Comment by brabel
13 hours ago
The 1990s internet was definitely not more liberal! 4chan style forums were probably the rule. I can’t believe someone would say that, clearly you didn’t use the same internet that I did.
13 hours ago
The 1990s internet was definitely not more liberal! 4chan style forums were probably the rule. I can’t believe someone would say that, clearly you didn’t use the same internet that I did.
He didn't say the internet was more liberal, he said the people on it were.
Before you start forming your reply, think about the actual culture back then. If you take slashdot as somewhat representative of the 90s internet culture, it was basically anti-corporate, meritocratic, non-judgmental, irreligious, educated, non-discriminatory, and once 2000 came around tended to be highly critical of the Bush agenda.
4chan at that time and places like it represented more of an edgelord culture, where showing vulnerability or sensitivity was shunned, everything revered by the larger populace was ruthlessly mocked, and distrust of society and government in general was taken as natural. Calling them conservative would have been non-sensical.
Exactly. If I had to characterize the general internet (read: what would and wouldn't raise an eyebrow in an average forum) in terms of political alignment, it'd probably be:
That SA / 4chan (both of which were really post-90s) existed were in no way proof of an anti-liberal bent. Their very edgelordness was an implicit reveling in absolute freedom of expression (even if their later liberal-pro-censoring and alt-right splinter movements subsequently forgot that).
4chan was very much left-wing to liberal until Stormfront invaded them back. After Caturday came Soviet Sunday.