Anarchy, in-jokes and trolling: the GameStop fiasco is 4chan-think in action | Dan Dixon

The redditors' logic is one I recognise from my teens: intentionally senseless, a joke rather than a philosophy. And nobody wants a joke explained

During my late teens, around 2005, a group of high school friends and I (boys, nerds; mean together, meek apart) discovered the website 4chan and it occupied us for a couple of years. Its appeals: anarchy, in-jokes, and abrogation of responsibility.

4chan hosts a variety of image boards with subjects ranging from pornography" to alternative sports", but we were enamoured with /b/. This was the random" board, where users were permitted to post anything as long as it wasn't illegal, and every post was anonymous. Whenever a trend emerged its origin was, by design, impossible to locate. Every idea, every joke format, every new target, seemed collectively agreed upon, with no single leader or accountable party; ants swarming a carcass. Everyone was a puerile cynic, adopting a posture of ironised defensiveness, an attempt on the part of the deeply uncool to create a virtual world over which they ruled. Here I first encountered memes, lurkers, shitposting, trolling, and much else that would eventually erupt from this niche like pus from a wound.