Moot point: Christopher Poole's moniker has been taken out of the running in condo-naming contest (Image: Andrew Dupont)
When Toronto development company Cityzen decided to set up an on-line poll to name a new condo going up at Yonge and Esplanade, it failed to take into account the power of Moot and his Web disciples. As of yesterday, the Toronto condo development was on a fast track to being dubbed “Moot,” the pseudonym of Christopher Poole—on-line prankster and the founder of 4chan.org, an anonymous image-sharing forum. The community of Web-savvy individuals is powerfully coordinated and has a tendency to hijack the results of on-line polls. Moot has been officially disqualified from the condo-naming contest, but the fact that he had about three times as many votes as the second place competitor—the decidedly less interesting “Euphoria Towers” (will there be atomized MDMA in the heating ducts?)—is a testament to 4chan’s influence. Yet this is small peanuts compared to his other exploits. To celebrate the group’s almost-victory on the Esplanade, we’ve rounded up five of 4chan’s most notable on-line pranks.
1. Moot managed to become Time magazine’s most influential person of the year in 2009.
2. The slightly built 20-something was enjoying first place in an on-line Victoria’s Secret best body contest before his entry was deemed ineligible. Second place was another facetious entry: the portly game developer Gabe Newell.
3. Fellow dweebs likely stood no chance against Moot in Wired’s sexiest geeks of 2009 poll.
4. When Justin Bieber decided to allow the denizens of the Internet to determine his next touring destination, the folks at 4chan ensured he’d go somewhere exotic—North Korea. This isn’t the only time that the group has taken umbrage with the YouTube sensation: last month, they pushed the search term “Justin Bieber syphilis” to the top of Google Trends’ Hot Searches list.
5. 4chan users were responsible for a resurgence of British pop singer Rick Astley by originating the concept of Rickrolling, wherein Internet users are hoaxed into clicking a link that leads to this, now at 25,194,104 views.
There is nothing funny or good about 4chan and /b/.
They publish child porn, racist and anti-Semitic statements & images.
They stir up hatred and are currently harassing an 11 year old girl to the point that she had to obtain police protection.
Its time to put these losers down.
Your publication should be fair and publish real purpose of this web site, its not harmless fun.
July 21, 2010 at 11:33 am | by An ObserverAs long as there remains the option to be Anonymous, there will always be 4chan. 4chan is a culmination of anything and everything that people would never let known that they like, but have the ability to due to this moniker. Like it or not, it will not go away.
July 21, 2010 at 12:31 pm | by Anonymousmoot has nothing to do with anything /b/ does. I can’t even remember the last time moot posted on /b/ and I’ve been going to 4chan for 3 years.
July 21, 2010 at 12:34 pm | by LOL@An Observer
>Its time to put these losers down.
You sir are a fool. Sites like 4chan and it’s /b/ board will always exist. There are very few media resources that still have ‘freedom of speech’ as it were.
Doing anything seriously illegal on 4chan is idiotic, that’s how people get partyvanned.
There are far worse sites than 4chan. If you don’t want exposure, stay off it.
moot, if you read this, I <3 you
July 21, 2010 at 2:14 pm | by SnaxGeee, what happened to all the other comments? (about 40 have been removed)
Looks like Toronto Life got “4channed” and didn’t like it.
Censorship in Canada, who would have thunk it?
July 21, 2010 at 3:45 pm | by L. Lutz“They publish child porn”
Really, you’ve looked at child porn online?
July 21, 2010 at 4:01 pm | by MikeThe parents of an 11 year old girl should be teaching her the good sense not to attempt to become an Internet celebrity by tarting herself up over webcam, although i doubt they have such reservations about their daughter’s ambitions, seeing as they now have international media attention and are making an appearance or two on morning talk shows.
July 22, 2010 at 12:31 am | by Zachmoot has nothing to do with any of that. He’s developping and managing a website. He does not influence in any way what the retards from /b/ randomly set out to do.
July 22, 2010 at 5:03 am | by AnonymousYou’ve written about 4chan like they’re a harmless fun little group of geeks.
4chan posts child porn, underage animation, horrific violence, horrific racism and they take great pride in harassing people who stand up to them….all while they get their lulz at all of the above content and encouraging each other to post MOAR. ( sic)
They are the lowest of the low and you’re friendly little piece that you’ve written is disgusting.
July 22, 2010 at 12:07 pm | by JohnTo john
Anonymous is not a specific group, and attacking Anonymous means attacking anybody who does not wish to be know. Anyways From this trend I’ve been noticing attacking 4chan or there users access in some way, even mentioning them is like taking a baseball bat to a beehive Its insane… /b/ is not the only board on 4chan you know, child porn isn’t posted 24-7 on every board in fact many frown upon you and attack you (verbally) if you deviate from what the board is meant to be used for. For example: post /vp/pokemon stuff on /v/video games and you incite massive rage. finally /b/ is like the black sheep of the 4chan it does anything it can to get us in trouble, it even attacks other boards in the site with raids. Personally I think moot should remove /b/ all together, 99% of the bullshit would evaporate. Or i could be wrong and the members would ruin every other 4chan board…
July 22, 2010 at 2:07 pm | by AnonymousWhenever someone posts child porn they immediately get banned from the site. You’ve probably never seen CP there yourself and your opinions are solely based on what people have told you. They may have told you it was a scary site to go to and although it is on many levels due to the amount of gore, personal harassment, etc, you must realize that all of this content gets permanently deleted after a certain time. The longest something can stay up would be 1 hour, most of the times just 20 minutes.
Also, as the slogan of /b/ says “the content posted here is pure artistic work of fiction and you’ll be a fool if you believe it” or something along those lines, I cannot remember. This may not mean much but it’s true. Original content is probably only found once in an entire day. The rest of the time the content is a rehash of previous events also known as copypasta or a large variety of the same threads (rate me threads, chubby threads, furry threads, you laugh you lose threads, etc).
And note that 4chan isn’t /b/ in its entirety. There are other boards, most of them which are perfectly fine. Think of 4chan as the world. There are good places and there are bad places. /b/ is Mexico.
July 22, 2010 at 2:11 pm | by AnonTo Anon poster above me.
/b/ would be somalia, what are you talking about…
July 23, 2010 at 12:31 am | by AnonymousAn Observer
In response to An Observer…
Yyyyeeeeaaahhh, they are great…
July 26, 2010 at 10:28 am | by Mister Kwhoop whoop go $chan.
4chan isn’t just bout upsetting people. 4chan opens up endless possibilities of pranks for the everyday person to join in with. there planned and executed with precision which in my opinion means they should be awarded for there efforts. i mean all they do is make things more interesting in this world. there will always be hate, there will always be pranks and there will alwys be 4chan.
August 16, 2010 at 10:51 am | by Pylot@ An Observer
Troll accomplished.
January 14, 2011 at 9:57 pm | by Anonymous