Rules 1 and 2

[Rhaps]

Need not be mentioned for the topic I'm presenting. I figured there would be enough intellectual input on this matter to make it worthy of ID, so keep that in mind when replying and reading.

tl;dr /b/tards are ruining the internet.

If you don't know about the "Rules of the Internet," then the title of this thread may strike you as strange. It's a set of rules fabricated by people who visit the image board 4chan, on the /b/ (Random) board in particular. These rules in particular should prove my point. They say "Do not talk about /b/," and "Do NOT talk about /b/," respectively. Sound familiar? If not, it's from the cult classic movie and book, Fight Club. This was a funny reference upon first reading it, but it really takes a turn for the worst. Have you ever heard of the group "Anonymous?" The people who browse /b/ all assume they are a part of it. "We are Anonymous. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us. We are legion." This tagline unites a group of strangers under a flag of stupidity as they grab the internet by the mane and run it into the festering mud that is idiocy.

Allow me to elaborate.

Assuming you're a part of some "Super secret hacker hivemind," just because you browse an imageboard is stupid on so many levels. It's like assuming you're a member of the FBI because you live near Quantico. That's not how things work, and it makes you seem immature. No one is going to respect you for saying you go to /b/. Plus, if you tell them, you're breaking your precious, stolen rules, which segues into my next point.

Creativity is the internet's oil, to speak metaphorically. It's in low supply, but most everyone needs it. Think of internet memes. Remember how funny lolcats were a year or two ago? And now they're unfunny, recycled garbage? This is what /b/ is in its purest form. Not the lolcats, unless it's a Saturday. Just a bunch of people spewing ideas that they heard elsewhere, posting the same pictures over and over, and performing the same "raids." It's all rehashed. Nothing is new.

Perhaps if the content were good, repeated cycles would be more understandable. But, there's nothing worth reading. Guys calling each other faggots, posting pictures of obscure porn, whining about how they can't get girls "cuz I'm so beta," and then reposting things they found funny a few months ago. This behavior started on /b/, and as many of you may have noticed, has spread to the rest of the internet. Facebook is loaded with this nonsense. Websites are made to be mimes of /b/, but without the porn. It's like we've opened pandora's box by simply acknowledging that /b/ is a thing.

So, I reiterate my initial point: /b/tards are making the internet a terrible place.

[Order]

Rule#1
Don't die.

Rule#2
Win.

/b/
Was fun, interesting and weird when I was in highschool.
Sifting through 15 pages of garbage was a good waste of time.
But back then it was just a place without rules.

As you said,
Now its all over the internet.
Its another form of popular culture for me to be indifferent toward.
4 chan itself is up to the same things it always was and doesn't strike me either way.
What gets me is that now people will grab my arm, look me in the eye and quote some /b/ quote and wait for me to get surprised/confused/laugh.
And when I continue looking at them, they ask (with grave sincerity) "haven't you seen it on facebook?"

The good thing about 4 chan's continued existance is I have an additional red flag to help me pinpoint and disrguard individuals who obsess over popular culture.

Thank you, 4 chan for giving aquintencies a way to accidentally tell me that they are a douchebag.

Because finding out that someone is a doucebag before they pull some douchebaggy shit is a survival tactic.

[Heartless Angel]

I was a /b/tard back when it was still... well, actually it was never cool, but cooler than it is now. Hell, some of the old raids were actually quite entertaining albeit pointless and generally stupid. A bit of mostly well mannered stupidity in small doses can be quite fun, but as /b/ has degenerated over time, it has gone too far and become the cancer of the internet. Everything gets old after a while, and 99.99% of anything that shows up there anymore is so old, it was old when I was still failing at triforce-ing. The other .01% which I salute for at least being original, is usually not funny in the slightest, which is why it appears to be original, because anybody who already thought of it realized it was too stupid to be worth sharing anyways. Of course, the majority of the remaining /b/tards were never true /b/tards, just the newfags who never grew out of being newfags, and stayed there regurgitating the same old crap to the newer newfags, whilst anyone the old /b/ may have considered interesting immediately identifies the current /b/ as a den of stupidity and recycled memes and moves on. Of course, what has all of this changed? Not much really. /b/tards in large groups are just as annoying as they've always been, they spout memes which are occasionally entertaining just as they always have, they waste their time reading memes they already know like they always have, really nothing has changed at all. The problem is that it stopped changing, it's grown stagnant and we've all become bored with it. So just as it has always been, those who don't enjoy /b/ don't stay there, those who do continue to waste their lives there. /b/ has grown old and (more) useless, and not a single **** was given that day.

[Rowan]

It was never cool, it was never awesome, it was never anything other than a place for losers to go and talk absolute smack. It was full of Hard Candy and that disgusted me and im sure it turned many others off going there. A bunch of people talking about random shit and then people lolling and calling them trolls was just pointless. As were the stupid DDOS'in losers who pretended they were hackers and tried organising mass rallys to shutdown sites only to be told that "We are not your personal army" despite the fact that they would continually do the most immature shit to people on facebook, myspace etc. People would pretend to be the person they want attacked and say things like "Do this to this person they suck etc" only to have those people find the impersonated individual and 'teach them a lesson'.

Yes, they are ruining the internet but not only that, they are disrupting companies, comprimising security, attacking PEOPLE and so fourth. Its just a meeting ground for some of the worst kind of people in the world.

[Lacquer Head]

/b/ isn't ruining the internet, the internet is ruining the internet. 4chan may be filled with moronic trolls, but it isn't the home for them, it's just over run with them like any place else. Although no one pays them any mind. The internet has just gotten too big and "newfags" join and think the purpose is to derail a thread. 4chan is a rather reliable site for finding pretty much anything, but if you're easily upset and get mad easily, go elsewhere (I would say grow up and get used to it, since the world wont censor shit that pisses you off, but I digress)

ftr, "anonymous" isn't a group, everyone is anonymous, a group that goes around attacking other sites doesn't exist, don't fall for the oldest troll in the book lol

tl;dr the internet is too big, you just have to sift through a bunch of crap to find the gold.

[Hobaginator]

/b/ died of cancer in mid 2007.

[Kyrel]

This is all pretty old and not meant to be taken seriously.
The point of the internet is to win, and you are winning as long as you're coming out on top of any situation,
ie; If someone enforces the rules you can use the fact that they are meaningless to bring them down by pointing out their inexperience on the matter.
Deep down, it all comes down to trolling.

On a side note, only a few are part of hacking groups such as LulzSec. As for the rest of the people who frequent that website, you're free to assume whatever.