I was also there in the early days, and yeah, it was better. The shift started somewhere around 2008 to 2010. During the Bush admin, it was a breath of fresh air to see a place that was anti war, anti evangelical, and pro gay marriage. Of course, they were also horrible edgelords trying to keep the normies out by making their site culture completely toxic.
This was very much my experience too. There was very little in actual right-wing politics, 4chan got it's initial reputation because /b/ was the ultimate edgelord place, but even their more popular threads were actually community activities, railing against war and problematic organisations (see: scientology). Pretty much every other board was just a passionate, interested group in their own things.
I mean I never personally quite vibed with 4chan, but it was entertaining and people there actually cared. I remember a spate of cool MS-Paint-Adventure type threads that got really involved and were super fun. I could absolutely understand making friends there.
It really was an internet experiment, it was maybe the first one to show that upholding absolute free speech tends to attract too many nazi outcasts from elsewhere, then nazis make it a nazi community. The early internet pre-2008, this was still a valid way to exist as a site, because there were no "main" sites to get banned from for you naziism, it was just billions of small communities (which I still yearn for).
I was also there in the early days, and yeah, it was better. The shift started somewhere around 2008 to 2010. During the Bush admin, it was a breath of fresh air to see a place that was anti war, anti evangelical, and pro gay marriage. Of course, they were also horrible edgelords trying to keep the normies out by making their site culture completely toxic.
This was very much my experience too. There was very little in actual right-wing politics, 4chan got it's initial reputation because /b/ was the ultimate edgelord place, but even their more popular threads were actually community activities, railing against war and problematic organisations (see: scientology). Pretty much every other board was just a passionate, interested group in their own things.
I mean I never personally quite vibed with 4chan, but it was entertaining and people there actually cared. I remember a spate of cool MS-Paint-Adventure type threads that got really involved and were super fun. I could absolutely understand making friends there.
It really was an internet experiment, it was maybe the first one to show that upholding absolute free speech tends to attract too many nazi outcasts from elsewhere, then nazis make it a nazi community. The early internet pre-2008, this was still a valid way to exist as a site, because there were no "main" sites to get banned from for you naziism, it was just billions of small communities (which I still yearn for).