How the Internet Left 4chan Behind

4chan was where I learned that the internet could be bad. I first encountered the site during high school, not long after its founding, in 2003, by an American teen-ager named Christopher Poole (better known by his username, moot). Poole copied the format of a Japanese message board nicknamed 2channel; users on 4chan could anonymously post an unfiltered mix of text, images, and animated GIFs.