La red antisocial: De los memes al caos

"The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem" is a documentary tracing the evolution from 2 chan, a Japanese anime website, to 4 chan to Anonymous to 8 chan to nihilism to Q Anon. It also shows how the business model of stirring up anger and fear spread to the mainstream social media. It interviews key people in the creation and development of this phenomenon. And it shows how even they get horrified with what they have unleashed. I knew some of this but the documentary connects the dots. It also shows how this has bled into the real world. But this isn't anti-technology. Behind this is people, some well-meaning but naive, some immature, some hateful, and some cynically using all the others.

As one could expect, a documentary about people on the Internet gets very mixed reviews from people on the Internet.

This documentary raises many thoughts when it goes through some of the history of 4chan, Anonymous, Qanon, and MAGA, and how they link together. I found it personally very interesting, well-made, and I learned some new information. As a viewer, however, you need to remember that this is still just an edited Netflix documentary about the Internet and, well, you can never really know the whole truth about that. Do some people make themselves seem more important than they truly were? Who knows. Maybe, maybe not.

In whole, this is an important topic especially in today's world and I'm glad I decided to watch it. And you conspiracy theorists, you live in a made-up world.

It's an interesting history lesson for someone like me, who was a bit of a technophobe until probably about 2010.

It charts the early years of the internet and perhaps the infancy of social media, I honestly had no idea that memes about so early on.

Amazing to see how politics plays such a big in the story, I nicely had very little idea, so there is a lot here to learn.

I didn't know a huge deal about Anonymous, so learning was a real eye opener, you can work out whether you think they were a force for change, for good, or for something else.

On the downside, it's too much, don't watch it if you have a headache, it'll make it ten times worse, it's relentless images, it's too much to take in.

I'm someone that feels quite strongly about changing anonymity rules online, maybe before anything happens, people need to realise and understand the origins, this would be a good place to start.

8/10.

I found this documentary interesting. I was never into 4chan myself, but I remember when it started and got big and I had a few friends who used to be there. I learned a lot in this documentary. For example, I didn't know that Anonymous originated in 2003 on 4chan. I learned more about January 6th with the attack on Capitol, the evolution of memes, Qanon, maga, etc.

It was also interesting to see these hackers being interviewed. They are not very likeable people most of them. It is also so very crazy that people are so easily fooled by what they read on the internet and that they believe it fully. Someone says something on the internet, and it can turn into a very large real movement/demonstration. It's crazy how stupid people are, but also very interesting.

But it managed to be educational and present its thesis quite well. The thesis is that the infamous 4chan led to such social movements as OccupyWallstreet, Anonymous, Gamergate, and the rise of Donald Trump and finally, to January 6th. It showed how these groups morphed together and separated. It shows very clearly how the alt-right latched onto meme culture and tried to hijack the political discourse. I was never on 4chan, but remember seeing their productions out in the wild. It's a cautionary tale about two things, the first about how just because you create something, that does not mean you can control it as the creator of 4chan discovered, and the second is never to underestimate the stupidity of the masses. They will beieve anything as long as its in a visual form with some white text.