“A website with a large and extremely active userbase is completely useless if everything they post is garbage.”
– Anonymous1)
4chan is a large bulletin board website that was set up by Christopher Poole on October 1, 2003, drawing inspiration from Futaba Channel.2)3) Recently, it was acquired by 2channel founder Hiroyuki Nishimura for a combined total of $8 million4) on September 21, 2015.5)
“As with most boards on 4chan, popularity/posting speed has not been its friend.”
– Christopher Poole6)
The website was intended to be an English analogue of Futaba Channel,7) but they ended up being a mix of 2channel's stupidity with images. It was *not* the western internet's first introduction to anonymity,8) but it's certainly notable enough for housing it at such a large scale, using inconsistent moderators who take a relaxed approach, which has incidentally bred a hostile and contrarian community over time.
It has also taken a massive toll in quality, since newcomers often come for low-effort memes or trolling, then you get maladjusted individuals who spew ragebait and random insults. The creativity is also pretty weak, assuming it still hasn't died yet. Some people claim 'anonymity' is 4chan's strongest point, but one could argue that the 'notoriety' is how it barely stays relevant.
“its TWO TIMES THE CHAN MOTHERFUCK”
– Christopher Poole9)
In 2001, the Something Awful forums establishes the anime subforum, “ADTRW”, which later influenced the creation of the 'Raspberry Heaven' Direct Connect hub. At some point, users became interested in Futaba Channel (“2chan”) until non-Japanese IPs were barred from posting. On September 29, 2003, Poole registers “4chan.net” as an email address, but this evidently lead to bigger things ahead.10)11)
“This will be largely image and comedy based, we have no intention of partaking in intelligent discussions concerning foreign affairs. By sister-site, I mean focusing primarily on certain likable aspects of 2chan.”
– Christopher Poole12)
“Within the first month the site had attracted thousands of users, the majority being from outside of SA.”
– Christopher Poole13)
4chan sets up their first imageboard on October 1, 2003 and announces it on Something Awful.14) It was met with a long-winded rant about how World2ch did it first,15) yet Poole took time to respond to this.16)17) That aside, most of 4chan's early days consists of adding new boards, fixing bugs, and all of the attempts at taking it down,18) then the “4chan.net” domain went down on February 11, 2004.19)
This would force 4chan to move to “4chan.org”, a move that would become permanent as GoDaddy gave “4chan.net” to domain squatters.20) At the time, 4chan also relied on PayPal donations, so it's not a surprise that it became their opponent's next target. Needless to say, their account was frozen, which caused a fourth shutdown on June 20, 2004.21) During this two month absence,22)23) there was IIchan.
Once they returned, 4chan needed financial support, but despised Wikipedia's annual fundraising strategy, so they banked on a one-time donation drive in 2005. As things stabilized, 4chan had a few real-world panels at Anime USA 2004,24)25) Otakon 2006,26) and Otakon 2007.27)28) However, as chaos and 'publicity stunts' create 'notoriety', 4chan drew in new users that clashed with the old.
The year 2006 is regarded as a turning point with the rise of Anonymous, the '/b/-day' scandal that simply reminded users that 4chan had rules, and numerous false terrorist threats. As for web development, new themes were added to end their 'Times New Roman' era29) and ReCAPTCHA was implemented to fend off automated spam and worms, though its implementation later turned out to be permanent.30)
“But while the questions have remained the same, the 4chan of today is not the 4chan of yesterday.”
– Christopher Poole31)
As the internet became more accessible, the new decade marked an interesting culture shift for 4chan. The “News” (/new/) and “Robot9000” (/r9k/) were removed on January 2011,32) but following a discussion with Encyclopedia Dramatica's founder,33) Poole reverted this on November 10, 201134) and white supremacist trolls seeped back into the rebranded “Politically Incorrect” (/pol/) board.35)
From there, the '4chan Pass' is made to be a new source of revenue,36) the catalog and inline extension was added to Yotsuba,37) they held the 10th anniversary panel at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2013,38)39) then 'sage' became invisble40) and WebM support was added.41) The removal of 'sage' is troubling since it looks like a 'user friendly' move, but it also meant that 'user feedback' was no longer there.
Moving on, the 4chan Blog moves to Tumblr and the Blotter makes a comeback, but “Rapidshares” (/rs/) and World4ch are sacrificed.42) In 2014, the GamerGate movement came and went,43) then there was the Anon-IB celebrity nudes story. As for the 'culture', the power was split between “Politically Incorrect” (/pol/), “Sports” (/sp/), and “Shit 4chan Says” (/s4s/) boards.
“I think people again, as I pointed out in that sticky, have kinda chosen to kinda conflate or willingly misinterpret being an advocate for anonymity as being an advocate for free speech.”
– Christopher Poole44)
On January 15, 2015, Poole had announced his intent to step down.45) Then on September 21, 2015, it was revealed that 2channel founder Hiroyuki Nishimura, whom Poole had met at 2011 SXSW,46) would take over47) in what turned out to be an $8 million sale to Hiroyuki Nishimura, Kadokawa Dwango, and Good Smile Company.48) This was a surprise as he just had 2channel stolen49) and allegedly sold user data.50)
“Thanks. We have to get more free speech on 4chan than TV.”
– Hiroyuki Nishimura51)
Unlike his predecessor, Hiroyuki explicitly praised free speech,52)53)54) but messed with advertisements55) in this odd donation scheme.56)57)58)59) After that, Hiroyuki would largely be hands-off with 4chan, allowing an administrator named “RapeApe” take over and enforce these new politically charged ideals, crucially enabling the “Politically Incorrect” (/pol/) board into becoming a stain on the website.60)
The longtime sponsor J-List would cut ties in 2017,61) forcing 4chan to utilize 'shady ads' for revenue until all work-safe boards were moved to the “4channel.org” domain on November 17, 2018.62) As the fifth year under Hiroyuki passes, we would see additions and removals to their board lineup, as well as their brand new slider CAPTCHA on July 5, 2021 that ended free labor to Google's reCAPTCHA service.63)
Around December 16, 2023, every board on “4channel.org” was moved back to “4chan.org” after five years, leaving only the work-safe variant of the front page. On April 13, 2024, an email verification system was introduced to the “Business & Finance” (/biz/) board, allegedly to curb the huge onslaught of pump-and-dump schemes,64) then the system spread to all boards by October 2024.65)
