After reading through several replies on the main thread (thank you for your submissions), I will attempt to boil down all the “whys” into two reasons. In this essay we’ll explore those reasons, and then explore the unintended consequences.
First, the reasons: Imageboard users aim to escape, and to gamble.
Escapism is the raison d’être for imageboards. We’ll define escapism as follows: to leave everything behind. Responsibilities, social expectations, stresses. Sinking into an Anonymous persona is the temporary band-aid on any and all worries one has. Without a body, facts to carry around, you can forget yourself and therefore everything that concerns yourself. Barring the rules of the imageboard, you are not responsible for anything, you have no expectations from others, and there’s nothing demanded of you when you’re posting.
It’s a freeing feeling. Unsaddle all those burdens, and then interact with what is posted – images, musings, whatever it is – to fully shut off your brain. A form of paradise, at least initially. Interactions without repercussions! At least not-so-obvious repercussions.
What isn’t so obvious about imageboard appeal is how, ultimately, you’re playing virtual slots. What makes slots so successful? Well, as with any addiction: low effort, continual input, random reward, and no immediate severe consequence. So the same with imageboards: a gathering of faceless people, random topics, a freedom to post mostly anything, no expectations. Anything is technically possible! (Is it?) I chose the analogy of slots for good reason.
First, imageboard use lines up with addictive qualities of slots.
Low effort, continual input, random reward, non-obvious consequences.
Second, all the pictures on a slot machine are pre-determined. What I mean is, what’s genuinely the most novel thing that could happen on an imageboard? Maybe you see an essay exploring something grossly interesting, but that’s the peak! Maybe some hot takes. That’s it! What will you do with that discovered essay? Close the board to open again and look for replies next time you get an itch to browse.
This is distilled essence of an imageboard: freeing and full of games. First you’re seduced by the freedom it seems to give, and then hooked on what’ll happen next, even if you become fully self-aware that nothing happens.
Things do happen, just slowly, and in you.
My distilled list of consequences: procrastination, passivity, neurosis and fragmentation.
Procrastination ties nicely with escapism. Escapism is addicting as any problems you’re running from, you’ll just want to continue to run from them until they drown you. I’m sure you’re familiar with how, instead of choosing a more enjoyable pastime, you browse imageboards because technically you should be working (but you aren’t, you’re taking a break, right?). A form of settling, I suppose. Procrastination erodes your confidence in getting things done, that’s for sure.
Passivity is the same as any other media device: instead of producing content yourself, or driving forward in your own life (but I mean, you’re already procrastinating right) imageboards make it easy to wait for someone else to introduce something interesting enough. Scroll through the content and continue to turn off your brain: it’s a primary reason you go on imageboards!
And the neurosis comes in at later stages. When you bathe in the information
imageboards dish out, you also bathe in psychological operations. In sinister
actors. You’re constantly associating with people you may not associate with in
real life. And absorbing all the maggots in their head. The “blackpill” is one
of many examples of a sickness hard to shake off. A primary reason for /kind/
refugees.
Finally, a feeling of fragmentation. Every time you visit an imageboard, you are born anew slipping in your anonymous virtual-suit, but you also have to die that day. Whatever you express in the days, whatever you post, is lost in the catalog, in time, and you don’t bring it along with you. You can’t associate with yourself, if you even know what you are anymore. For a silent rule of any imageboard use is that you keep it to yourself and separated, otherwise you lose the pendant of Anonymity (the reason why you use it). So now you have a bunch of flotsam, fragments of what you could be but aren’t necessarily, just the whispers in your head that mutate on their own.
I’m sure there are more consequences, but these are the ones that come to my mind. It’s clear that the consequences outweigh the benefits. I guess that’s why I made this account, because I’m at least giving up anonymity even if it feels weird. Because there’s nothing else one can do while anonymous, other than cultivate the above consequences and yet feel at ease: the spotlight is something to be avoided, after all.
What shall we do from here?