What is “Anonymous”?

Daily Stormer
November 21, 2014

With the attacks, many people are wondering what “Anonymous” is.

Below is the Encyclopedia Dramatica entry on the topic.

The original link is here, but be warned the site contains some pornographic imagery.

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Anonymous

We are Faggots. We are Virgins. We do not get laid. We do not get outside our basement. Expect us on the internets.

For far too long Encyclopedia Dramatica has gone without proper information regarding the Anonymous collective, mainly due to the fact that, for years, such a write-up was completely unnecessary. These were the ages when Anonymous was simply the army of /b/, an anarchistic troll force with a slight touch of moralfaggotry that progressively grew stronger. Today, the masses know Anonymous as “a hacktivist collective” that, through means of packets (read: LOIC), protesting, and web defacement work to defend and preserve such ideologies as free speech, freedom of the press, etc. At the same time, news stories occasionally float up detailing 4chan campaigns to bring grief to grieving families, or send pop stars to communist nations. Any reader looking to inquire knowledge on such people, and with a solid lack of e-culture knowledge, would now be asking themselves questions that can broadly be placed under the what, who, and why categories. Unfortunately today Anonymous is mostly represented by whiny mask wearing fedora-fag college students who think they are better than everyone else and think they are making a difference in the world

To better answer these, this article has thus been rewritten so that the Jews at Know Your Meme are no longer the only entity with “credible information” regarding the elevation and accomplishment (for better or worse, depending on point of view) of Anonymous.

What?

The easiest of these puzzles to solve would be “what is Anonymous”.

First and foremost, Anonymous is NOT a group, or an organization, or coherent collective of any sort. Anonymous is more like…an idea, a concept. Technically everyone and anyone is Anonymous. It’s simply the name given to any collective action carried out virally by a large mass of people. Its ranks, goals, intentions and ideals are completely fluid, changing as easily as the wind. It’s a kind of social ocean that occasionally builds itself up into a massive tsunami of sheer social willpower. The ocean isn’t organized, it’s not a sentient presence, it’s not a “group”, it merely is what it is…nature. THAT is what Anonymous is, it is simply the collective social nature of the Internet itself.

A brief history of Anonymous

The word “Anonymous” originated from the *chan scene, which most readers probably know by now. Anonymous simply was anyone choosing to post as Anon on any given imageboard (as there were multiple “big” ones back in the day).

4chan was founded on October 3, 2003 and for its first few years was yet another e-base for all things weeaboo (and was almost completely destroyed by the GNAA in its early years). Here the first incarnation of Anonymous rose, among the endless posting of Desu and Mai Waifu. The GNAA and YTMND influences brought in a troll spirit to the boards of 4chan, primarily /b/ who began such early “invasions” and trolls such as cyberman and numerous conquests of (at the time) similar web venture Gaia Online.

Such actions became a favorite pastime of /b/, leading to bigger and better trolls to the likeness of Pools Closed and Harry Potter. No better man could explain this era of Anon than Phil Shuman in the infamous HACKERS ON STEROIDS news report (protip: that “former hacker” is Alex Wuori):

One classic series of raids of this time being those on white nationalist turned informant Hal Turner. It was then that the moral side of Anonymous and 4chan began to flourish, taking pride in subtly attacking a man for his racist values as oppose to doing it strictly for the lulz.

More troll targets and trolls came and went, including Tom Green and Girl Talk, Wikifur, and Grawp. However in the year 2008, in the midst of the SOHH defacement and Epilepsy Forums invasion, Project Chanology began. Such was the birth of the “mainstream anonymous”, who worked for good and media attention via protests and firing their LOIC at seemingly random targets.

Skip ahead to 2010 and the birth of AnonOps, Anonymous is now known by the masses as a force for moral justice through destructive means (and carrying around those stupid Guy Fawkes masks).

Who

There are many distinct flavors of anons, all of which can be found below.

The Newfag

The newfag has newly discovered the presence of e-culture. They are dumbfounded by such discoveries, and thus can turn in any given direction, but for the time being are known for their abuse of meme-spam and breakings of Rules 1 and 2.

See also: Mercedes Haefer, a prime example of a newfag.

The Oldfag

The Oldfag was once a newfag, and likely either a moral or /i/ fag, but now has found more productive ways of spending their time than epic times oti. Probably hangs out on /v/, 7chan, or other forgotten imageboards discussing how cool /b/ was 2-3 (give or take) years ago.

The /i/nsurgent

The /i/nsurgent has one purpose: to cause as much grief as possible. Developed from overzealous raid-newfags, they eventually picked up enough CSIII knowledge to control a botnet or preform a simple crapflood. Although /i/ is dead, the /i/nsurgent brand lives on, always willing to completely demolish random furries or youtube vloggers who stand in the way of Anon’s e-domination.

The Moralfag

The Moralfag is the more media-friendly side of the Anonymous legion. Encouraged by self-gratifying pats on the back, the moralfag army continues to operate much like evolved-newfags, only semi-organized. They are incredibly annoying, mostly neckbeard fedora-fags that post on Reddit. For more information, refer to this image:

Assorted Channers

While far less notable, The *channer remains an important part of the Anonymous backbone. They are, much like Anon himself, one and many, driven without a purpose (other than fapping to hentai on a daily basis) they continuously spend day after day driving the force of the imageboard scene.

Why?

Depending on who one asks, they will get one of two answers regarding the motives of Anonymous. These being either “I did it for the lulz” or some bullshit about securing a future for generations to come free from oppressive government rule.

Because Anon has no face or name, his actions cannot truly be justified nor understood.