We definitely had different experiences, then! I would say most forums, even a lot of the mainstream ones, tolerated some level of 4channess. Facepunch forums ~2009 was the first time I thought "wait, are these guys actually Nazis or just think it's hilarious to act like they are?" Stickpage.com forums ~2005 taught me an important lesson in not clicking URLs from domains I don't trust -- ESPECIALLY if they end in 'hello.jpg'.
Like I said in my original post, that's the lens through which I viewed the internet. It could be different from yours.
I'm not trying to 'normalize' 4chan but, honestly, I've bounced from plenty of Discord servers that are indistinguishable from 4chan. I think it's OK to recognize that at least some part of the non-4chan web is still very 4channy.
Like I said in my original post, that's the lens through which I viewed the internet. It could be different from yours.
I'm not trying to 'normalize' 4chan but, honestly, I've bounced from plenty of Discord servers that are indistinguishable from 4chan. I think it's OK to recognize that at least some part of the non-4chan web is still very 4channy.