4Chan as a Social Experiment: Does Anonymity Create or Destroy Culture?

Question

Simply surfing /b/ will give you an idea at the insane nonsense that goes on on the internet. I would argue the allure of websites such as 4Chan.org is the anonymity that it allows. Anonymity promotes conformity and close-mindedness.

How does anonymity on the internet pose a challenge to our current culture?
Does it destroy culture, change culture, or create new cultures?
Can anonymity be used for good?

Answer 1

A healthy human society depends on a certain level of trust, openness, and accountability. Anonymity and depersonalization cripple all of these things.

Answer 2

On the contrary, internet/avatar/anonymity promotes not conformity or close-mindedness, but rather open-mindedness and difference. For anonymity to be conformity, it requires a set social norm, in this case, the internet has none. Because anyone can say anything without the slightest consequence (since they can simply create a new persona), whatever happens on 4chan is the reflection of the mentality of the people. However, because only a certain group of people go to 4chan, then it is still a biased opinion to base society or culture off of this experiment.



From my own point of view, I see it as a revolution towards culture, where you can have people from different backgrounds all coming together to share their individual thoughts. Therefore, it sounds good in theory, but from what happens on 4chan, it suggests otherwise.

Answer 3

I think it destroys culture, but it has also created a sub-culture of online interaction with those you have never personally met, let alone seen, it also creates culture because it allows you to see the opinions of others and their hobbies. It destroys culture because it allows people to post offensive nasty comments, and pick fights with one another. It may sound silly but you would be suprised by the amount of people who take anonymous online interaction seriously. Anonymity can be used for good in real life, but it rarely does any good on the internet.

Answer 4

I go to 4chan for the crowd mentality.



That and when you post as a tripfag you notice how the crowd mentality gets turned against you remarkably fast - it's a real case of natural selection at work.



People seem to automatically try to kill that which is different...



edit; then again, i'm not the kind of person who values conformity, so meh.

Answer 5

I think it creates a new culture to humanity. It's a deep world out there and it's spreding fast that you could never imagine.

Answer 6

You mad bro, cuz you didnt use proxy?