4chan Chronicle/The Hangover
The Hangover[edit | edit source]
(2009)
Moot was unable to pay server bills, which required him to take out loans to keep the site alive. There were running rumors claiming that 4chan had a total of 20000 dollars in debt (later confirmed in a newspost in 2012, and no one knows how he managed to pay that off).
He also implemented actual pornographic ads, (which he absolutely hated), in a desperate move to reduce the costs of maintaining 4chan.
Moot grew increasingly disconnected with the site and sometimes spouted some lines that implied that he hated 4chan, or at least /b/, during those times.
This period was probably the closest 4chan has ever been to being shut down permanently.
Culturally, 4chan was a shadow of its former self. Many things /b/tards proposed themselves to achieve ended up failing miserably. /b/’s content began to change towards inane threads, like porn dumps and camwhores, albeit that situation was partially solved with the creation of /soc/. Many old users, complaining about the site’s idiotic tendencies, migrated towards the ascending Reddit, remaining there until the rise of SRS. A notable exception was Time’s Most Influential Person of the Year raid, where hackers and /b/tards not only made moot the most voted name, but also arranged the runner ups to spell “Marblecake also the game”, a shootout to the YouTube Porn day. moot attended to the event, spawning even more memes.
A major shift in 4chan’s self-perception began to make itself evident. As /b/, the center of the site, hit rock bottom, many people simply gave up on the board. Disillusioned with the posting quality and lack of content, the endless flames and spam, 4channers began to dissociate themselves from /b/. Board cultures where giving out their first signs of importance and cultural homogeneity on 4chan began to disappear. While the demographic change wasn’t noticeable and /b/ was still king by a great margin, the influence of the hobby boards began to grow steadily and become apparent. /b/’s habit of interboard raiding has given it near universal contempt (the only notable exception being /x/) and so most 4channers refused to have anything to be with them. Other boards like /v/, who was going through its first periods of strife, was getting its first signs of external attention, which would eventually evolve into a troubled relationship with paid marketers. /a/ had its place tightly cemented as 4chan’s second biggest board, and was starting to form a culture centered on elitism. Around this time, niche nerd boards like /co/, /tg/, /x/, /m/ and /toy/ shared userbases and content and began to distinguish themselves as unique cultures. /x/, the closest thing /b/ ever had to a sister board, was slowly declining as the creepypasta fad that founded them waned, and there seeing themselves constantly assailed by tripfags. This trend would continue for years as /b/ slowly gave away its last breaths of influence. It can be said that /b/ stopped becoming influential to internet culture by 2012.
The year is characterized by the rise of Reddit, a major news and content aggregator that rose to power after the Digg Revolt, when a revamped hub led to an exodus from the site. Reddit's mainstream popularity and strong cultural influence from 4chan created a unique relationship between the two.