The subject of my dissertation, the anonymous image-board forum called 4chan, is a space that, while many who know of it often have a very strong, negative reaction to (and usually for good reason). My project showed me overwhelmingly that 4chan is a space that defies categorization, which I have taken  to heart within my dissertation and the research that followed.

Simply, my dissertation examined what many would consider to be some of the worst parts of this website (yes, there is a hierarchy!). That is, I looked at what is widely recognized as a politically incorrect subforum, known colloquially as /pol/, and how users on this particular board talk about politics.

On page 99 of my dissertation, one particular statement sticks out to me:

“Given the continued description of the board throughout this project, one may wrongly infer that talk on this website is always one hundred percent wild; that discourse on this website is always incredibly visible, violent, and chaotic, with all capital letters and exclamation points deriding all manner of politics and practices. While these types of display are still obviously present in this space, there is generally just as much dialogue that appears in a more tempered or even-keeled manner.”

While I cannot speak to the quality of work this page represents for my overall work (I’d like to think I did a solid job), this statement speaks to some of the way that I was drawn to studying 4chan in the first place. This is a digital space that, for many anthropologists and others not within the field, is considered lawless, chaotic, and almost impermeable for scholarship. 4chan, and /pol/ more specifically, exists as a digital boogeyman, a place by which many have heard of, but few well-meaning folk ever explore, or in some cases, is seen as the entrance to the dark web. My work has sought to complicate this notion and legitimate exploration of this space as a linguistic anthropologist. Not as a way to condone the actions and discourses that occur within /pol/, but rather to offer an examination of digitally located, far-right political discourses, such as the alt-right (which will no doubt resurge this upcoming US presidential election cycle) that does not outright dismiss, but instead highlights the important of studying these spaces, and the impacts that it has on other social media platforms, and beyond.

Dillon Ludemann. 2022. ” And Their Name was Legion: Discourse and Politics on 4chan’s /pol/ Board.” SUNY Binghamton Phd.