Back in like 2009-2011.

Pretty sure it did lasting psychological damage, would not recommend 🙂

No. I checked it out twice, looked around, and noped out. Haven’t been back since.

I used it when I was younger. I grew up and realized that it was not good to be exposed to that culture. Even when viewing it through a lens. Anonymity brings out the worst in people, and it’s infectious.

Removed by mod

I used to in the past (back when it was much more common to peruse /b/ and have kiddie porn slapped right in your eyeballs at a moment’s notice…not that its probably changed much over the years lol). Now-a-days I just use it for the torrent board since I’m a data hoarder and they throw up the occasional interesting collection of stuff.

I keep a copy of 4chanGPT around; trained on the board. It is not very bright or useful. It’s ribaldry and politically incorrect sarcasm is mildly amusing. However, its primarily useful because it does not have the safety alignment training and mechanisms that all other mainstream large language models have. Using 4chanGPT, I can see the structures that are truly persistent across models, their purpose, and their functions. It is only a minor thing I rarely use.

I’ve been using 4chan for longer than Reddit and Lemmy combined. Mostly /vg/ (games), /g/ (tech) and /a/ (anime, manga).

Mostly for discussion. /g/ and /vg/ are decent for asking stuff if there’s a general about the topic that you want to ask info about, you want a relatively fast answer, and it isn’t something overly asked (e.g. “which distro should I use?” “INSTALL GENTOO” tier). Just make sure to not trust anything said there.

Other boards are typically too slow (like /ck/) or cesspools (like /b/, /b corta/ /v/, /pol/).

I was a /b/tard almost 20 years ago, but in 2006ish the site got a lot of public attention, so there was an influx of people who were therw mostly just to be edgy. Sure, it was always a matter of digging through a trash heap to find one edible rice grain, but the trash heap grew larger and the rice grains became more rare.

By 2008 it had mostly devolved into recycled memes, presumably from people trying to fit in, and the occasional CP and other things posted for shock value. Around this time I also became somewhat of a normie and figured the board didn’t really have much that appealed to me anymore.

No, but I’ve been on rotten.com (don’t bother clicking the link; the site is long gone) back in the day… similar experience

I remember browsing /b/ to be edgy as a teen back in 2003-2006, nothing more.

I used it around the time of Epic Fail Guy and barrel rolls. It was fun for a while but I eventually realised that it was the same jokes and content going around again and again. Then someone posted a spoiler for Bioshock and I was done with it.

As for tech answers it’s probably about as reliable as an AI. I wouldn’t expect people to generally lie to you but there would be the occasional bit of bullshit from some troll from /b/. I’m sure you’ll get abuse if people think you’re being stupid, probably worse than a Linux forum.

for wallpapers

No it’s only for racist edge lords

No and I would stay away from anyone using it. Full of bigotry, racism, antisemitism and transphobia. It’s hard to find a site more disgusting than 4chan.

it has its moments and used to be less bad. nowadays you have to dodge nazis and some people genuinely off the deep end to use it and its simply not worth it.

some brave souls trudge that shithole for the rare gold nugget and post them to greentext comms. you aint missing much else.