>>28664914I couldn't agree more. Think back to when you first started browsing 4chan. Back oh so many years, when there was this "cool new nerdy underground site," your friend told you to go to /b/ and snickered, you got caught up in all the stupid shit, photoshops, caturday, memes, habbo raids, that sorta shit.
Obviously not everyone joined /b/ right away, many avoided that shit like the plague, many came much alter, stuck to smaller boards, etc etc. I'm generalizing. Why do you think this is so common a story amongst 4chan users? Because, even though it's a cancerous tumor that you can't excise for fear of the plague spreading, /b/ has an underlying sense of community. Raids were a way for you and other like-minded idiots to act like complete annoying fuckwits. The whole "Anonymous is legion" bullshit is so enticing, especially for teenagers, because they want to belong to a community. That's where the appeal is. Sure, it's over something stupid, childish, and altogether retarded, but it's community. Then, once you got sick of that garbage, you branched out. Maybe you liked anime, and with to /a/. Maybe you liked gundams, and went to /m/. Maybe you were into 40k, and went to /m/ (back when /tg/ didn't exist), or you liked cars. Or you liked comics. And found /co/. And felt a sense of belonging, you could relax and chat with fellow nerds about why spiderman could beat batman in a fight, or who could masturbate faster: The Flash or Superman? Someone would post a storytime, another a sharethread. Everyone was happy.
(PART 2 BELOW, I GOT RANTY. SO SUE ME.)