4chan does not make the news for positive reasons. An internet imageboard founded in 2003, it was initially devoted to discussing anime, but expanded to include discussion boards for everything from politics to fitness to webcamming. Not everyone will have come across 4chan, and you may not have a reason to, yet it has a cultural presence far beyond its original purpose. Today, it is often seen as a hub of fascism, white supremacy and violent misogyny. In the popular press, it is associated with ’incels’ (involuntarily celibate men), who use the site to rage at women who have rejected them. In the USA, several spree killers with a particular agenda against women have actively participated in and subsequently been discussed on 4chan. Chris Harper-Mercer, who killed a professor and eight classmates and injured nine others in a mass shooting in Oregon in 2015, seems to have been a regular contributor to 4chan, including on the morning of the killings. 4chan naturally contained a huge amount of discussion and dissection of the killings after the fact. Elliot Rodger, perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, who murdered six people and injured 14, is a subject of fascination on 4chan to this day, though he is scorned and derided as much as he is lauded, with particular mockery around his self-description as ‘the supreme gentleman’. Beyond these individuals, 4chan is home to a general form of discourse described as ‘masculinism’, where various discourses associated with masculinity dominate. Misogyny and threats of violence against women are commonplace. Yet that is not the end of the story. In addition to and alongside its dangerous and destructive aspects, 4chan is hugely influential, culturally productive and often hilarious. I have felt horrified at some of the content, but I have laughed as well, it can be funny in unexpected ways – it is the originator of both lolcats and rickrolling. More seriously, it was the birthplace of the Anonymous hacker group, who have carried out cyber-attacks on Russia, Islamic State and the CIA, among others; and as of October 2019, the site received 27.7million unique monthly users. In this antifeminist space, femalepresenting posters – those who refer to themselves as female, regardless of their actual gender – want to and do participate; 4chan estimates 30%of its users are women – though almost all users are anonymous when online. These female-presenting users are not simply passive objects of violence. My research shows they have created various strategies to construct identities and build subcultural capital within an antifeminist webspace, being accepted in a forumwhere those observing from outside might expect them to be rejected or abused. NOT EVERYTHING IS AS IT SEEMS Status plays a meaningful role on 4chan, where users frequently seek to impress fellow users, and cultural capital is one of the few ways posters can distinguish themselves. Neither slurs nor insults can be taken at face value. Slurs do not contain the same prejudice as elsewhere, and insults can be used to turn heads, showing you belong. Misogynistic terms are used in much the same way as other taboo words – usually to expose newbies through normative reactions that show naivety to board culture. The customary response to any opening introducing a poster as female is ‘tits or gtfo’. This functions primarily as a test. Ignoring it gains respect; actually supplying photos produces insults and incredulity that a woman would do such a thing. One femanon shows her knowledge by saying ‘I’ve been on here for 4.5 years [so] tits or gtfo doesn’t work on me’. Another poster affirms that ‘Tits of gtfo applies to women who come on here and needlessly tell us they are women… .. No-one care if women come on here for actual discussion, or say they are women when it’s actually relevant.’ WAYS TOGET BY Studying 4,497 posts containing the keyword ‘femanon’, I found evidence that drawing attention to your female status is derided, but I uncovered four strategies for posters claiming a female identity to get by: 1 A denigration of femininity, assuming a position of subordination and submission to male posters. 2 Degrading male identities, hooking into the popular incel constructs and positing women as social superiors, guiding men to improve themselves, scorning them as worthless, or a combination of all three. 3 Assuming a right-wing identity aligned with other 4chan norms. 4 Empathetic bonding with other posters, beyond, despite or because of gender. Notably, the two longest threads I found related to categories 2 and 4, which shows immediately that the construction of womanhood on 4chan is more complex than ‘incels degrade women’. Denigrating femininity: Posters calling themselves femanon buy into the degradation of women, either positioning themselves as the exception, or assuming the strategic pose of submission to male users. ‘I knowmy place and let men do men’s work,’ says one poster. ‘I keep my man satisfied and he pays the bills and buys me nice things. That’s how it should be.’ Other posters will accuse these femanons of seeking attention and upbraid other male posters who grant it to them – and, indeed, this was the least popular of the four techniques I found. Denigrating men: This was far more common. Some threads opened with deliberate provocation – ‘We do pretty much run the show,’ or ‘Any other femanon here hate incels? They’re all like “omg I can’t get laid”. You can’t get laid because you ugly and deserve the hate’. Here, femanon posters position themselves as men’s social superiors. Male posters will often join in this denigration, admitting they are ‘boring’, and granting femanons higher status. There was even a tendency for malepresenting posters to criticise each other for insulting women too crudely. Assuming a right-wing identity: Femanons present themselves as ‘redpilled’ – holding extremist right political views, usually highly nationalist, often white supremacist, antifeminist, pro-Trump and ultraconservative. Posters bond over their racism, their perceptions of vast conspiracy theories on behalf of the elites. By utilising these forms of discourse, femanons present 22 |
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