oh internet

Anonymous is a banner that many channers, as well as hacktivists and IRC users, post under.

Summary

Often abbreviated as "Anon", Anonymous refers to an indefinite collective centered around the chans. This group of internet users communicates without consistent usernames on various chans. Between posting gore and porn threads, Anonymous stages largely unsuccessful raids on other websites. Originally, the idea of Anonymous was to act as a hive mind as part of a meme. Enchanted with anarchy and convinced they were part of some Internet Fight Club, 13 year olds everywhere took the idea of a faceless force of nature to heart. These diehards became convinced that Anonymous could enact real change, and the meme degraded into what is often referred to as "legionfaggotry" by /b/tards.

In the old days of /b/, not many people took Anonymous seriously, and they treated it like the joke that it was. Anonymous was more of a subculture than a definite group, a loose community where nobody had a name and were content to talk about random things and occasionally organize trolling attempts on other sites. This changed when FOX 11 decided to report on the trolls, and true legionfaggotry started to take hold. Some users took to writing up eloquent speeches about how much these guys they knew on the internet rocked. They romanticized Anonymous as a force of total nihilism or an unstoppable anarchic villain, when in reality it was closer to a group of disillusioned men and teenagers meeting up on the internet in flash mobs where they would either waste time or insult people who knew less about the internet than them.

Because Anonymous is in essence a collective, ongoing flash mob, there's no true hierarchy or organizational structure. The only real "rule" seems to be the understanding that messing with cats is crossing the line. Because there's strength in numbers, especially numbers that include effective trolls, Anonymous isn't a completely powerless mass of offensive and frustrated teenagers. However, continual disorganization and general incompetence ensures that Anonymous will never be an invincible internet powerhouse, and only as influential as any mob can be.

It should be noted that 4chan is one of the few chans that still openly embraces Anonymous. Even so, with the exception of /b/, the boards are much less sympathetic to calls for raiding and trolling than in the past, and some even ignore Anonymous outright. The rest of the chans try to separate themselves from Anonymous, and often take measures regarding the name field to do so.

Origins

Anon Anonymous actually started out in 1993 with the launching of anon.penet.fi by Johan "Julf" Helsingius of Finland. An anonymous remailer whose members ran into the hundreds of thousands. Making it the very first and original Anonymous! It would strip technical information and than send messages to Usenet Groups. Many notable trolls were counted amongst its users.

However, today's Anonymous grew out of the "tripfag debates" on 4chan. In 4chan's early days, using a tripcode and pseudonym wasn't just accepted, it was encouraged. Moderator Shii, who had some experience with 2ch wrote an essay on why this totally sucked, and moot made him a moderator because of it. Shii, as soon as he gained his staff powers, eliminated the name field on many of the boards, implementing forced anonymity. People who used tripcodes whined about the new forced_anon and began signing their posts with their old names, inviting ridicule from those who welcomed the changes. Regularly, there would by "tripfag vs anon" threads where the tripcode lovers would accuse the people who didn't use names of being a single person or hive mind. As such, Anon was every 4chan user who had ever posted on the boards. The meme continued to grow in popularity until it blew itself out of proportion and into the fragmented mess it is today.

Eventually a FOX 11 report aired which described Anonymous and 4chan as an "internet hate machine" and as "domestic terrorists". This caught on rather fast with the boards, leading to memes mocking the poorly researched report. However, at this point, Anonymous grew into something more serious as the users romanticized Anon into an anarchist group of Joker-like characters that were the mass subconsciousness. This lead to Anonymous first "project" called Project Chanology, which was a broad attack against the Church of Scientology.

And from there, Anonymous became more "organized" (or as organized as a mob can be) into an activist group interested in protecting the "public welfare", which can range from helping Wikileaks to simpler goals like catching a cat killer. But at it's very core, Anonymous is still essentially a group of hacker trolls with loftier and more "noble" goals than simple trolling.

Current status

Anonymous, though largely toothless, still contains people with sufficient hacking and trolling prowess locked away in its tightest regions, most of them solely focused on the Wikileaks drama. Despite this, Anon does largely seem to fall back on hackneyed "troll" tactics like doxing opponents, and then making death threats on their lives and family through email or the phone. It also occasionally uses DDoS attacks if their opponent has a website, but it still stands that Anonymous is more bark and less bite.

In the last few years, 4chan has become more mainstream and most posts are of the paint-by-numbers, insert-meme-here type, with less and less people supporting Anonymous then there used to be. This has lead "legitimate" Anonymous members to take up residence on other *chan boards as well as IRC networks such as AnonOps. This has lead to splinter groups like LulzSec who attempt to invoke their own "hacktivist" ideals, but largely failing due to a lack of social skills.

Images

The Well-Cultured Anonymous is a self help book by Anon containing informative sections describing how to be a well-mannered and social Anon.		Real Anon: Do not mistaken with others. (?????)	The secret cult
	A pretty cool piece of artwork of a violent protest based on V for Vendetta, but could be used to represent Anonymous due to the Guy Fawkes masks. Makes a good background.
Expect us	A member of anonymous on their break.	A Mexican anonymous image, used by El Blog del Narco	"Who are you, really?"
If Anon was a horror in the eyes of Fox News and Old Fetch	Anonymous people don't say "Gentlemen" - they say "Anonymen"
	Fox News warned us about this.	Classic example of doing it wrong	"I support..." Anonymous
Anonymous on Slashdot	Expect us.		L is Anonymous.
Legion comes in many flavors.	We are legion.		Psyched about Anonymous
The iconic Anonymous icon was taken from this painting, by René Magritte.	Yeah.	The truth about old Anon	Anon reads? The BIBLE??
Exploding van, by Anonymous	Anonymous - We run this.	I dunno lol
	Nevar forgive.	Logo for the BfV of Germany
DILDO LOVER tries to kill lulz.	Fox News logo	Fox News cap	Anonymous, in his early years, made lulz using his radio, and his typewriter.
zootanon	Here we have Anoynommooooose attepting to show leet hax0r skillzzz. But inserts fail.	The massive protest by anonymous
Anonymous is, in fact, over 9000 (????????????????????????????)	Anonymous pwns noobs with EL KING	If only I had been back in town.	Epic Nose Guy
	Statue of Anonymous in Budapest, Hungary.	Anonymous did van (?????????)	Image used for telepathy proxy Rebecca Bue Li in White Wolf's 1997 RPG Trinity. http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Trinity
fgsfds	Anonymous delivers.		Anonymous is sweet
/b/tards before and after Project Chanology	Anonymouse	Corrupting lol	How a typical Anonymous sees himself
Anonymous has a posse.	Resistance is futile.
Anonymous self-portrait			Anonymous approves... you get to live.
	Let's get to work.	Suppressive Persons	Why wear a mask when you can look awesome instead?
Now, in toy form!	We support Anonymous	Because none of us is as cruel as all of us.	Anonymous, IRL
Anonymous portrait. Note the artistic detail.	Anonmous Chaotic Neutral	Now, with gradients!	We are anonymous. We are legion.
A way to show support for Anonymous	Fight Club explains Anonymous	A new picture of Anonymous	A statue of Anonymous
		Defiance is delicious	From V For Vendetta
Female comrade	Anonymous wants it free.	Anonymous. Many. Strong.
Anonymous likes to teach kids.	I think Anon is a pretty cool guy. eh has his own flag and doesnt afraid of anything.	Comin from the /b/ side, y'all. REPRESENT!	In happier times

Videos

Related Pages

4chan

Anonymous_Events_History

Anonymous OS

Flash mob

Operation Skankbag

External Links

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This article is part of a series on subcultures.
You can find additional subcultures here.
Explore our other categories for information on different subjects!

.

This article is part of a series on Anonymous.
You can find additional Anonymous activity here.
Explore our other categories for information on different subjects!