.

In principle, the website has always existed in a state of counter-culture, but it's actually one of the biggest producers of culture on the internet. And the userbase actively hates the rest of the internet for it. Particularly Reddit, which exists to shamelessly rip content while cleverly inserting ads through bought accounts and posts. They merely 'curate' content that's offensive to their bottom line, with complete disregard for the sanctity and rules for the community and site was originally built on. Hell, they don't even acknowledge Aaron Schwartz as one of the founders of the site anymore. This is a running narrative across most social media websites.

When 4chan was young, Conservative Boomers ran mainstream TV-Addicted America. Fox News famously called the site an Internet Hate Machine. Boomers also didn't know how to use the internet, so the site remained fairly under the radar. But now with the advent of smartphones, everyone is online, so the site is no longer low profile. Democrats/Liberals also run things in the cultural mainstream. Unfortunately now, the counter culture swings the other way. 4chan's userbase is maturing, and the Libertarian idealism of yesteryear is slowly being eked out by genuine cynicism with a hint of conservatism. Fewer and fewer new users visit the site, unless of course they have no place to express their world views...

What makes 4chan interesting as a concept is that its userbase is anonymous. Posts are judged by the content of their writing, not the identity of their user. Nobody cares that you're a woman, or black, or disabled. You're just a dumb nigger. The generation that grew up with 4chan was told not to post personal information about themselves online, because that could be harmful.

But the modern Web 2.5 practically relishes this personal information. It's all about social networks and updates and trackers and datamining and exploitative advertising. Your personality matters. "You" matter. And you better tell us everything about yourself all the time so we can carefully cater and trick you into buying our useless shit. This is the founding principle in which practically 60% of Hacker News' userbase makes their money from. It's a trillion dollar industry, and like reddit, it cares more about its bottom line than any moral or political values. Anything deemed offensive is removed. Questioning the narrative is removed. Anything not politically aligned with the views of the website's owners or social ethos is removed. The court of public opinion is the rule of law. And the rule of law states that you must love mentally ill people with 40% suicide rates or blame white people for black-on-black violence or uphold a man that held a pregnant woman at gun point for drug money as a martyr. Follow these guiding truths or you will be gone. Please take a look at our sponsors and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe.

Naturally, this is totally at odds with a community that prides itself on calling you a dumb nigger.

But the younger userbase of the modern internet grew up in these walled gardens, and its bleeding heart carefully constructed and babied liberal values stand at odds with 4chan. It's now having to wake up to a world outside of those places, and anything at odds with their world view is considered Nazism and Alt-Right terrorism. Unfortunately, the collateral damage of silencing their opposition and dissenting thought becomes -genuine- terrorism, because those silenced voices have no other recourse but to lash out. First they lash out on 4chan, and then in real life. 4chan becomes a whipping boy because its userbase primarily stands against censorship above else. They might call you a faggot, but they relish the thought of you having to see that word. They don't disappear you, they just insult you, and that in and of itself creates a budding camaraderie with the rest of the internet's miscreants and degenerates. Only on 4chan can you have people mad at transgender women while also browsing boards of shemales stroking each other's cocks.

It's important to note that a lot of the site's rules have changed. No more raids or doxxes, or organized anything. But the site still persists, and in doing so continues to be a driving force in creative content on the internet.