4chan Is Still Today’s Thought Leader in Tomorrow’s Right Wing Conspiracy Theories
The Right’s primary source is as vile as ever
By David Andrew Stoler, January 29, 2023
If you want to know what disinformation will be flowing down the pipeline from MAGA braintrust bigwigs like Don Jr. and Tucker Carlson, look no further than the cesspool that is 4chan. The message board spent January putting on a primer in conspiracy mongering, homophobia and that old favorite, blaming the Jews for everything.
Originally created in 2003 as a space for anime devotees, the 4chan boards /news/ and /pol/ have had a profound impact on political discourse in the U.S., as the birthplace of Pizzagate, Pepe the Frog (candidate-Donald Trump’s first backer), and, according to It Came from Something Awful, Dale Beran’s deep dive into the memeverse, the sundry QAnon conspiracies that continue to fuel the grass-roots Trumpist movement.
Damn These Socialist Heathens
4chan’s general M.O. is as simple as, well, its unhinged followers. Someone takes a piece of news, posts it with a controversial image and then the “fun” starts – the replies, the comments, the memes – the raison d’être for the site. It’s from this sewage that the Right’s talking points bubble up: Trump himself has regurgitated 4chan memes, so has Don Jr., so did (the once relevant) Steven Bannon.
This week in /news/ is no different: under the welcome message’s directive that “Blatant trolling and racism is not permitted” are stories pretty much focused on blatant trolling and racism.
Next to a picture of a prostitute is a reprint of the recent Guardian piece on how the homeless protect themselves from the police by hanging out at – gasp – the library. 4chan’s posters argue that this is what happens when you have a heathen, socialist country like ours. “This is an atheists f***ing up Christian charities problem,” goes a typical quote (all 4chan posters are Anonymous – one of the site’s chief selling points, no doubt). “I hate liberals so goddamned much.”
Next comes a picture of Nazis with books in their hands for a Herald-Tribune story about Florida teachers closing their libraries because they contained non-approved books. Typical comment: “This should read ‘Liberals stopped from giving pornography to children.’”
Anti-Semites Always Welcome
Libraries aren’t their only obsession, and it doesn’t take long get to what is clearly 4chan’s wheelhouse:, a celebration of a Times of Israel piece on growing Anti-Semitism in America. The comments are too disgusting for me to quote here, but rest assured 4chan is overall in favor.
Of course it’s the politically-themed /pol/ board where the real action is, and the Russian-Ukraine war dominates. To put it simply, the commentariat is siding with Putin: the main image includes Volodymyr Zelenskyy and George Soros rubbing their palms together greedily in front of a Star of David-embossed Ukrainian flag.
It wouldn’t be 4chan if it wasn’t conspiracy-laden, too. In this case, the conspiracy has to do with COVID vaccines. A poster who is “linked to a team of medical researchers” claims the Moderna MRNA shots are actually steroid-like experiments. The majority of their “patients” had simple heart problems until the latest crop, who seem to be going through a second puberty – regrowing hair, increasing height and musculature, and an overall strengthening. Commenters generally took this as proof one shouldn’t get vaccinated…but I’m not so sure. Sounds pretty good to me.
No Laughing Matter
In all seriousness, much of what one finds on 4chan would be laughable were it not so repellent and, as we’ve found out, so dangerous. One need look no further than the elevated power Marjorie Taylor Greene just got from Trump Toady Kevin McCarthy to see that those who take the jokes on 4chan as actual truth have more influence than ever. Taylor Greene is on Congress’s Homeland Security committee, of all things — while the site that informs her viewpoint is drenched in pro-Putin Pepe-memes and some of the most vile anti-Semitic posts possible.
These boards are constantly shifting and being updated – last week’s focus on Biden becomes this week’s ripping on the homeless – but the overall messages remain gleeful division and hatred. And unfortunately, as we’ve seen during the last seven years, the only direction they flow is up.
David Andrew Stoler’s writing has appeared in the Guardian, Politico, and McSweeney’s, among many others. He is the founder of misanthropictures, an independent film company whose award-winning work tells the stories of the traditionally underrepresented.
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4chan’s general M.O. is as simple. Someone takes a piece of news, posts it with a controversial image and then the “fun” starts – the replies, the comments, the memes – the raison d’être for the site. It’s from this sewage that the Right’s talking points bubble up. (Image: Flickr)
