Catching the attention of 4chan is one of the worse things that can happen to you on the internet, whether the attention is negative or "positive."

You know, this comment will probably be deleted, but I can't stay silent Xeni. How is this in any way a valuable, or even entertaining, piece of information that I should know? BB digests and regurgitates a lot of bugs and worms into my waiting beak, and for this I am grateful, but this is encouraging the worst sort of net behavior. Maybe, just maybe, Youtube was being mature about the whole thing and decided that having some young kid (who is recognizably earnest in his passions) be the butt of a social joke wasn't good, and pulled the video. And maybe, just maybe, 4chan took the joke too far in the internet equivelant of a stupid frat prank. So I say to you, please, cultivate taste and judgement in knowing when to just let stuff like this fade away as fast as possible.

i don't understand why did google pull his videos?

The detestable comments and animated GIFs dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic collection of pornography — the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is 4-Chan.

Just wanted to note for anyone heading over to Salon from this piece: The 4chan site (which is linked to there) is definitely NSFW. Holy crap... thankfully, I work in a place full of depraved horn-dogs. But, in a conservative, strict IT environment, a trip to 4chan could get u fired.

Oh No! Not 4Chan! I heard those guys are really nasty!

Why is this valuable or entertaining? Well, you're reading news/looking for entertainment online. Whether you like it or not, on the web, /b/ has clout. They occasionally make news in these circles. Don't like it? Stick to cnn.

Somewhat sad really.

What will the kid find out?

Hey, some weirdos on the internet adopted you as a mascot! In so doing, you got your account pulled! In retaliation, your 'fans' are posting porn!

What does that do to a kid?

I wouldn't be too surprised if overly-broad laws are brought to bear in this situation.

Waaaaaahhhh. I don't like my free content. Wahhhh

Normally I'd agree with you. I'm in the camp of "don't like what's on the radio? Turn the knob." In this case, we're talking about doing who-knows-what to the real life of some young kid who just likes video games. So gogounou, I ask you, does the entertainment value of what 4chan did outweigh the potential consequences to LUKEYWES1234? 4chan isn't a person with a life to live and crushing embarrassment to survive - he is.

Normally my reaction to 4chan is live-and-let-live, but bullying a child? Not cool.

A well adjusted kid might hear this and be rightfully pissed off at Google for yanking his account. 10 is a little young to come to this realization, but children have no power. He had no power of getting adopted by /b/ and then he had no power to stop Google.

I imagine that this episode has left him with a bad attitude and a healthy disrespect for authority. Childhoods over buddy, time to become a surly teen.

I guess it's like

1) Kid sets up a lemonade stand on lonely suburban street
2) Improv Everywhere's evil twin finds out, and 1000 people show up.
3) cops disperse crowd, because of overcrowding in lonely suburban street.
4) Half the 1000 people pull down their pants in protest.

Too bad nothing can be done, because 'this is the internet'

Get a grip Nash. I find this interesting and wish the kid best of luck. Sometimes /b/ does stuff that isn't horrible. Not usually, but there are examples like those cited in the article, LOLcats, RickRoll, etc...

From what I understand, his videos didn't get pulled because of 4chan, at least not directly. He's 10, ie not old enough to be posting on youtube. Now, did the sudden influx of channers draw youtubes attention to his age? Possibly, but they are at best (worst?) only indirectly to blame.
As for bullying, I haven't seen all the chan material (of course), but it didn't really come off as bullying to me. Come on, a 10 year old adopted as the mascot of the bad boys of the internet? He's the hero of his classmates today. If they are even aware of the whole thing.

Perhaps this is 4chan's own "Anonymous" moment. There is more child pornography on that site than any government agency would ever permit for any other single source - and yet the site persists? Why? My guess is it's been allowed to be a great big giant honeypot for law enforcement / intelligence agencies. Hopefully an incident like this will finally get it closed down, along with all the pederasts and pedophiles who make it soar. I think we can all live without "lolcats" style images mere seconds after a celebrity dies, don't you ?

Everyone finds out some time.

3) cops disperse crowd, because of overcrowding in lonely suburban street.

Overcrowding, huh? So, are you saying a few hundred /b/tards are generating too much traffic for Youtube to handle? If not, what is your "overcrowding" analogous to?

I think oyvinja might have it right - kid is too young to have a Youtube account, and Youtube noticed this when his account got popular all of a sudden. Which, in your example, would be more like

3) the cops bust up the lemonade stand because the kid is too young to have a business license.

based off of what I read, the 4chan people did nothing wrong to this kid at all.
4 chan definitely gets a bad rap sometimes. And many of their pranks are hilarious. The Tuscan milk reviews on Amazon are brilliant.

Given the potential downside nature of the net, why does a 10 year old need a youtube account at all?

Doesn't sound to me like the /b/tards were bullying the kid. Sounds more like they were worshipping him.

Of course that could easily lead to a major war between them, witness how 4chan feels about Boxxy. In which case some of them would totally be hate-on.

-abs suspects YouTube killed it because of his age as well, doesn't sound like them to kill it just because he became popular w. the 4chan crowd

Fair enuff. Since the red light + business district moved into the suburban street, the lemonade stands are all a thing of yesteryear.

You tube is not a place to put your family videos. It's a place to share videos with the entire internet. You take the good you take the bad. If you don't want sudden fame/popularity or to be the butt of jokes for then don't put your stuff in public. I'm sure there are private/personal venues for sharing your video.

Just a note that Lukeywes1234 will almost certainly read this blog as well as a dozen other articles, either now or later when researching his whole phenomenon.

So... hey, Lukeywes1234, I'm guessing it wasn't too bad being the King for a little while? Don't listen to anyone who says anyone was mocking you. It looks like you made a lot of people happy.

My only worry is that Lukeywes1234 will now start spending time on 4chan in an attempt to work out what on Earth happened. And that would be no good.

Regardless of its effect on the kid, this story is of interest and is worth noting. Besides, as someone mentioned, 4 chan's wrath was directed at YouTube, not the child. Him it sounds like they were just gently teasing (as gentle as 4 chan can be, anyway).

This story is not so much a "ha ha look at the kid" story, as much as commentary on the power and/or behavior of internet communities.

I don't understand your point, arkizzle. Please elaborate.

They only reason for Youtube to kill the kid's channel I can imagine is if the kid either did it himself or the kid's parents were less than thrilled about their kid being the newest 4chan hero and made youtube kill it.

Inb4 rules 1 & 2

Well, all of you "4chan is the gum on the universe's shoe" nerds will probably feel tremendously uncomfortable to find out that 4chan's founder "moot" is going to be doing a TED talk at the Long Beach conference in February:

http://conferences.ted.com/TED2010/program/guide.php

"You know, this comment will probably be deleted, but I can't stay silent Xeni. How is this in any way a valuable, or even entertaining, piece of information that I should know?"

Um, you'll have to decide that, ultimately.

I thought that one vid of the kid after the dentist was pretty worthless, but I just moved on to the next one.

all I know is I really want that shirt he has. so cool!

Anyone know where the kid got that shirt?

Well I hope when the kid looks back on it he'll have a good sense of humor about it. He's funny. That will probably be a part of his personality for the rest of his life anyway.

The King was, as far as I've seen, treated with a lot of affection.

He's more a symbol of the innocent young nerdy kid enjoying his toys just before he hits the age where this kind of thing makes you a social outcast and a target for bullies and getting beaten up all of the time. Once that happens you aren't allowed to be happy like him anymore in public. Considering that kind of treatment is really what makes you a /b/tard in the first place I'm really suprised their actions were so tame. Maybe it's the reason they are tame; they recognize that going too far will wreck him.

anonymous isn't really evil, it's just chaotic and usually lacking in common sense. Sometimes, though, it does wonderful things that show it still does have a soul.

My understanding is that Xeni posted this story because she found it interesting. YouTube/Google vs. /b/ is, like it or not, news. And in the past, Xeni has also reported on Anonymous vs. Scientology, Oprah getting Rickrolled, Rick Astley, etc. This is clearly of interest to her as a subculture movement. I find it just as fascinating, so I'm glad she keeps us posted.

Wow, that article misses the point and it's written in a very snarky attitude.

4chan did nothing wrong but have a little fun and Youtube crossed them. This is TAME compared to what could have happened.

4chan: I'll never go there, but I'm glad somebody occupies that space.

actually it was retards on 4chan who identified with this kid that caused the problem most of them just ignored it and hoped it would go away, the worst thing is that it ended up with them trying to mess with youtube and failing so massively so more people hear about 4chan and go see what it is about and leave trying to get it shut down which would just set all these idiots loose on the rest of the internet

Portal of Evil, once upon a time.
Then the Goons.
And now 4chan.

Is it wrong that I'm genuinely excited to see who and what will be this niche in the next two decades? It's exciting, and I look forward to it.

Onward, upward, you online bastards. Keep the internet crazy.

Don't you still need to be thirteen in order to post on the tubes? I'm pretty sure that checkbox still needs to be checked.

It's just people.

It's always just been people.

Anyone know where one can find the shirt that kid is wearing?

Anyone know where I can find this kids shirt?

I peruse /b/ a little. I saw some consensus (as much as there is any consensus) that youtube porn day was a failure. The salon article author said that he couldn't find any surreptitious porn on youtube. It's a pretty poor concept to begin with when you think about it, how would they expect anyone to see the few porny needles in the field of haystacks that is youtube?

/b/ is having a lot of newfag vs oldfag arguing recently anyway, growing pains from their newfound popularity/infamy.

He might be wearing it. Or, it might be in his bedroom, or maybe somewhere else in his house.

>1) Kid sets up a lemonade stand on lonely suburban street
>2) Improv Everywhere's evil twin finds out, and 1000 people show up.
>3) cops disperse crowd, because of overcrowding in lonely suburban street.
>4) Half the 1000 people pull down their pants in protest.
>
>Too bad nothing can be done, because 'this is the internet'

---

Because something must always be done!

Strikes me more as:

1.) Kid sets up lemonade stand on lonely suburban street

2.) It's damned good lemonade for some reason to a bunch of people

3.) Thousands of thristy people show up buying lemonade and dancing wildly in the streets with joy

4.) Cops notice that the kid is too young to be running a business and close the stand down

5.) Thousands of people pull their pants down in protest

6.) People take lots of pictures and write news stories about the pantsless people

7.) Many pearls are clutched

As an amusing aside -- well, I thought it was funny -- The Guardian also did a piece on this in their Comment Is Free site, and the moderators removed about half a dozen comments (including two of mine) because we were talking about moderation...

Perhaps this is 4chan's own "Anonymous" moment. There is more child pornography on that site than any government agency would ever permit for any other single source - and yet the site persists? Why? My guess is it's been allowed to be a great big giant honeypot for law enforcement / intelligence agencies. Hopefully an incident like this will finally get it closed down, along with all the pederasts and pedophiles who make it soar. I think we can all live without "lolcats" style images mere seconds after a celebrity dies, don't you ?

Have you ever been on 4chan? I have a look semi-regularly. I'm yet to have seen any child porn. I've come across plenty of bestiality which sure grosses me out, but no child porn.

Before you claim the site 'soars' because of paedophiles and pederasts you might want to actually visit the site and realise that it's mainly just nerds that seem to like cats, videogames, anime, regular porn, some weird porn and the idea that they are powerful in numbers.

The occasional posting of child porn on /b/ is the main reason I stay the hell away from it. I live in Australia, and can only spectulate that the different timezone results in a general lack of moderation during the times I have been on.

"/b/ is having a lot of newfag vs oldfag arguing recently anyway, growing pains from their newfound popularity/infamy."

It's hardly new. The war between old and new 4chan users has been going on continuously since 2006/07.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september
Nevermind, since 1993.

I'm sure it does happen, but I'm also in Australia and also haven't come across any yet.

So? He's been Time's Person of the Year. Wikipedia's page on 4Chan was its featured article some time ago as well, plastered all over the front page.

As far as media exposure goes, TED might actually be better than, say, FOX News and the Exploding Van.

I love watching comment threads trying to understand and put order to /b/'s antics. People have the most amazing misconceptions of /b/. I'd say the only way to really understand it is to go there, and spend a lot of time there. Even then, you can't really understand it. It is the collective will of thousands and thousands of users, constantly battling amongst themselves over every little thing. /b/ doesn't do anything. /b/tards do.

Trying to assign an orderly definition to /b/ is like watching a busy interstate and wondering where all the cars are going and all the people are thinking at once. Then multiply that by a thousand. I lurk /b/ regularly and I just ignored all this Lukeywes1234 stuff because it didn't interest me. I thought that spamming YouTube with porn was stupid and pointless, but seeing how it gets attention from BB and other sources is WAY more entertaining than watching it actually happen.

Nash Rambler & Anon#18: Y'all just don't get it. Even though it violates "rules 1 and 2," Xeni wants to report on what /b/ does because she knows her audience wants to be kept abreast of what's going on on the internet. Lukeywes1234 is certainly "what's going on," like it or not. Furthermore, 4Chan.com doesn't have ANY content of it's own beyond FAQs and the like. The content is ALL user generated--not just /b/ but all of the twenty or so imageboards.

Child porn bothers everyone, including most or at least some /b/tards. Shocking images are often posted as a "f**k you" to the original poster ostensibly because even those who post them can't stomach them. But images can be posted faster than mods can delete them, and /b/tards know that bitching about content will only get you trolled (although that doesn't stop some anons to plea against certain content.) The appropriate response is to ignore it. That's all you can do, anyway. There WERE impassioned pleas to leave LUKEYWES1234 alone, along with every other viewpoint. That's /b/, every view is expressed, nothing is taboo.

Don't shoot the messenger, its your fellow mutants/anons/citizens posting everything: there IS something wrong with /b/, but they are--by virtue of anonymity--an honest reflection of society, including the people you'd rather not understand.

tl;dr LURK MOAR!!!11!

Damn right. Been a 4chan lurker/participant myself for several years. Anyone that thinks the board is full of pedophiles watches way too much Oprah/FOX News. It's basically just nerdage/nerd rage turned up to 11. Not to mention that so many people mistake /b/ for the entirety of the website. Visit the site itself before you make a judgement on it. Then come back and regale us your tales of how awful it is. You'll then find many people that will identify from experience.

Bump for sharpie.

Whaddaya mean, evil twin?

Great. Thanks for answering my question.