4chan Founder “moot” to Speak at TED

http://gigaom.com/2009/12/22/4chan-founder-moot-to-speak-at-ted

by Janteh • 17 years ago

110 48 17 years ago

clistctrl• 17 years ago

I was more excited to hear Bill Gates was going to speak.

onewland• 17 years ago

In all fairness, as much as you may not be a Bill Gates fan, it's pretty difficult to suggest that he's as unimpressive as the founder of 4chan. All the 4chan guy did was make an unmoderated message board.

vaksel2• 17 years ago

here is a question...was 4chan the first image board, or did it just use the main image board script?

aceofspades19• 17 years ago

Umm 4chan is moderated thats why it doesn't get raided by the FBI, you obviously have never been there

andreyf2• 17 years ago

He already did. Released misquotes into the audience while talking about malaria: http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_unplugged.html

count• 17 years ago

Haha, misquotes is a funny misspelling, given the context. I believe you mean 'mosquitos'.

bugs4• 17 years ago

I don't really see any good from him speaking, at worst he will pull off a giant troll and his whole speech will be a flop, and at best he will be talking about 4chan's culture.

randliu• 17 years ago

He's spoken before at a conference at Harvard, and at least had some things interesting to say. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E_bYRZT5-E (part 1)

Don't ask him how to make money though

TeHCrAzY3• 17 years ago

It's interesting, all up, the money making idea. Even though /b/ contains the best and worst of the net, the other boards are quite reasonable (as long a /b/ stays up to keep the trolls from wandering). Is the sites image so bad that advertisers can overlook such an opportunity for targeted ads? (ie. its unlikely anyone would be in the anime board if they weren't quite interested in anime)

Perceval2• 17 years ago

I guess I'll be the first to speak up in defense of m♡♡tles speaking at TED.

It's clear that he's relevant to the HN community, given that 4chan is a startup begun from his mom's basement when he was just 15 years old. Despite misinformation about 4chan being run for a loss, he does make money and can afford to run the site without ads from time to time.

He took some available code (2chan's), which was initially very simple, and grew it into a profitable site that is ranked in the Top 1000 on Alexa and that has an outsized influence on internet culture. That's an extremely rare phenomenon, and one that most people here would ostensibly like to repeat.

I'm sure that even if his TED talk features inside jokes it has the potential to be really interesting, and certainly doesn't warrant the prima facie dismissiveness from the other commenters here.

bugs4• 17 years ago

The thing people don't really want to repeat is that he has essentially created the [I want to say Vegas] of the web, where everything is great in short bursts etc but if you end up staying you realize how scummy the place really is.

This is why his site has a hard time gaining revenue even though being in the top 1000 on Alexa, no reputable business is going to advertise where porn and violence are the norm.

If you are going to gain anything from what moot has done it is that the idea of anonymity is a very powerful thing.

TeHCrAzY3• 17 years ago

The porn and violence started primarily as satire.

ramchip• 17 years ago

4chan isn't /b/ alone. There are plenty of niche boards which are worth hanging out on if they're relevant to your interests, without being the toilet that is /b/.

joshu• 17 years ago

Definitely. 4chan feels significant to me. The beginnings of large-scale ad-hoc self-organization?

(I, probably along with other people, suggested moot to TED.)

steveklabnik• 17 years ago

Channers do love their 'ghost in the shell' kind of apperance.

mquander2• 17 years ago

Personally, I just find it kind of shameful for anyone with credibility to lend some of it to 4chan. From where I'm standing, it seems like the primary exports of 4chan are the stifling of independent thought and social validation for antisocial teenagers.

In brief, I think people who participate in shaping 4chan are bad and they should feel bad.

tumult• 17 years ago

Perhaps you could elaborate on your ideas, possibly providing some examples. For someone reading this thread, it could be difficult to discern precisely what you are trying to articulate. Fulling expressing what you are trying to say, without simply calling the participants of a website antisocial teenagers, would allow someone else to form reply a to your post without simply calling you a jackass.

Jackass.

anigbrowl3• 17 years ago

stifling of independent thought

O rly.

In brief, I think people who participate in shaping 4chan are bad and they should feel bad.

No, I'm not, I shouldn't and I don't. I see and encourage many excellent things at 4chan. I also see a lot of BS and pathetic nonsense....as I'd expect from adolescents. Your argument amounts to 'I hate people because some of them are bad', which is to say not very much at all.

nailer• 17 years ago

I think you underestimate the cultural influence of 4Chan.

- The Times, the UK's largest and most well known conservative newspaper, now has a regular column on 'lolpets'

- Oprah dedicated an entire show to the 'rainbow parties' hoax

- 4Chan have raised awareness of Scientology beliefs with protests that have been memorable, interesting and fun enough to be covered wherever Tom Cruise goes.

JCThoughtscream• 17 years ago

Exactly what can Moot offer, in terms of discourse? Moot's fame was very much a matter of happenstance and ungodly luck - the whims of the internet, rather than anything innately genius about his approach or handling. It'd be like asking a kid that's, by chance, made a paper airplane with an unusually long flight time about aerodynamics.

scythe• 17 years ago

Considering the amount of failed *chans that showed up both before and after 4chan - world2ch, 5chan, etc, I wouldn't count Moot as merely lucky. At the very least, he kept the site sane by continuing to run it -- in contrast with, say, the constantly fluctuating staff at 7chan.

Falaina2• 17 years ago

4chan survived out of his sheer stubbornness to run the site at a loss for a long period of time and refusing to sell it to some porn network (possibly on multiple occasions?) It's impressive he was willing to spend the past 6 years running; 4chan clearly means a lot to him, god knows why.

viraptor• 17 years ago

There's something in the 4chan's community. For some reason 4chan survives, even if admins decide that for a week the whole site will be pink text on pink background (or was it some other colour) and will have an annoying song playing in the background -- exactly with the intent of driving some people away. Maybe it just crossed the critical mass and luck or inconvenience doesn't matter anymore?

anigbrowl3• 17 years ago

I would rather listen to Moot's rambling thoughts on emerging culture than than those of a small army of academic sociologists. While I think the study of sociology has value, Moot's opinions are those of someone with a million troubled siblings. I'll take experience over theory anyday.

kn0thing• 17 years ago

I'm very excited about this. Chris Anderson asked for an intro to moot (who I only barely know through ROFLCon[1]) earlier this year; when he said it was to have him speak at TED, I was floored.

The thought, "Chris Anderson reads 4chan?! Maybe even /b/?" crossed my mind only for a moment -- instead, it dawned on me just how obvious a speaker for a session on "provocation" he would be. I was impressed he'd be on the TED radar, frankly, which goes to show how ignorant I am.

The theme of the 2010 TED is "What the World Needs Now" -- for all of the garbage on 4chan, it represents the 'cost' of the free and open exchange of ideas that is the Internet.

I'm expecting a thoughtful talk from Chris. But even if he trolls TED, it'll still make for a great talk. And in a way, further underscore the importance of provocation (at least for some) in what the world needs now.

[1] http://breadpig.com/blog/category/rofldna-project/

vaksel2• 17 years ago

it's not really surprising that he is on their radar, 4chan is pretty much synonymous with the underbelly of the internet + they are a pretty big site by traffic alone(Top 750 website)

c3o• 17 years ago

I heard him speak at a media arts festival here in Vienna a few months ago.

I'm pretty sure he won't be trolling TED or throwing around in-joke references: He actually seemed pretty sick of all the mindless repetition of memes (and how could he not be?).

He's a smart and thoughtful guy, was very humble, self-deprecating and sarcastic, and had a bunch of interesting anecdotes to tell -- although it did appear that he fairly randomly stumbled into the situation and doesn't have many deep, original insights on online communities/social software/the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Then again, I believe he same may be said of Jimmy Wales, for example...

4chan Founder “moot” to Speak at TED

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