To preserve this selection mechanism, as well as the anything-goes, “publicly private” (Lange, 2007) sense of community, Poole fervently opposed permanent archiving (2015). Internet memes that “survived” 4chan/b/’s self-deletion often diffused and “normiefied” (De Zeeuw et al., 2020) into well-known pieces of Web folklore, like LOLCats and Rickrolling. As 4chan’s founder Christopher Poole noted, the website’s lack of infrastructural memory made it a powerful “meme-factory” since it encouraged constant reposting, and with it, the repetition of memorable images and phrases that could “swim upstream through the waterfall of content” (2015).

Interestingly, it is this ephemerality that helped make /b/ a significant cultural force to begin with. However, because 4chan is ephemeral – the creation of a new comment thread always goes at the expense of another one – much of /b/’s history is now lost. Before this, however, /b/ “Random” was 4chan’s centre of gravity, a space said to have helped birth “meme culture” as we now know it (boyd, 2017) and described as “the most influential cultural force most people didn’t realize they were actually quite familiar with” (Phillips, 2018, p. By 2021, the imageboard is now mostly known for its far-right /pol/ “Politically Incorrect” board, rife with white supremacist activity and conspiracy theories. Once a cultural nexus, now a porn-ridden afterthought, 4chan/b/ was at the forefront of online culture in the 2000s. I found the archival scene of /b/ to be highly volatile, with some available text data from 2006-2008, scraps of HTML captures from 20-2012, and more consistent archiving since 2014. I therefore outline five significant /b/ archives, after which I discuss several other noteworthy ones. While some of /b/’s tumultuous past might be best forgotten, knowing what primary data exists is not only relevant for historical purposes, but also for understanding the current-day Web. Once a major cultural force, much of the /b/ “Random” board’s history is now lost.

This blog post outlines data archives of 4chan/b/.

How to archive threads on 4chan