Go check out Know Your Meme and just browse around a bit. A vast, vast, vast majority of content that started exploding across the internet back when we were all young and innocent either originated on 4chan or was quickly picked up and shared on 4chan.
I'm not saying that 4chan is the be all end all- Something Awful can probably be said to be even more influential as a whole- but I think 4chan was the very first example of the modern anonymous internet watering hole that spawned international media attention and completely changed how information was disseminated across the world.
I think the point was that "Internet culture" is much more than just image memes. Internet culture as a whole has been around as long as the Internet itself and it's constantly evolving, like a living thing. And I'm talking back before the Web; BBSes, Usenet, and e-mail all had their own cultures that stayed around and evolved as the Web was born, and their influence can still be felt today. That's a concept that I feel is lost on anyone born in the 90s or later.
You are confusing the "the internet" with "the web".
The internet has been around for about as long as it's been sensible to describe an online culture. While in the early days (e.g. 70's, 80's) the internet certainly wasn't the only network to be influencing culture (c.f. FidoNet) it was a primary source, particularly via university campuses.
Exactly - the internet had been a big contributor to online culture through the 70s. Of course this stuff all had precursors in things like ham radio, model trains, etc. but it's not really sensible to identify those as "online". Nothing springs from the void.
Nice to get called "young man" though, it's been a while :)
it must be summer. You think there weren't memes on the internet before 4chan? All you're doing with this comment is showing your age. I'm you first started using the internet in the early 2000s. The internet and places for people to gather and fool around on it existed long before 4chan.
I love the idea that a site dedicated to explaining image macros is somehow a comprehensive repository of "internet culture." A ton of "internet culture" is not image-based because it originates from a time when downloading images was so slow and difficult that you'd only do it for content that was truly worth the effort, like pictures of Neptune taken by Voyager 2, or photos of naked ladies.
Is there really much connection from modern Internet culture to back then? Do you really remember any of those memes? James "Kibo" Parry may have invented trolling, but nobody knows that guy now.
By the way, here's the only Usenet joke I remember:
It makes me sad to see culture equated to simply a collection of catchphrases.
Some of the stuff is still around, and embedded so deeply it probably doesn't come to your mind just because it feels like part of the environment.
For example, do you ever use emoticons? :D That's a fundamental part of Internet culture that originates from long before it was practical to send images around as part of casual conversation.
Another example would be acronyms like LOL or ROFL. Some have died out, but LOL is still extremely common.
How about this one. Ever see people quote parts of other people's comments by leading them with a > character, then reply bit by bit? It's pretty common, and is enshrined in the markup support of sites like Reddit. That's ancient Usenet culture.
Heck, the very use of the word "trolling" as a way of describing someone who deliberately antagonizes people online is a piece of internet culture from that time. The originator may be forgotten, but nearly everyone knows what a "troll" is.
Long after all the current "memes" are forgotten, I wager people will still know what emoticons are or what LOL means. That's culture too.
I'm not saying that 4chan is the be all end all- Something Awful can probably be said to be even more influential as a whole- but I think 4chan was the very first example of the modern anonymous internet watering hole that spawned international media attention and completely changed how information was disseminated across the world.