I get a lot of e-mail messages from people who say thanks for giving them a place to vent, an outlet to say what they can't say in real life with friends and work colleagues - things that they know are wrong, but they still want to say. Is it right? No, of course not. People say some disgusting, vile things.

Christopher Poole

Categorized in : People Life Work Colleagues

What's unique about [4chan] is that it's anonymous, and it has no memory. There's no archive, there are no barriers, there's no registration. ... That's led to this discussion that's completely raw, completely unfiltered.

Christopher Poole

archives unique memories

The cost of failure is really high when you're contributing as yourself.

Christopher Poole

contributing cost

A racing horse is not like a machine. It has to be tuned up like a racing car.

Christopher Poole

horse car racing

The ability to fail quietly without having that failure associated with your name/identity allows for more experimentation and limit pushing.

Christopher Poole

limits identity names

The high five card will be an insignificant bonus to the incredible time I’ll have traveling the world and meeting new people, especially fans of Nando’s

Christopher Poole

fans cards people

When we think of memetic culture, it is the sausage factory of the old days.

Christopher Poole

sausage culture thinking

Facebook does social really well, but continues to fail at community.

Christopher Poole

failing community doe

I don't agree with everything Facebook does or Mark Zuckerberg's stance on identity, but he's a nice and extremely smart guy who believes in what he's doing.

Christopher Poole

smart nice believe

Areas with lots of college students/young people can be a minefield, so I tend to avoid them.

Christopher Poole

students college people

There isn't one way of doing anything. I'm not saying everywhere online should be anonymous, nor do I think everywhere should use read-ID. I just want options! And for people to understand how valuable anonymity can be, and why it's worth protecting.

Christopher Poole

use people thinking

As a teenager, I used to use the nickname 'Moo' as a moniker online, and then I turned into 'Moot' for fun, which I didn't even realize was a real word at the time, and it just stuck with me.

Christopher Poole

realize me time fun

4chan is a framework of pictures and text. I've always been extremely hands-off with dictating what gets posted, past general categories and rules. I support providing a place to discuss anything, although I don't agree with everything that's posted.

Christopher Poole

pictures place support past

I don't hate anyone. Sometimes I wish I could interact with the community in a more normal way, though.

Christopher Poole

community hate sometimes way

A journalist asked this to my father. He spent a day with me and interviewing my friends/colleagues and didn't understand how I could be the one that created 4chan and, as he put it, 'couldn't understand how to fit the square peg into a round hole.' The best way I have of describing it is, 'I didn't define it, and it doesn't define me.'

Christopher Poole

best day me father

I didn't want my parents to know about 4chan at first because of the adult content. By the time I was 18 and could talk about it, the site had become notorious for its exploits and the adult content on there.

Christopher Poole

parents know want time

As kids, we say stupid things, and because there's not a record of it, nobody is going to give you a hard time at 30 years old about something you said or did when you were 8 years old. Online, you have all these social networks that are moving to a state of persistent identity, and in turn, we're sacrificing the ability to be youthful.

Christopher Poole

you identity stupid time

The world is changing so quickly, it's hard to get anything right for long.

Christopher Poole

right hard long world

There's a lot of glorification of startups and being a founder. People brush the failures under the rug, but that's the worst thing you can do. You kind of have to face it head on.

Christopher Poole

face you worst people

I think 4chan is going to stay the same.

Christopher Poole

i-think stay going think

With 4chan, the cost of hosting it added up very quickly and at that time when I was 18, I didn't have the income of my own so it was a challenge to make money and break even on it.

Christopher Poole

challenge my-own money time