Wall Street Journal on 4Chan
Has the Wall Street Journal, one of the most prestigious names in news, run out of topics to cover? That must be the case, for recently they ran an article discussing none other than 4Chan.org. Yes, 4Chan made the WSJ. It's the End of Days.
Specifically, the article discusses how the popular website is responsible for creating hugely popular & well known Internet memes. Some examples mentioned are LOLcats, "so i herd u like mudkips" (video below), & Rick Rolling. Creator Christopher Poole is also discussed in the article as well, & he talks about the creation of the site & how its grown into the monster site it is today (monster in more ways than one).
I can attest to 4chan's huge popularity. Sure you can go to an anime convention & pretty much everybody there will know of 4chan & its memes. But for the longest time I thought outside of that environment, 4chan wouldn't be well known at all. Considering none of my home town or old high school friends would know what I was talking about if mentioning 4chan or its memes, I thought this was mostly the case elsewhere. But during the past school year, I was shocked to find out how many of my classmates & co-workers in college were 4chan visitors themselves. It started off with me saying something or other, & the other person knew what I was talking about. "Dude, you know of 4chan?" "Dude, of course I do!" Then as we talked about out, someone else would overhear us & join in as well. After that, I began testing others out by mentioning something only other 4chan goers would know about & see how they'd react. The results were surprisingly high. I was surrounded by B-tards all along & I didn't even know it.
Article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121564928060441097.html
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