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Have you heard of Boxxybabee?

No? well I will get to her in a minute.


Ever heard of 4chan /b/?

Zac described it as the 'Footscray of the internet' (Sydneysiders think Redfern before the hipsters migrated).

Wikipedia suggests that

'4chan is an English-language imageboard website... its boards are primarily used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...4chan is usually in the top 1000 sites in the world... The "random" board, /b/, is by far 4chan's most popular board. Gawker.com's Nick Douglas summarizes /b/ as a board where "people try to shock, entertain, and coax free porn from each other".'


Sounds like just some crazy anime fanboi bulletin board?

But that is where you are wrong, 4chan is a powerhouse of internet memes. All these memes originate from 4chan;

Lolcat


Rick Rolling


Chocolate Rain


...and the newest edition is BoxxyBabee


The rise of Boxxybabee
According to Ashadi (Bannerblog), Boxxy is not a member of 4chan, but just gave a shout out to the 4chan message board. She caused quite a stir by doing this 'because /b/ is a bit like Fight Club... there are no rules, except you are not supposed to talk about it/tell people. Mostly because outsiders just don't get it and think it's ridiculous.' suggested Sophie Benjamin.

However, as the 1,000s of /b/tards (as they like to be known) were going to see what all the commotion was about, her videos was shooting up the Youtube Honour board. She climbed all the way to most subscribed Youtuber for the day (12th Jan, currently 600,000+ views in 4 days). Her Pièce de Youtube résistance came when the Youtube heavyweight SxePhil (9th most subscribed in the world) showcased her on one of his videos.

Meanwhile a shit storm was occurring in the 4chan site, lovers and haters of boxxy were arguing over her being a sign of everything that is right/wrong about the forum and haters were using a little bit of porn to help get their case across. All this talk actually helped to create her into a meme.


Conclusion and more posts to follow
4chan has to be one of the most interesting environments on the internet, it takes all that you think you know about digital media (social capital, user experience, creativity, power users) and flips it on its head, over the coming weeks I am going to provide some posts on lessons learnt from 4chan aka 'the fringes of the internet'.

I have to give a big thanks to Ashadi Hopper and Sophie Benjamin for providing me valuable insight into the inner workings of this community.

Ashadi has also written a post on BoxxyBabee here

The 4chan archive is also a great place to pick up on quality or most viewed topics coming through the website.