If they'd target you, and not get banned for that, it's a shitty board.

If you were actually posting anonymously, how would they even know it was you?

>>28504
People have a certain writing style. Someone you got to know well might recognize it.

>>28504
>>28505
Basically this. It's a bit more complex than that. They were able to hack into my email and social media accounts. Then they would intimidate me using info they datamined. I know that sounds absurd, which is why I still have a weird time explaining it to other people, but they had about a year to know me and befriend me so it was largely through the use of social engineering during a time in my life when i was naive and lonely, as well as good computer skills that they were able to get into my accounts. So I knew it was them if I saw them posting, and even more so when their posts would include personal info about me I never told them.
I'm not sure how much of it was due to the board not being good. I think... it's just hard to document and moderate malicious online activity. Agh, I'll have to come back to this post. The board was toxic but it was a bit deeper than that, and there was this general trend of subcultures I enjoyed becoming something I no longer enjoyed, or maybe just found myself in the wrong circumstances.

>>28502
Kiwifriend? :)

>>28502
>I was an avid user of one of 4chan's boards until I befriended someone off the board. They turned out to be a pretty bad person
wow i'm shocked who could have predicted this unbelievable

>>28524
i don't know. i struggle to determine whether im a good person anyways. just cause you're anonymous and in a smaller community doesn't mean you have to be shit, it's only at a certain point i felt they were downright sadistic and pushed things too far.

>>28556
and also
it's just illegal, invasive, and creepy. i hate people on the internet who act invasive and harm others with their creepy intentions.

>>28557
>>28556
NTA. I'm trying to not be too harsh because you said you were lonely and naive but honestly it was your fault for getting involved with them.
I've gotten namedropped before too (nothing serious) and I know it was my fault for being careless and trying to play with them in the first place. The way they ¨found¨ me was also creepy but it was forgotten in a day. Everyone posting thought whoever did it was creepy. Keep in mind they only found the alt nickname I made to play with them. Still, I should've been more careful.

>i don't know. i struggle to determine whether im a good person anyways. just cause you're anonymous and in a smaller community doesn't mean you have to be shit
I also try to have a consistent character when I'm anonymous and some others too. Most anons I've met were decent. It's still not worth the risk of dealing with the creeps you'll find lurking there, I learned.

>i hate people on the internet who act invasive and harm others with their creepy intentions.
The phrase ¨I hate people on the internet¨ is funny when you think about it. I don't like them either but you have to remember this is the internet. Srs bsns...
I believe cyberbullyng isn't real if users are only attacking a pseudonym. Sadly, you mentioned you got hacked and they were posting personal info so if I were you I'd GTFO of there ASAP, nuke accounts and change passwords. I hope you are able to move on and learn from this, anon...

>>28502
>Why is anonymity personally comforting to you guys?
personally speaking, i could go either way on being anonymous. i don't mind it, but i also like to attach a name to a person. the few friends i've made off of anonymous imageboards have tended to be cool people as well, though i don't talk to them as much as i like...
the reason why i've been using imageboards like here more often is just because dead internet feels like it's becoming more and more real, it feels like every corner of the internet i used to hang around 3, 4, 5 years ago is either way less active or filled with people i don't really like.

I guess to me anonymity is important because i can actually feel like myself.I've grown up in a household with conservative parents that have very authoritarian parenting skills. We clashed on our beliefs big time. It took until moving out that i realized they weren't quite normal sometimes. I value anonymity basically because i actually feel like my fucking self and i don't have to apologize or feel bad for doing so.My form of "independence" i guess.When forced to go on sites like fakebook i feel like i have to walk on eggshells but with message boards like this one,i feel like i am in my apartment.It feels nice,honestly.

Anonymity is an illness. Form of escapism to avoid taking responsibility. Makes you weak and vulnerable. I like it because it allows me to annoy people without getting ghosted because ghosting doesn't exist on imageboards. I don't even hide anymore. You can track me across many boards with little to no effort by writing style. That won't prevent me from annoying you though. I know how to mask on imageboards. Anonymity is a joke and you fell for it. Watch your butt though, lest it catches fire. I know it's hard to admit what you imagine to be important is a fraud.

No one likes who I am once they see all sides of me, so being anon lets me dose out bits and pieces where appropriate so that I can still get some level of social connection without anyone wanting to hurt me.

It fulfills the need of having a sense of community for me. Even if it's only a delusion, it isn't much different from making internet friends in other places using a pseudonym and never giving out too much info.
It's like there's a filter I don't think I would be able to pass if I try to get to know others online and show them different sides of me (I haven't tried it yet). Putting myself in that position sounds like masochism when I'm supposed to be having fun during my free time using the internet.

I stopped using imageboards completely with a few exceptions a month ago and I'm having a phantom limb effect towards them, it's lonely. I used to take breaks from them until I realized I only did that because I developed an attachment out of a sunk-cost fallacy, there was nothing in them for me anymore. I'm currently trying to find ways to pass the time by myself. The way I see it now, is that it's definitely a human need and you need to replace their use with something else if you want to quit. I don't have anything against imageboards but I'm looking for more stability in my life right now and that includes a stable sense of community. I'm not sure if I'll find it but anonymity, imageboards and the internet will always be there for me. Keep in mind, you can be anonymous outside of imageboards too.

>I haven't tried it yet
Maybe you shouldn't. People who prefer anonymity, lets be crystal honest, are (very) fucked in one way or the other. Once you put the veils down there is a (large) chance you will regret it. I don't remember disclosing my personal info ever going well on internet. Thanks God I haven't been stalked so far.

>People who prefer anonymity, lets be crystal honest, are (very) fucked in one way or the other.
You're right. I would be lacking self awareness if I were to put myself out there expecting to be accepted for who I am. I keep seeing ¨otaku¨ accounts made by Japanese where they are very selective about the info they put out. Maybe I can do something similar and avoid giving out info that could be used against me. I'm not just talking about personal info but also emotional vulnerabilities, fetishes, etc.

OP said
>the person I befriended would mock me, and it kind of consolidated the idea that normal people will not take kindly to who I am if I was actually myself.
I think that has more to do with anonymity turning people into assholes than him. Anons are assholes to whoever they can be for the lulz and he happened to become an easy target. Not being able to trust anons is one of the reasons I stopped using most IB. It makes people two faced, including myself; I would make good contributions and then write hurtful posts out of spite when someone got under my skin the next day. Some Ford drivers who give out all of their personal info also turn into assholes to people they don't like knowing there aren't immediate consequences for their actions, it's idiotic how they aren't able to plan ahead and see how that may come back to them in the future.
It's sad because I believe the internet should be a place where you can be yourself without the fear of being judged.

>anonymity turning people into assholes
Or rather anonymity not doing anything to stop an asshole from being an asshole.

>>29237
This has pretty much been my experience. Anonymity tends to show people's true colors. Sometimes that's people being genuinely kind, insanely insecure or some kind of outright psycho. Offline everyone puts on a smile. Kind of like reddit. Nobody wants to lose social points or internet points so they conform to template and trot out the same tired lines again and again instead of actually engaging with you. To be fair you get that on anon sites too. If they're slow moving like this you can sometimes tell peoples posts apart and on faster boards like 4chan people end up doing it to get replies and attention but it does help cut down on it.

Granted I'm not much to talk about that. I'm pretty stuck in my head and don't interact with others much, even online. I do try to be genuine when I do though.

>>29235
>Maybe you shouldn't. People who prefer anonymity, lets be crystal honest, are (very) fucked in one way or the other.
It wouldn't surprise me. People I've talked to off the chan boards tend to fall into camps of having some insane anxiety disorder, being paranoid, cynical and distrustful or being some kind of sadist (not the fun kind). Sometimes a mixture.

I use imageboards because I have nowhere else to go. Don't have any feelings towards boards anymore at this point. About putting on smiles IRL it isn't really in line with reality, but you tend to be nice when you want to get something because that's how things work. And generally speaking not stinking is a good strategy towards securing your relative position at least as much as fate allows and even then it all depends on context. That's not really a problem. Imageboards are not a problem as well, I'd rather insult an anonymous than somebody real, because insults IRL most often bear no gain and insults on imageboards most often bear no loss.

i like the fact that you cant make friends when youre anonymous. it removes the expectation of being interested in people (or faking it, either way i cant do it), and i dont care to befriend random people i talk with.

>>29201
>You can track me across many boards with little to no effort by writing style.
i doubt it. you arent that unique

It's not about being unique though. On larger chans I'm probably invisible though. Depends on how high on blood I am.

Oh BTW can't agree more with your statement about friends. You don't immediately notice it, but being friends is often obnoxious, at least in Internet. Being known is also a problem in non anonymous context, people tag you and that's obnoxious. I really can't and don't even want to maintain relationships. I just want people to disappear and not bother me in my FREE time.

>>29238
I was going to post something on /an/ about YoruKura's depiction of online interaction, but this seems like a more relevant subthread.

I guess one thing that struck me about the Kiwi focused episodes is that it shows being online is sort of a double-edged sword: it allows you to control the persona you expose to others, but at the same time the fact that there is this selective exposure puts an upper bound on the emotional closeness of any relation that can be formed.

For certain personality types (schizo-avoidant?), being able to control this exposure allows you to communicate without fear of rejection, and this is clearly apparent in the vtuber persona Kiwi adopts. In fact JELEE as a whole sort of embodies this idea, where the anonymity of their group allows them to reach others while insulating them from outside troubles as the members each sort things out in their lives.

But Kiwi actually goes a bit further, even her interaction with her only friend Yoru was also meditated virtually, as a way to conceal her true status. And conflating such interaction with actual friendship is seen to be dissatisfying; her friendship with Yoru and the rest of JELEE's members noticeably deepens when she spends time with them in person and they get to know her true self. E.g. I don't think you could ever have a kirara show where the characters never interact in person – maybe they might start off interacting online, but the emotional closeness will eventually parallel the physical one.

Doesn't that mean that people seeking emotional closeness go IRL? I for one avoid it (closeness) like a plague, much easier to achieve in internet than IRL. Also friendship and closeness are both just illusions, people get all too carried away by primal desires. Some of the more wise manage to maintain a few friendships longterm, but that's all. To me the idea of personal closeness is foreign and hostile, so anonymity comes almost zero edged to me. Apart from not doing anything to improve me as a person, it gives me exactly what I can't get IRL. I'm not avoidant. I'm just plainly not compatible with real life relationships. I have been on good, or even very good terms with so many people, but to none of them I have ever felt anything more than some weird gratitude for not being another ass. But that's all. Once I loose they out of my sight, and I mean it as literally as physically possible, I just kind of drop them from my mind.

>>29268
Assuming you're responding to >>29265, that post was more of an observation of things in the 2D realm (which is why I compared to kirara). In 3D realm of course I feel it's a bit moot since friendships close enough where you can avoid concealing anything and be accepted in the entirety are rare enough to be considered nonexistent. So drawing any conclusions beyond that is probably not fruitful (perhaps in retrospect I should have kept it in /an/...)

I'm a hiki. Other than getting yelled at by my mother, anonymous imageboards are the only form of social interaction I have had for the past 7 years. But every time I make a post, I feel extreme anxiety. My mind goes blank and I can't do anything, I keep thinking about the post I made and how embarrassing it is. It takes me up to a month to calm down. So I want to stop posting, even though there are plenty of things that I'd like to say.

>>29389
If no one knows who you are, why is it embarrassing?

>>29389
I really enjoyed this particular post, thank you for sharing with us your struggles. It is nice knowing that despite the difficulties you didn't give up.

>>29389
I used to get that feeling as well and though it has improved massively over the past few years, it isn't completely gone. I reckon that's as comfortable as it's going to get sharing things online or offline. I hope you can find a balance, anon.

i think i am kind of the person that always has something to say as well. its just hard not to analyze things and i often wonder why its such a bad thing anyways
i no longer feel anxiety over making posts because, why would i? its just what i think. you shouldnt be afraid of a certain response just because you think a certain way.

>>29432
good for you. some of us can't put our emotion to our words or be genuine with our words because if it's even slightly cold then we will start shaking, making ourselves look like a cartoon loser but irl

I got rid of every trace I had made for the past few months lately. Dropped the friends I made on boards and the names I used. Good opsec from the start so no worries. I feel really calm and in peace. Anonymity is peace, I love being a John Doe.

Meanwhile I use my phone for AI chats and other stuff for lulz and care for anonymity as much as don't. Really let them spy. Whatever they gather on me, lmao.

>>29439
I'm sure you have all the alphabet agencies spinning in circles as they try to make sense of your posts.

>>29440
I had a dream once where I saw a leaked google document of all internet users and found my real name and photo with the caption: clinically insane. I think since not even I can make sense of my behavior I must be safe from spies trying to draw patterns from me. I'm the embodiment of chaos.

>>29440
"This guy's fucking insane, but damn if he doesn't have good taste in girls. I love Osaka!"