Community

I dislike how everything online these days needs to construct itself a “community”, and how much time the people involved then spend trying to make that community as nice and welcoming as it can be. Best communities form naturally over a long period of time as result of everyone involved, not by being designed upfront.

Imageboards like 4chan are notorious for rude people and few rules, but many overlook how that allows focus on the emergent features of the community as opposed to strict policing of behavior by use moderation, codes of conduct, and such. Friendly behavior is not an universal norm as many seem to believe, but choosing it involves tradeoffs with things such as creativity, focus on the subject matter, and honesty.

4chan is one of the few places on the internet that can be said to have a “culture”. That is, compared to the rest of the internet, people there have genuinely distinct customs, use of language, norms, standards of art, and so on. You might not like that culture very much, but there are probably also quite many global cultures you don’t like either.