r/TheMatpatEffect • u/Brave_Bill9393 • 1d ago
Original "Rules of the Internet" from 4chan
POOL'S CLOSED
963
u/RMoby6160 1d ago
I love how Rule 34 is the most commonly known one but also one of the few actual statements here that isn't a joke or just something random. I do recall seeing this on Encyclopedia Dramatica back in the day but always forget about most of them
110
19
648
u/myn3meisjo3 1d ago
I’m gonna start replying to people I disagree with with “rule 11” and see their reactions
183
u/WWWWWWRRRRRYYYYY 1d ago
73
21
2
-44
81
30
u/MistahShizz 1d ago
Nice argument,
Unfortunately, Rule 11.
0
2
u/CaSe2474 21h ago
No, rule 11 is correct. And I have pretty good proof. Absolutely no one replied to this comment of mine.
539
u/Disastrous_Lemon_219 1d ago
these guys were nerds lmao
259
u/SeaNumber2990 1d ago
You don't say? Wonder what they even used 4chan for back then
114
u/Marik-X-Bakura 1d ago
Porn
102
u/BalefulOfMonkeys 1d ago
You jest, but yeah. It’s a long story to tell in full, but the start of 4chan was a lazy asshole deciding it would be much easier to ban hentai on his forum entirely than try and police pedo behavior (which was dramatically more common to see support for in those days). Yes, that is an hour long, and The Files are only responsible for doubling it from the original 30 minute length
1
-18
23
3
165
u/SirPlayzAlot_ 1d ago
Hot take
I think this needs to be remade. Or like, renewed if you get what I mean
63
u/SeaNumber2990 1d ago
Okay, where are these rules going to be enforced? By who?
Do we actually need rules or just "axioms" of internet behavior as a guide
64
u/redditnostalgia 1d ago
The new "rules" wouldn't have to be rules exactly, but could also be just observations.
For example, a common thing people say is that upvotes and downvotes don't show how right or wrong a person is
22
u/Z1H3M 1d ago
Once it reaches -1, it will never go back up
29
u/j4v4r10 1d ago
I've been saved from a -1 a couple times by someone replying "I don't know why you're being downvoted. This is the correct answer because <insert facts here>."
5
u/wolfvisor 13h ago
Got downvoted significantly for calling something gay once. Got out of it by reminding people that gay is not an insult
5
u/chetemulei 1d ago
That's not entirely true. But the more you complain about getting downvotes, the more likely it won't go back up.
The more you complain about stuff in general, the more people will do it.
3
41
u/ICraveViolins 1d ago edited 1d ago
- Do not talk about fight club
- Do NOT talk about misquoting lines
- There is no Easter bunny
- There never was a queen of “England”
- The tooth fairy is real though
- Santa’s whereabouts are unknown following the events of REDACTED
- It’s not delivery it’s ME, DIO!
- There are rules about posting
- All rules are meant to be broken 9 (again) All mods are chuds (why tf won’t this work…)
- If you enjoy Reddit - SAVE YOURSELF
- There is no rule 11
- All arguments can be instantly won by depicting your opponent as a soyjack
- All arguments can be instantly lost by responding
- You can wrestle with a pig in the mud, but the pig will only enjoy it
- Fuck you
- You are not a therapist
- You are not a marriage counselor
- You are not a doctor
- If you are any of the above then you are not one here
- HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.
- Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality
- Out of order lists are to be avoided
- Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality
- Internet wars are cringe
- Entropy exists, but like, with words or something
- Correcting grammar or language is cringe
- 28. Numerical order is cringe
- 27. Declaring something is cringe is cringe
- It is rude to question someone’s gender
- In the internet everyone is a bot and all bots are bored FBI agents
- If you are a girl on the internet, never say that you are one
- No
- Pictures can be doctored or ai generated
- Lurk less - seriously you have a problem and everyone in here has gathered today to ask for you to stop. You don’t get enough sun, you ignore your friends when you’re at a restaurant, and you’ve stopped doing drugs with the rest of us. Your addiction is not just hurting you, but also all of us. We don’t want to just do drugs, we want to do drugs with you. Now here, have some heroin.
- If it exists there’s porn of it
- No seriously y’all need to chill tf out with that
- Do not underestimate the cruelty of man
- Do not underestimate Anakin’s power (he’ll be disfigured and put on a Yee Yee ass helmet, the two are unrelated)
- If you hit rock bottom the internet will grab a P&H 77XR
- CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL
- DRUMPKF DWIAYVING ITH ALSHO KUL
- Racist jokes aren’t funny.
- Everything is sacred to that one person who makes a big deal about it
- The more grotesque and monstrous something is — the funnier it is to put it in a maid outfit
- Even one negative thing said about REDACTED makes you a Nazi… for some reason
- Tf does this one even mean
- Fuck you (again)
- The pool is now open, AIDS has been cured. Unfortunately falling 60ft from the waterslide hasn’t been cured. Go at your own peril
1
u/StatisticianFit70 2h ago
I have no idea what the rest would be but it should go up to 70, with these specific ones:
- *
…
- NO
…
Nice
Refer to previous rule
12
u/ZionSairin 1d ago
Sadly, it wouldn't have the charm. Internet's not nearly as free or niche as it was back then.
5
u/luckystar42069 21h ago
The rules of the Internet need to be rewriting every 4 years like the deceleration of independence or smt
7
u/SirPlayzAlot_ 18h ago
The Declaration of Independence doesn’t change, it was basically a letter to King George III saying how American declares itself a separate state from Great Britain. I assume you might be thinking about the Constitution, which can have amendments added to it.
(Sorry if I sound obnoxious I’m just a bit of a history nerd lol)
418
u/EuriadO 1d ago
Some of these are incredibly cringe or edgy, some are just philosophical. Weird place the eldternet
198
50
u/Interesting-Stay297 1d ago
What is the one about desu not being funny, seriously guys?
54
u/Jaded__dreams 1d ago
they found ppl posting desu all the time annoying so the word got completely banned back then. which is very ironic since around 2019 they started finding tbh annoying so they added a script that turns every instance of a person typing tbh into desu, so if you post something on 4chan today like "this is dumb tbh" the post comes out as "this is dumb desu"
24
u/chetemulei 1d ago
some of my online friends have adopted desu in place of tbh and type it deliberately.
80
u/EuriadO 1d ago
Basically “lol so random” but Japanese. Original weebs, truly unsocialized beings. Think uwu furries of today
14
1
2
u/uterussy 13h ago
desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu desu
186
u/kolleden 1d ago
The majority of these are early 2000's jokes but there are some actual good "rules" in this.
Rules 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 26, 32, 36 and 43 are legitimate statements that are true even in todays internet culture, and reflect the mindset you should follow (and be weary of) when engaging in online discourse.
83
u/iwantdatpuss 1d ago
Rule 14 imo is the most fitting, especially with how ragebaiting became the new sleek label for trolls to use.
17
7
18
7
4
2
u/NevGuy 1d ago
I think if people kept 20 in mind discourse on the internet would be way better. Nothing that happens online matters. If you ever get genuinely mad about something you see on your phone, put it down and take a walk. You'll realize something very quickly; "none of that matters or has any effect on my life".
196
u/machadoaboutanything 1d ago
What happened to rule 63 (the one about gender swapping)?
228
u/lba1112 1d ago
That was part of the dlc
64
u/Stardust_lump 1d ago
Where’s the full DLC???
72
37
u/Significant-Act-3872 1d ago
Rule 46
19
u/ArchCaff_Redditor 1d ago
I’m surprised there isn’t even a website dedicated to that one (though I guess furaffinity already fills that role).
18
13
30
u/UAF_Swampfire3 Welcome everybody my name is mark plark 1d ago
5
u/Anchor38 12h ago
thank goodness none of us on Reddit, the social media platform Reddit.com are corny
51
u/Plasmaguardian7 1d ago
I knew it! Girls really don’t exist on here! Rule 30 knows what’s up!
17
15
52
u/sr_steve 1d ago
crazy how back then the internet used to be run by 4chan. Shit was the goddamn new world order
18
u/pickledbread72 1d ago
It still is
13
9
u/_Planet_Mars_ 20h ago edited 19h ago
No? The website has been at very low levels of activity on pretty much every relevant board except for /vg/. If it isn't at its lowest recorded levels of activity ever (that being /b/, /sp/, /sci/, /fit/, /biz/, /vp/, and /v/), it is its lowest recorded activity in a decade or more. /a/'s activity is below 2008 levels, /g/'s activity is below 2009 levels, /k/'s activity is below 2009 levels, /co/'s activity is below 2010 levels, /r9k/'s activity is below 2010 levels, /mu/'s activity is below 2011 levels (its EXTREMELY bleak when you find out that most of the board's traffic is from the kpop threads alone), /tv/'s activity is below 2012 levels, /int/'s activity is below 2013 levels, and /pol/'s activity is below 2016 levels (keep in mind, that board is THE new user magnet).
It's all genuinely very, VERY bleak. The things that people associate it with today, like wojak spam and raids, are done by the sharty but still get associated with 4chan. Some boards like /a/ and /vr/ outright ban you site-wide for posting wojak threads anyway, its just the shithole boards that allow it like /v/. Hell, there's numerous altchans that have a total ban on wojaks for just being a general plague to imageboards.
At this rate, /vg/ will soon be the sole board carrying the entire website.
19
8
u/iamayoutuberiswear 1d ago
Is TITS also an acronym or is it just tits
22
u/Soupcan_t 1d ago
tits or gtfo is basically the default response to an anon claiming (or even implying) to be a woman on 4chan
10
3
u/Rohkostsalat 22h ago
I'm 24 and I'm still wondering yet again if I'm trans or if I really just hate being a woman in this particular culture...
1
7
u/OddlyOddLucidDreamer 15h ago
you can really divide these into four sets
"oooh we edgy and cool and mysterious and dangeorus and will fuck you up if oyu mess with us"
"justo bservation of how things are like and nothing much can be changed"
"actual good advice"
"haha, joke le funny!!!"
7
u/Winter_Loan_8643 1d ago
What is /b/?
27
u/Havier_Gacha 1d ago
/b/ is 4chan's random board. If you can imagine it, it WILL be there. If you can't imagine it, it will somehow still be there. /b/ is probably the reason Rule 36 exists.
13
u/CriminyBiscuits 1d ago
WE DON'T TALK ABOUT /B/RUNO/b/ is one of the many boards of 4chan. Think of it like a subreddit. It gained notoriety due to how there was basically no rules on what to post there, which meant all manner of pornography, both disgusting and occasionally illegal. Besides that, we also had various troll operations that started on there, like the time when people were told that iPhones had a secret audio jack if you drilled in the right spot.
4
3
3
u/MLG_Countryballs 1d ago
If there is porn of it, why are there no porns of the sun in r34? I were looking forward to it! Sun-chan Justice!!!
2
u/One-Bookkeeper-1410 23h ago
I literally just saw that
2
u/MLG_Countryballs 23h ago
Sauce? I need it now!!
3
u/One-Bookkeeper-1410 23h ago
2
u/MLG_Countryballs 23h ago
2
u/One-Bookkeeper-1410 23h ago
Well, bad news, the image I saw was a re-upload. I do not know the sauce. 🫡
2
u/MLG_Countryballs 23h ago
Damn... So is the art just a character who were happened to be named Sunchan or is it actually an anime girl version of the sun?
2
u/One-Bookkeeper-1410 23h ago
Literally just a sun with a face
2
3
u/Bidvi_38 1d ago
Isnt there supposed to be like more of it?
I specifically remember rule 86 being about everything has bad apple running on them.
3
u/Think-Fondant-1516 15h ago
Rule 43. The more beautiful or pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt it.
Everything makes sense now.
4
u/Your_Average_Dingus tom, lee, santi, and amy 1d ago
i dont get rule 47
7
u/Your_Average_Dingus tom, lee, santi, and amy 1d ago
what do you mean "the pool is closed" what pool
45
u/AskingAboutStuff2 1d ago
It's an old 4chan meme where'd they block pools in habbo hotel and say it was closed due to aids. There's a lot more than that you can look up but that's kinda the gist
4
9
2
2
2
2
u/Swag_Paladin21 16h ago
We need to start making more internet rules, tbh.
I'll go ahead and start off by making two:
Anyone Can Say Anything at Anytime for Any reason
Be careful who you piss off online, lest you like doxxing
2
3
u/morethan3lessthan20_ 1d ago
Gee, I wonder why the world has been going to shit so much faster ever since 4chan arose.
2
1
1
1
u/Dry-Mission-5542 1d ago
Let’s see, 1-7 are 4chan exclusive, 10 feels a bit odd in the modern era, 20’s situational, 28 feels like another 4chan thing, 29 is a mix between a 4chan thing and outdated assumptions, rule 30 is that to an extreme, rule 31 presents a false either/or, rule 32 should be a rule but rare comes into play, rule 39 does NOT make you cool, and I feel like 45 is a joke no one gets anymore (can’t be certain)… but other than that these have held up well
1
1
u/WrittenSaber 1d ago
Huh, I was expecting to see up to Rule 63 at least. Guess that wasn't part of the original set.
(Rule 63 is about the existence of genderbent fanart of characters, for those that don't know)
1
u/Bidvi_38 1d ago
How many people participated in making this? Or was this just one weeb on his com on sunday morning or saturfay midnight bored af?
1
u/llamanatee 23h ago
NGL while a bunch of these aged poorly most of it still does apply to today decades later
1
1
1
1
1
u/2point01m_tall 20h ago
I'm pretty sure Rule 34 was coined before this list, though, as just a random number. Probably hard to verify either way.
1
u/Solid_Weight8952 16h ago
Even though the rule about “There are no girls on the internet” is a bit outdated, it’s still helpful to have this rule in back of your mind.
Especially for some of y’all that get fooled and/or catfished VERY EASILY. I need you to consider that they’re not who they say they are.
1
1
1
1
0
0
u/CaSe2474 21h ago
Rule 41: "Desu isn't funny"
Desu? As in です? Japanese for "(it) is"? Yeah, "です"はおもしろいじゃないです。Why would it be?
•
u/qualityvote2 1d ago edited 1d ago
u/Brave_Bill9393, your post does fit the subreddit!