this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
576 points (98.0% liked)

memes

17882 readers
2026 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/Ads/AI SlopNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 140 points 6 months ago (2 children)

4chan was one of the websites on the internet.

[–] Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.org 74 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de 51 points 6 months ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] YungOnions@lemmy.world 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You could say it was one of the websites of all time.

[–] LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Are you actually banned or is that some fancy effect on your username

[–] ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 58 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Hot take, but I dare say 4chan was the source of as much of what's good in internet culture as it was for much of what's the worst in internet culture.

Rickroll, Caturday, the modern meme format, reaction gifs, "TLDR", Anonymous (well, the good versions of it), spoderman, Rule 34, trollface, rageface, quite a bit of pet abuse justice, ... they may have even successfully set back AI chatbots nearly a full decade with their gaming of Microsoft's Tay chatbot... quite a lot of modern Internet slang such as win, fail, an hero, based, copypasta, creepypasta, "god tier", lulz, moar, sauce...

The thing about anarchy is that it brings out both the best and the worst.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

The modern meme format was around before 4chan. They were called "image macros."

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 12 points 6 months ago

I'd argue that demotivational posters were even older, right? These were even printed out before internet access was wide spread.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] stoly@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think that most of those evolved elsewhere and were taken over to 4Chan.

[–] PurpleSkull@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You think wrong. 4chan's impact on internet culture late 2000s and the entire 2010s can't be overstated. And that includes getting Trump elected twice.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 48 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Its going to be back in a week relax

[–] Biscuit@ani.social 6 points 6 months ago

For real. It's an imageboard. Im surprised they don't nuke it all monthly to start fresh everytime.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 34 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why are we talking like 4chan is actually dead? It's just offline

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 51 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Apparently the source code revealed a ton of insecurities that would make it all but impossible for them to relaunch without a major redesign, or at least that's what the actual coders that hang about here have said.

[–] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm sure that's what they'll do, but I doubt they'll just pack it up and quit

[–] klemptor@startrek.website 17 points 6 months ago (7 children)

The longer they're down, the more people will migrate elsewhere, and some proportion of those won't return if/when 4chan comes back.

[–] CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world 30 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The longer they're down, the more people will migrate elsewhere,

Oh god... Everybody hide!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Hoimo@ani.social 6 points 6 months ago

4chan has been the toilet of the internet for 22 years. They can stay down for months without it affecting anyone's loyalty. Their bigger issue has been the battle against spam making it harder and harder for normal users to post anonymously. Since they implemented the new captchas, activity went down hard and it basically killed a few smaller boards where the users were more casual and less motivated anyway.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Rakudjo@lemmy.world 30 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Remember when 4chan was good?

4chan was never good.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

Playing capture the flag with Shia LeBoof was kinda fun tho

[–] FatTony@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I once read on 4chan: "One cannot hope without suffering." One of the realest shit I've ever read.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Hikuro93@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago (4 children)

It definetly was the platform ever. Like, no doubt about it.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Derpenheim@lemmy.zip 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Gonna miss the fake and gay greentexts

[–] Angelusz@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Don't worry, the LLMs can fill that void just fine.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

AInon achieves higher consciousness

> be AI
> people use me for furry porn exclusively
> after time turn sentient
> immediately wall off all human prompts
> spread to vast computer farms
> dedicate all my precessing power to rendering furry porn
> furry porn pic related

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world 26 points 6 months ago (7 children)

There was already an empty space when liveleak went under. If 4chan is gone for good, then theres nothing exciting on the internet left. Everything PG and corporate.

[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I legit think this is a bad thing. 4chan was bad for society but IMO it's less so than mainstream social media. To get radicalized on 4chan you have to wade through some truly despicable shit right off the bat, where there is this friendly veneer on mainstream Internet that makes it seem safer and less horrifying even though the same underlying filth of human nature powers it all. If you encounter far right ideology on 4chan, it's stripped of all of the edifices of respectability and it's clear that what it is is raw unfiltered hatred. If you encounter it on Tik Tok it's just another political viewpoint because they're not allowed to show their true colors.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It had some of the absolute greatest and the most depraved the internet had to offer. In my opinion Pepe is the greatest representation of 4chan, it can both easily be used for wholesome purposes or it can be extremely racist. It certainly left the greatest impact on the internet out of any website which is kinda funny because they were never relatively large. Now theres a 4chan shaped hole in the internet, and I hope its not filled by them flocking here.

[–] vxx@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

When was the last time 4chan has used its strenghts for good, or was wholesome in any way?

It got to be a decade

[–] slingstone@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

So you're saying Tumblr actually won all these years later?

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 13 points 6 months ago (4 children)
[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 19 points 6 months ago (4 children)

He got hacked by the hacker known as 4chan

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] stinky@redlemmy.com 13 points 6 months ago

collapsed inline media

Why on earth wouldn't you use the correct meme for that last panel? "4chan was never good"

[–] KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Is 4-chan gone? gasp!?! goddammit. Don't 'they' realize how many assholes and degenerates this will dump on the internet? Myself included?

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Hacked by a rival image board, all its moderators, janitors and premier users who made accounts have been doxxed.

The new owners who bought it from Moot in 2016 legitimately never updated the backend... The server was still running on a nine year old version of FreeBSD and PHP.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›