DIE INTERVIEW: MOOT aka christopher poole
4chan.org? Nie gehört? 4Chan ist ein Imageboard – wer hätte es gedacht: ein Forum mit Schwerpunkt auf dem Veröffentlichen von Bildern. Regeln gibt es keine, Hindernisse wie accounts oder captchas auch nicht. Dementsprechend chaotisch, rassistisch und sexistisch ist das resultat.
ein datenfluss aus bildern und ein paar linien text – 4chan ist ein umgekehrtes Panopticon, wie die NY Times einmal feststellte: „nobody can see anybody, and everybody can claim to speak from the center“. Porno, nonsense, katzen, verletzungen – das „dunkle herz des internets“, wie moot selbst sagt (oder „klowand des Web“ wie andere meinen). Dinge, die man nicht sehen will, aber nicht wegsieht. Dinge, die man nicht lustig findet – aber sie wieder und wieder anschaut bis zum lol. Dinge, die niemand sonst amüsant findet, bis man ihn oder sie dazu zwingt. Das publikum: jung und nerdy. Die sprache: slang, für den man wahrscheinlich schon mit 20 zu alt ist.
Vor zirka 5.5 Jahren hatte der mittlerweile 20-jährige Schöpfer moot die webseite als anime-fanseite gegründet. Vorbild war das ähnlich aufgebaute „futaba channel“-imageboard aus japan. mittlerweile ist 4chan eines der meist genutzten foren im world wide web und bekannt für die Verbreitung von so genannten „internet memes“ – das meist nur wenige Tage oder Wochen anhaltende starke Interesse von Menschen an einzelnen Bild-, Ton- und Filmdateien (wikipedia). Viele dieser “memes” enstanden auf 4chan: z.b. die lolcats. Lustig?
oder “fail”:
Warum ist das alles relevant? Da könnte mal wohl fragen: Wann ist im Internet überhaupt etwas relevant? die mehrheit sagt: Wenn es viel genutzt wird. und 4Chan ist je nach Rechnung unter den Top 5 Foren der Welt – 400 Millionen page impressions, 5.5 Million visits im monat. 450′000 posts pro tag. einmal “reload” klicken und die seite ist schon wieder mit 20 neuen posts gefüllt. enorme zahlen.
letzte woche habe ich den 4chan-schöpfer chris aka „Moot“ in berlin getroffen. der “master of memes” (time magazine) ist ein sehr sympathischer typ – ohne irgendwelche business-allüren.
Hinweis meinerseits: Sry I didnt haz the timez or moodz to tranzlats all thiz into deutsche sprachz.
Die magazin: it is said that there are people who fear that with this new forms of the web (your site, social networks) the world is gonna be flooded with nonsense.
Moot: unfortunately there is a lot of nonsense, people also refer to it as “noise”. In 4chans case there is especially a lot of nonsense. I can see how some people might see this as downfall of the internet or pretty much culture because we are now using these sites and seeing a shift from the thoughtful discussions toward the more inane. I think that has a lot to do with the low barrier entry of 4chan. We keep it as simple to use as possible. If you think back in the day in order to publish something you had to have access to a printing press, then maybe to cassette tapes etc. – there has always been some kind of step that has been large enough to overcome that people haven’t been able to share their ideas with others. Now we have the internet – and it is so easy. and in 4chans case its a simple as it gets. There is no registration, there is really nothing between the user and posting something. It takes 5 seconds to do that. The result of that is that there is more noise. But that’s the shift that has been happening for a hundred years now and I don’t think that it is a negative thing. Its just change. And people are afraid of change.
But what kind of influence do pages like yours have on culture in general?
I don’t think we’ll become stupider as people. We have to trust people to use their heads. I don’t see it as being a problem. Its a shift that we’ve been seeing and thats has been accelerated by the internet. Thats just something we’ll have to adapt with and deal with in the future.
Recently, imageboards like yours showed up in the media related to shooting announcements. What do you think about that?
You’re right. There has been more coverage in the mainstream media about some of the hoaxes that have been posted to the image boards. Its unfortunate because that is 0.00001 % of the content. My website is very high volume – we receive something like 450′000 posts per day. Millions of posts per week. And if just one of those posts is a threat, that’s what people you remember you by. Its a problem – but it’s not something we enable explicitly. When you allow anybody to come in and post anything then you get people who cry out for attention like that. At one point I was asked by an investigator “why do you think people use your website to do this”. And I said: its a good bang for the buck. Why would you yell “fire” in an empty theatre? If you want to elicit a reaction from people, why do it in a place where nobody reads it and nobody is going to see it? Why not do it on a page like 4chan where its 1. very easy to do and 2. thousands we’ll see it in a very short amount of time? Thats why we see our sites becoming big in the media because people are abusing it. But Thats probably just the way it is.
You started your site when you were 15 and now, a few years later, you speak at conferences and universities. people must think you must be a billionaire by now.
ha. im not a billionaire. Of course with the amount of traffic that the website has – 400 Million page impressions to about 5.5 Million people – people think I must be very wealthy. But: Im not rich. Far from it. But that doesn’t bother me, i’m still young and I haven’t finished school yet – so that’s a priority. And, I was relatively unknown to the mainstream until very recently. 4Chan was kind of a secret until last year. there was a “media blitz” when time magazine and wall street journal ran feature profiles about the site and made people more aware. But it actually didn’t result in a long term growth of the site. And for me personally it didn’t really result in the kind of opportunities that you would think it would. I hasn’t affected the site and it really hasn’t affected me personally – which is a good thing I think.
You don’t envy the google guys or zuckerman?
no. I really don’t. Which is sometimes hard for people to believe. The persons that most people think I should be envious about are the people who have capitalized the “memes”, the culture that comes from 4chan. People made a lot of money with it.
For example?
The “lolcats” would be the best example. Its a phenomena that you can trace back to 4chan and now a few people are making a lot of money, maybe 7 figures, a million us-dollars. A lot of money! And we’re always struggling to break even. it is kind of ironic. But I didn’t start the website with the intention of cashing in on it. The success has been by chance. I got very lucky so its hard to fault anybody for capitalizing on the site. They made good business decisions. How could I blame them? Why should I be resentful? The google guys, zuckerberg – they all do great things, I enjoy using their products and I’m happy for them.
I think its still good to see you as a down to earth normal guy. Today everybody is expecting people to be very rich and famous if they are big on the net.
Thanks. I think that the reason I’ve been able to be “normal” through the years is twofold. we have a certain philosophy. My personal thinking is that I believe in an “invisible hand” when it comes to the culture of the website, to the community. I really to try leave the users to their own devices. I wanna see my community grow organically and I believe in a kind of a self moderating community governed by this “invisible hand” – almost like a “laissez-faire”. So I haven’t used any of the influence I have to really direct the users and the site’s culture. It has all been generated on its own. That’s something I believe in which is kind of important to my personality I guess. The other thing is: I use my website any single day. It has allowed me to be grounded – its kind of healthy to me. for example: if I ran intrusive advertising like pop-ups, I could make a lot of money and probably get my yacht in the pacific with all those ads. But I’ve always placed a very strong emphasis on maintaining the user experience. Without my users – the site is nothing. Also, to be a little bit selfish – I’m a user myself and I don’t block ads. Why would I want to experience those types of bad advertisements? Some of those bigger companies – the people who are running them, they sometimes don’t use their products. Like if the CEO of ford motor company wants to drive a Mercedes for example. Or the CEO of a big media company that doesn’t really care for rap – although his biggest artist is a rapper. If they were more interested in what they are producing they wouldn’t make certain decisions. But I’m very interested in my product and it allows me to maintain a level of normalcy that is perhaps uncommon in the field
it’s actually good to hear someone like you talking like this. Whats up next?
I should probably prepare an answer for this. Good question. I want to continue to maintain the site. But also expand it. Open it up to more people in more languages. The core of the website is just images and text – so we can host board about anything. We can create a topic of anything – anything you can take a picture of. We have about 40 boards now – maybe one day we’ll host 100 boards. And we want to make it faster. And we want to be proud of what we do.
Personally? Still finishing school?
Some people say: you’re crazy. You should go work for some big company. My parents on the other hand are saying: finish school, finish school, finish school. I believe in both of those things. I could probably get a way with getting a job without getting a degree. But school is important. Of course I do want to start working on other products and bring my talents and skills or whatever I have learned over the years to other companies and websites and start helping them build communities themselves.
Thanks for the interview, moot. I’m looking forward to hearing from you again – and your new projects. Maybe from a yacht, maybe not.
Haha. Thanks for talking to me.
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