Life is strange and unpredictable. I guess you could even say that it’s like a box of chocolates. You know the rest. There’s no way of knowing when years later you’ll end up doing something that completely opposes a view that you used to have; and if that view happens to be from when you were in your teens, even better.
In a move that could either make him a target of his once beloved Anonymous or a savior to Google, 4chan’s Christopher Poole (moot) Was Hired to Save Google+. This came about a year after he retired from his old position, leaving the Anonymous website and jokingly asking Google to give him a call.
Starting the website some twelve years, moot, as he called himself back then, wanted to make his mark on the internet. And oh boy, did he manage to do that. The anonymous image board he created quickly became a force of chaos, spawning the Anonymous group and grudgingly becoming one of the most infamous websites in the world.
With the image board’s first two rules being copied from Fight Club, it’s understandable that the more attention the website got, the angrier the Anonymous got. And as someone who’s been visiting the website since it was three years old, I can assure you that absolutely nobody thought things would end up like this.
Initially, moot was the only admin, moderating the few boards as best he could. But as the website’s popularity spread and he had to implement more and more boards, he started hiring more admins, and the relationship between him and the Anonymous started to strain because of all the extra rules.
Sure, he’d still occasionally post in the occasional thread, and he’d take pleasure in using his B& hammer (banned hammer) to ban rule breakers from the website, but slowly, as he grew from the 15 year old boy that founded the website, he started visiting less and less, until eventually quitting altogether.
But even though 4chan was always a force of chaos (at some point there was even an invasion board), their goals weren’t always as big as they were today – they grew along with its founder. Ranging from spamming customer support websites to denouncing pedophiles to the police, to spoiling Harry Potter books, making fun of Scientology, and even solving a murder or two, 4chan definitely made moot’s mark on the internet.
But since we can’t really stagnate in this lifetime, everything must come to an end. And while some Anonymous might view Poole as a traitor for going to work for a social media company, it was only natural that he does something else with his life. And he seems pretty excited about it, too.
Today I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined Google,” Poole stated. “When meeting with current and former Googlers, I continually find myself drawn to their intelligence, passion, and enthusiasm – as well as a universal desire to share it with others. I can’t wait to contribute my own experience from a dozen years of building online communities, and to begin the next chapter of my career at such an incredible company.
Image source: funnyjunk
