why doesn't anyone talk frankly about 4chan?

i don't know what the hell is going on, but there are two big stories about 4chan that went up this week. the WSJ has an article up, written by jamin brophy-warren, and lev grossman wrote one for time. ah, another episode in the millennia-long struggle for adults to understand teenagers (and those with the maturity of teenagers).

despite the fact that the articles are about 3 years too late to be breaking news, they're actually pretty well written! indeed, if you don't know about 4chan at all, the pieces are pretty decent entry-points, given that they're written in plain english. i don't know of a better way to sum up the format of the venerable message board than by copying and pasting these two paragraphs from brophy-warren's piece:

4chan is a quaint throwback to the earliest Web pages that have since been eclipsed in the newest iterations of the Web. While other Web sites focus on flashy-social networking features and eye-catching advertisements, 4chan's design is archaic and the color scheme is two-tone. Each page on 4chan features photos and text. One user will post an image of something to start a discussion on one of the more than 40 different subject areas spanning origami and automobiles. Other users follow up with responses or requests for more images.

"It's like Craigslist -- hugely simple and highly useful," says David Weinberger, a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. 4chan's utility is its ability to gather millions of people in conversation in a single place and create a "meme-rich" environment, says Mr. Weinberger.

but in a way, that user-friendly writing defeats the purpose.

i don't want to be an elitist internet jerk, but i have to say that 4chan is fundamentally incomprehensible unless you: (a) use it for more than 2 hours a day over at least a 1-month period, (b) have an extensive knowledge of geek culture in all its forms, (c) have a willingness and desire to learn all the previous memes, and — and this is the big one — (d) are not easily fazed by insane amounts of racism, homophobia, misogyny, and death-worship.

sure, the time article acknowledges those concepts' existence on the board—"If you're looking for obscenity, blasphemy, homophobia, misogyny and racial insults, you don't have to dig too deep," grossman quips.

but he, as well as brophy-warren, spends the vast majority of his time talking about how 4chan is a "meme-factory" and how it created lolcats. sure, that point is relevant and everything... but it misses the forest for the trees, really.

it's a classic journalistic problem. you have to dance with the one that brung ya. if the story is "here's the site that created alla dem memes they's talkin' about these days," then you focus on that aspect of the environment, ignoring the rest.

it's like writing about an annual parade—the thesis is always going to be about what tiny aspects make that year's parade unique, and never about the fact that thousands and thousands of attendees are just having a good time, like always. so we never read the real truth of the event, because the event is far more boring than the lede makes it seem.

so, the fact that, like, 73% of all posts on 4chan are shockingly racist (moreso than the homophobia or the sexism, the racism is insane) is not the story that people will hear about. because the story is memes, memes, memes.

and yet, the parade analogy doesn't excuse reporters who examine 4chan. it's the most popular message board in the world, everyone. that makes it a big deal, not just on the internet. how can we ignore the fact that the most-used message board on the planet, the insane, lawless vanguard of the internet, is more of an obscenity fest than a meme-fest?

everyone who uses 4chan knows it. but they're not reporters. except me, i guess, but the trouble is... if i wrote an article about the truth of 4chan, would anyone care? does everyone really just want to hear about lolcats and nothing else?

and what does it say about me that i'm too afraid to actually post any of the offensive images from 4chan onto this blog? have i wimped out, too?