I can tell none of these researchers have actually been on 4chan because most of this type of behavior is only found on /b/ and /pol/. Pretty much all of the other boards stay focused on the topic at hand and rarely get the troll/sexist/racist posts.
I've been interested in the degree to which this is true, so I did a sample of some other boards. I always picked the first thread per board to avoid cherry picking results.
After those I got tired. Overall I'd say the SFW boards are a very mixed bag, with some of them actually being nice.
I read the entire thing and maybe I dont understand the value of analyzing things like this because to me it seems kind of stupid.
They were a lot more tuned in that most "researchers" so tiny credit but they sampled such a low amount of posts and only seem to grasp things at a very surface level. They apply behavioral theories to the users behind the post and their approach feels like they're reverse-engineering behavior to fit academic terminology, ignoring the dynamics of being an anonymous forum.
For example
As previous researchers have demonstrated, no slur can be taken at face value on 4chan nor can insults. This language is part of the group identity: pushing the bounds of propriety in order to “hack the attention economy” and turn heads
I think language is part of the group identity but that's not why its used. Oversimply its because thats how gamers spoke, the rest of the internet cleaned up and all the racists ended up on 4chan. Its a mix of people who speak that way because they're racist, people who have been there so long its becomes their vocal and people who dont use that language. I completely disagree that slurs and insults are used to hack the attention economy, why would they think using slurs commands any attention when its normalized. You farm the 'attention economy' by posting things that go against the boards consensus and by posting things you know people hate.
A bulk of the writing is talking about these 4 different strategies women use to "get cultural capital". The researcher looked at 60 threads and hand 'coded' each post then made this analysis. Here:
"it gradually became clear that posters claiming a female identity staked their claims to cultural capital and space within the community according to four strategies for ‘getting by’:
Denigration of femininity, assuming a pose of submission and subordination to male posters
Degradation of male identities, hooking into the popular construct of 4chan posters as ‘incels’ or betas. Posts in this category tended to posit women as social superiors, either guiding 4chan men to improve themselves, scorning them as worthless, or some combination of these strategies
Assuming a right-wing political identity that incorporates womanhood, but aligns with other 4chan norms against a posited Other
Empathetic bonding with other posters beyond, despite or indeed because of gender.
They identified 4 types of posts, these threads are so common every which way and are in no way unique to women. They've basically boiled the entirety of female engagement on the platform to these 4 post types.
Their characterization of strategies is so wide and only really exists so that they can highlight the things they wanted to talk about using one or two threads as examples. Women on 4chan just post normally the reason these posts are falling into these categories because they're popular thread topics and styles. People think its all greentexts but its mostly porn threads, generals and bait. Most of the posts they bring up are just people playing into stereotypes or trying to push a narrative.
I feel that the premise they're aiming for is wrong, cultural captial in the space is not when you make a post and people response nicely because that never happens consistently to anyone. Its when you are recognized, people do this through a tripcode(nametag), an attached image of a character, a posting style or a meme. There are plenty of famous posters, some loved some hated. The rest are just blended into a single poster that only exists within that thread. So ultimately the responses you get are meaningless.
All this research takes place in 2018-2020, and I might have agreed with the idea that women need to fight to not get bullied out of the space if it was like 2011 (which is around most of the time all this researchers citations are) but there has been a decent sized female population since pre 2016. Its impossible to not 'get by", there is nothing stopping you from posting anything you like. The people using those 4 strats are trying to illicit a reaction because they think its funny just like so many other posters.
Another example
The third strategy researchers identify is "redpilled" femanons—women who align with extreme right-wing views common on 4chan, including nationalism, antifeminism, white supremacy, and general ultraconservatism. These views are seen as aligning with the site's masculine culture. A "redpilled" woman stands out because of her rarity and understanding of 4chan's political norms, giving her subcultural capital. One post involves a French femanon sharing a news clip about African migrants and reminiscing about a safer, more peaceful past. As usual, early replies included the typical hazing and skepticism directed at supposed female posters. [You are a pure white french female that wants to be bred and impregnated?] [Nobody in the world gives a fuck about the french but the french themselves ] [Le tits or gtfo]
"But as the OP either ignores this or responds with unimpressed equanimity, the discourse rapidly develops into a conversation which treats her as any other poster, with users united by ‘redpilled’ perspectives, both in English and French"
So I looked up the thread and thats how I would describe what happened. The orginal post contained a pic of a hot chick in minimal clothing so as always the thread was derailed with comments about the hot chick in the image, the OP then responds to Le Tits or gtfo by posting a naked pic of the girl white whore written over it. The rest of the thread was split between 50iq maga boomers falling for the bait and thinking their racist wife from france was a real women and needed rescuing, people laughing at those boomers, people asking for more nudes and people making racist comments about migrants.
Another example which has a few points which I agree on but they dont hold water because the threads they cited arent what they claim they are.
This one thread about a women trying to 'get by' by submitting to the masuclinity but it was a thread clearly designed to intentionally piss people off and the researcher would know that if they followed the things they previously identified. The researchers comment "Not all femanons adopt the discourse of alt-right masculinism unproblematically. Many try to negotiate with it instead. They argue that ‘the alt right needs to be more female friendly and less sexist’, " When I search up the thread its not that at all. The poster didnt argue or respond. It was clearly just posted to trigger people. There are women who are right wing extremists, its just that I dont think they would say something like this because they know no one would take it seriously except a fed or a journo.
Greentexts, memes, everything 4chan.
