Where did Chris Poole go?

Last week there was an event which, perhaps, no one expected.

Chris Poole, founder of the legendary 4chan image board , announced his own withdrawal from the company, which he, in fact, founded more than 11 years ago, at the age of 15, in the form of a regular graphic forum.
The resource and the community, which literally exploded the Internet in the middle of the zero by its own ambiguity, will now be managed by several experienced volunteers who joined the work some time ago.

Chris himself writes: “As the sole administrator of 4chan, the only person responsible for decisions and the sole owner of all knowledge (about the resource), I came to the conclusion that I am dissatisfied with the current state of affairs and tend to consider a lot of my own mistake.” To paraphrase, we can say that he realized the need for constant movement, while 4chan became for him an “anchor” that did not allow him to move.

Since Poole founded 4chan while still a schoolchild, with corresponding interests, the resource became known primarily for a huge number of “hate” content: from online bullying, pranks, to Sarah Palin , a sensational hacking of her email account.

And even in spite of such notoriety that another resource owner would not fail to use, Chris did not earn a dime with 4chan even in his best times. In order to pay the bills, he was engaged in a side project called DrawQuest. A little over a year ago, and this community, dedicated to art and people professing its pictorial part, also began to stagnate and the creator, in fact, stopped giving him time and attention.

We return to 4chan - in many respects it was under his influence that the hacker group Anonymous appeared on the Internet, by its name referring to the main form of representing the user's identity on the resource - anonymous. Countless other communities tried to copy its success, from Russian-speaking 2ch to countless Japanese anime imageboards.

And this is not to mention that it was on 4chan that a huge number of cats appeared in huge numbers and volumes, having enslaved the Internet and our hearts for over 10 years. Not to mention the great many other memes. 4chan is photos of nude celebrities, 4chan is the protection of animals and the search for their oppressors, 4chan is almost the entire “uncontrolled” Internet of today, from which the social networks and services we use today have grown (on Instagram and, especially, Snapchat laid down the basic mechanics that functioned on 4chan).

Obviously, Chris Poole’s own departure seeks not only to give independence to the community from the “omnipotent” moderator, but also to protect himself in this difficult information era. The trials of the creators of Silk Road and Pirate Bay prove that he cannot feel completely safe, sitting on an extremely controversial and explosive resource, where the community sabotages anything for sabotage as such.

What the 4chan world looks like in terms of numbers can be understood by looking at the illustration that “moot” (the main pseudonym of Chris Poole on the resource) attached to his farewell letter.



Chris Poole was also the first person in the modern history of the Internet to openly advocate for “anonymous” - he did this during his lecture for TED in 2010. Then he talked about some of the "laws" that the community brought out of its own existence. One of them: “If it exists, then there is porn with it. With no exceptions".

What will continue to do Chris Poole - is still unknown. He promised to keep his readers up to date with the help of a personal blog , the top and last publication in which is dedicated to closing DrawQuest. Most likely - he will continue to develop and realize himself in the field of managed communities, since his experience and skills are, in fact, unique.

Whatever the young star of the Internet communities has chosen as a continuation of the path that he has embarked on, we will closely monitor his successes.