Decently researched, extremely poorly worded.
You keep talking about 4chan as if it is one big single-minded right-wing collective. It is not. 4chan is, was, and always will be an open messageboard. From the site itself:
“4chan is a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images.”
You also keep confusing Anonymous with 4chan. 4chan and Anonymous are not the same thing. Anonymous was (partly) spawned on 4chan, but it is only a small subset of its users. Saying the two are the same thing would be like saying all Americans are Republicans because they currently live in a Republican-led country.
4chan does not have any political agenda. Users can however try to rally people through the site. 4chan can be a “tool”, but it is never a movement (unless somebody directly opposes the site itself).
But let’s go through it piece by piece.
It seems from your text that your first introduction with internet culture was through 4chan. Terms like “epic win” were not created by 4chan, they are way older than that. (I was born in the 90’s, and these terms were around back then as well). This, for me, is a first indication that your knowledge of internet culture is fairly limited.
Richard Spencer is not a Neo-Nazi. His speech ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq-LnO2DOGE ) was one big troll to the Mainstream Media ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFalXA-RNjI ). He might be a white supremacist (I do not know) but he certainly is not a Neo-Nazi.
In your words, 4chan users are: “particularly lonely, sex starved man-boys, who according to their own frequent jokes about the subject, lived in their parents’ basement.” The fact that you take this seriously, is another indication of your limited view and knowledge of internet culture. This is a stereotype from the beginning of the internet, which is perpetuated by the mainstream media. Jokes about living in your parents’ basement are jokes about the view that uneducated people (a.k.a. n00bs) have.
When 4chan does ‘collectively’ attack an organization or individual, it is either because of an attack on the freedom of the internet (e.g. attempted censorship), or because of deeds so despicable they should not ethically be allowed (e.g. child pornography). From the rules of the internet:
“The internet should be for the people by the people.”
“For example, in the T.V. series Mr. Robot, a group of clandestine anonymous hackers (“F Society”) releases a video that is clearly derived from 4chan’s/Anonymous’ video for the Scientology protests.”
Mr. Robot is based on Anonymous & Lulzsec, so that’s not really surprising
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-creator-of-mr-robot-explains-its-hacktivist-and-cult-roots
About /fit/ you say:
“The advice was so basic, it was endearing. (“You have to shower once a day” etc.)” Showering once a day mostly comes from conventions such as DEFCON, which tell their audience to mind their hygeïne, so that the halls are still bearable after the first few days.
Your piece on Gamergate is completely under-researched, and should be re-written. The fact that it does not have the names “Zoë Quinn” or “Anita Sarkeesian” in it, show this perfectly. You say:
“Strangely enough, they believed this was happening not because video game creators and the video game press were interested in making and reviewing games that dealt with these issues, but because there was a grand conspiracy perpetrated by a few activists to change video games.”
Yet Gamergate was spawned to be an opposition to the video game press, which was releasing biased views, and was shown to be fraudulent (Zoë Quinn slept with several journalists just to get good reviews on her shitty game). When the Zoëpost (https://thezoepost.wordpress.com/) hit, people were outraged at both Zoë Quinn, and the video games journalists. Quinn then fled to the Mainstream Media, pretending to be the victim, and even claiming to be doxxed (which she wasn’t).
( http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/quinnspiracy )
Anita Sarkeesian (and 3rd-wave feminists like her) then saw this as an opportunity to promote their own views, and jumped onto the victim-bandwagon, claiming that “everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA0aKjY8K50 ). Since Sarkeesian was nothing more than a fraud, taking in a boatload of money from kickstarter campaigns, and barely delivering ( http://thegg.net/general-news/anita-sarkeesian-tropes-vs-women-refund-rants/ ), yet shouting at others (mainly developers) to change what they are doing with their own products and games. Gaming culture (and Internet culture as a whole) has always tried to be as inclusive as possible, and this was (and still is) an unfounded claim, with which she has tried (and succeeded) to get her message into the mainstream, and even to the UN, where she tried (and is currently also succeeding at twitter ( https://about.twitter.com/safety/council ) to censor the internet ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3m-bcaCVbM )
Furthermore she makes claims that she has been playing games her whole life, but it has been shown that this is not true ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy0zQvc38iE ).
This strive for a system in which people have “the right to not be offended” then sparked the anti-feminism, anti-SJW culture through which Yiannopolous made his fame. SJW’s were trying to impose their law upon others (e.g. you are not allowed to make ‘sexist games’), instead of actually trying to help themselves. They had fallen prey to a ‘victim-culture’, in which for instance the gender pay gap was a construct of the “evil white supremacist cis-gendered patriarchy”, rather than a reluctance to work the same jobs and hours as men. (This myth was even perpetuated by Obama, further fueling the fire).
You then talk about Trump, stating:
“In this sense, Trump’s incompetent, variable, and ridiculous behavior is the central pillar upon which his younger support rests.”
Yet much of his support (across all age demographics) rests on this idea of counter-culture. It is “a slap to the face” for the higher-ups in American Politics, which should force them to wake up and start working for the people. Trump spoke to the people, while Hillary was shown to be extremely secretive, and withholding (for instance with regards to benghazi).
And finally, Pepe.
Pepe first entered the mainstream media when Hillary Clinton declared it to be a “white supremacist” symbol (exactly 15 years after 9/11) with paper-thin reasoning. ( https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com/ )
In short, Hillary was ‘offended’ by a meme, and wanted to become president. This fueled the ‘counter-culture’ which then started to more publicly adopt this figure which was thrust upon them by ‘the opposition’.
Getting people to react in extreme ways to simple images became the joke.
Right after Trump became president, the following message was posted about Pepe: ( https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com/smug-pepe-sure-makes-a-lot-of-sense-now-that-trump-has-won/ )
“The mainstream media just couldn’t wrap their heads around that slippery Pepe the Frog.
They must have sensed that their readers were baffled with Hillary’s fixation on the little green fella. Once more, it was very apparent (at least, to the rest of us) that the public at large wasn’t swallowing Madame President’s “fascist cartoon mascot” narrative.”
The sheer fact that the left (lead by Clinton) forced this symbol upon Trump and the reaction that the mainstream media had, is what led Trump & his followers to adopt Pepe. This way they could openly mock the people, because they themselves knew that Pepe was nothing more than a random image.
In short, much of your essay is under-researched, and based upon tiny shards of information. The fact that you make an entire essay about 4chan, without ever linking to a 4chan-post, is a testament to that.
