honor among people who possess a passion for all things Japanese. They are stereotyped as basement-dwelling, unhygienic virgins who sleep with body pillows fashioned to resemble Japanese pop stars, surrounded by massive collections of action figures and DVDs. On 4chan you can find masses of people who are into Japanese pop culture, but you can also find a strong anti-otaku vibe. People who post anime on /b/ are often told to “Go back to /jp/.”
On 4chan, otaku are often called
wapanese
, or
white Japanese
, in the same way that white people who emulate African-American culture are derisively called
wiggers
. Otaku are also called
weeaboos
, which is a term created by a wordfilter—a bit of code that automatically changes one word to another, in this case instituted by 4chan founder Christopher “moot” Poole—that automatically changed
wapanese
to
weeaboo
. Weeaboo is a reference to a nonsense word from a Perry Bible Fellowship web comic strip that has nothing to do with Japan or Japanese culture. I suspect moot just thought the word sounded funny.
/k/ Weapons
If you own nine samurai swords, this is the board for you. A popular thread on the front page reads:
guys you have a grizzly charging you at 100 yards what gun do you want and you only have one round left what cal and what make is it?
There are always a few threads on /k/ that are dedicated to arguing about specific aspects of gun control.
/lit/ Literature
Despite being populated by Randroids (Ayn Rand devotees) and sci-fi geeks, 4chan’s literature board is another that continually surprises with clever content. A common game is “Honest Covers,” wherein players post Photoshopped images of novels with blunter titles. Nabokov’s
Lolita
becomes
Likeable Rapist
. Hemingway’s
The Sun Also Rises
becomes
Jews Ruin Parties
. This board probably has the highest ratio of quality content to garbage content, since it’s frequented by people who have read at least one book.
/m/ Mecha
Mecha culture is made up of dozens of different sci-fi universes all based on bipedal fighting robots, like the zords from
Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers
. Mecha vehicles are often piloted by humans, and anthropomorphized so that fans will be able to bond emotionally with hunks of metal. The genre is extremely popular in Japan, encompassing feature films, comics, toys, novels, and more.
/mu/ Music
4chan’s music board gives music geeks a platform to engage in the age-old practice of cultural snobbery. It’s dominated heavily by metalheads, the one true music of computer nerds. People post what’s currently on their turntables, take glamour shots of their hi-fi setups, and create lists upon lists that quantify specific eras and genres.
/n/ Transportation
Photos and information about planes, trains, and automobiles. Looks like most people use it as a forum to talk about bicycles. There appear to be some commercial pilots in here talking with some air traffic controllers. It’s of course impossible to verify, but the language they are using implies that the discussion is legit.
/o/ Auto
Car talk and slick photos of cars. A lot of arguing about the relative merits of NASCAR vs. Formula 1 racing. I once saw a lengthy thread where people debated which parts they’d use were they given the ability to perform maintenance and repairs on the Batmobile.
/p/ Photography
Personal photography only. Users are encouraged to include a description of when and where photos were taken along with a description of the camera used. This board has a few fun games, like “Take a photo of the view from your window.”
/po/ Papercraft & Origami
Dedicated to the ancient Japanese art of folding paper so it looks like cool stuff, usually related to video games or anime here. 4chan founder moot claims that this is one of his favorite boards.
/s/ Sexy Beautiful Women
Yet another porn board. This one’s just for soft-core nudes of actual human females, which makes it something of an