Hello, dearest fans. I know you have been longing for my return to PIC and waiting with baited breath for an explanation of what fantastic adventures have kept me from you. I have wondrous news on that front—I have been taken from you by a fantastic place that can make all of your hopes and dreams come true: the internet!

4chan.org b folderSeriously, though, I haven't been doing much out of the ordinary. I graduated, but not technically, because I'm going back for a master's degree due to my severe inability to find a job, and the way the master's program is set up, I get both my undergrad and my grad degree next year. This year I got a diploma case with a note inside that says "Please return to Stanford University Psychology department." I kept it. Fuck ‘em.

Anyway, I'm currently working at a summer internship which gives me a lot of flexibility. My days are divided between the gym and the beach (yeah ladies, check me out, I'm a catch), and at night I occasionally send an email or two. Since I've been sleeping too much to call any of my old friends and let them know that I'm back home, the rest of my time is spent surfing the internet.

Because I was struck by a desire to write something, and writing requires a topic, I picked the first thing in front of me. I am only somewhat ashamed to say that in a Mozilla Firefox window next to this document is http://img.4chan.org/b (with an animated Sexinyourcity.com ad flashing at the bottom of it that's quite distracting).

Everything's ephemeral, but you know however ridiculous whatever you just read was, something worse will be up tomorrow.Don't click that link. I'm going to say it once and only once, and you've probably already clicked it anyway, but it was good advice.

Not to be cliché, but 4chan is like the Matrix was supposed to be—no one can tell you what it is; you have to see it for yourself. Hey Morpheus, the Matrix is a simulation into which all humanity is plugged that keeps them unaware of their true circumstances so the machines can harvest their bodies for energy. Boom. Told you what the Matrix was. Wasn't that hard, see?

Anyway, 4chan, put in the simplest terms possible, is an image board. That is, you can post images and text, and other people can respond with other images and text. That description, however, does it little justice. For more information, let's copy shit straight off of Wikipedia:

"there are very minimal rules on posted content"

"The Guardian once summarised the 4chan community as ‘lunatic, juvenile… brilliant, ridiculous and alarming.'"

"Gawker.com‘s Nick Douglas summarizes /b/ as a board where ‘people try to shock, entertain, and coax free porn from each other.'"

"the site's anti-child pornography rule is a subject of jokes on /b/."

"Douglas said of the board, ‘reading /b/ will melt your brain', and cited Encyclopedia Dramatica‘s definition of /b/ as ‘the asshole of the Internet'."

How does a site get a reputation like that? I'd post some links, but because it goes through 150,000-200,000 messages a day, things disappear from the board hours after they get put up. It's part of the novelty, really—everything's ephemeral, but you know however ridiculous whatever you just read was, something worse will be up tomorrow. For example, when I first opened it today, the first thread was a picture of a girl posting naked pictures of herself and asking if /b/ would have sex with her. I believe this response summed it up best:

"ok cumbucket you're asking /b/ if they or I would fuck you.
That's like asking a 3 year wants candy.
In any case I would say use [sic] to both candy and you."

Besides that, /b/ has accomplished several notable things. They created Rickrolling and started the popularity of "Chocolate Rain." They got the swastika symbol to the top of Google's list of most popular search terms. One of them hacked into Sarah Palin's email account and changed her password, then accidentally forgot to erase it from a screenshot he posted, so hundreds of users tried to log onto it at the same time, causing Yahoo to lock the account. They habitually post the phone number of a GameStop and have hundreds of people call in requesting Battletoads. Requests for child pornography are commonplace. Pictures of penises are even more commonplace. If you type the number 7, it is automatically changed to say "over 9000."

After that, you're probably more confused about what I'm talking about than you were before you started reading. That's to be expected. Perhaps you're wondering what could possibly be funny about such a thing. Nothing, unless you're ridiculously twisted (ganja never hurt either). Perhaps you're wondering why, after so many months of silence, I would come back to post about this, of all things. I have no explanation besides the fact that I'm so bored that I'm on 4chan in the first place, so what else could I possibly have to do with my time?

I will end with a /b/ quote, only because it seems like the appropriate thing to do:

"as you can see, my PENIS is tragically undersized. How do you suggest I make it bigger? I will provide a Cheese Pizza in return for your help."

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