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4chan’s popularity and persistence is even more remarkable when contextualized. Over the past decade, the vast majority of popular Web sites have moved away from anonymity. Major social media sites, like Facebook, are fundamentally rooted in one’s real life identity… Social media relies on an articulation of a lived social self…
The discursive and the ontological 4chan and social media are divergent ends in a spectrum of Internet experiences. On one hand, there are personally based and accountable interactions that are open to capital. On the other, there is ephemeral, anonymous and often offensive content. So the question arises: how do we understand this distinction? Is it simply binary? A prism or time capsule for the ongoing changes to Internet culture? Or is the relationship between 4chan and post–Web 2.0 media more complicated?
The discursive and the ontological 4chan and social media are divergent ends in a spectrum of Internet experiences. On one hand, there are personally based and accountable interactions that are open to capital. On the other, there is ephemeral, anonymous and often offensive content. So the question arises: how do we understand this distinction? Is it simply binary? A prism or time capsule for the ongoing changes to Internet culture? Or is the relationship between 4chan and post–Web 2.0 media more complicated?
— Lee Knutilla
