There are lots of people that go there to marshal the forces and most fail, cf. "/b/ is not your personal army". If someone happens to generate a buzz that rings for most of the board's demographic, they can start a chain reaction where a lot of people hit MasterCard at once, and get a bunch of disciples attracted to an IRC room for who knows how long -- it may last a day or a month, there's no way to say definitively. The marshaller then becomes the leader of that group of disciples, but "Anonymous" isn't a group by itself.

The most accurate definition for Anonymous is "a subset of users of Xchan". That's not a very good definition, especially if you want to go around and pin DDOS and whatever else on individual people.

I mentally replace "Anonymous" with "protesters" whenever they're protesting anything. It makes it a lot more clear and it's more accurate. We already have amorphous groups of people who protest various things, and this is, as near as I can tell, the online equivalent.

I think that's a tempting theory to have. Explains a lot and is easy to understand, but I think it gives individuals too much credit.

I would guess exceptionally smart people drift in and out at random and attempt to use the group for specific ends. I think their success rate is slim and random.

By "random" I actually mean the group may go along if it thinks it would be "lulz". Notice I said "may", it also may not - lots of random noise in the hive mind.

What this means is that trying to control or predict the actions of the group is a fool's game. At best you may be able to influence them occasionally in some small way, its pure chaos theory.

I think that's what they want you to think. It may even be true. It's not a reason to give up on the "smart core group" theory, though.

I think it gives individuals too much credit.

This is a long running debate. There is a camp that thinks individual personalities have significant effects on History. I'd be willing to believe that Anonymous is entirely emergent, but in that case, there would be a "fossil record" of its evolution. (Great. Now that I've posted that, some smartass Anon is going to create one!)

What this means is that trying to control or predict the actions of the group is a fool's game. At best you may be able to influence them occasionally in some small way, its pure chaos theory.

There's no good way to guarantee which way a buffalo herd will stampede. Doesn't mean there's zero utility in doing so, or that no one can be held accountable.

For instance, the most interesting thing about a thread like this[1] is the timestamps, because they give you a rough idea of how many Anons are actually participating. Two and three minute gaps between posts is an eternity on /b/, the kind of thing you see when a thread hasn't gotten much attention and is likely to die. What I am saying is that many (perhaps most) of the posts (even apparently dissenting ones) in the above thread are likely to have been the same person, persistently bumping an overlooked thread, waiting for it to gain traction.

Of course there is no way to prove this, and one can more easily perceive this is a vibrant conversation between a much larger group of people (which also can't be proved). Whether this was intentional or not, it is an easy way for a vocal minority to recruit from the largely apathetic majority. The perception of being part of a group has an enormous impact on getting people to participate[1].

Not only does anonymity amplify the power of "leaders" in this way it also reflects the yearning of the "followers" to be relieved of the burden of an individual identity or responsibility. As Eric Hoffer describes in The True Believer:"Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority."

That isn't to say that Anonymous consists uniformly of maladjusted poltroons--it doesn't, by a long shot, nor are they generally fanatics in any but the most temporary sense--but it's not controversial to say that it harbors a large population of disaffected youth and misfits of every stripe. Some eager to "do something", others just bored, but all by definition willing to disappear into a crowd.

[1]:http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/a/a4/Chanolog...

[2]:I think this is a pretty uncontroversial point, too, but Bill Wasik's "flash mob" work is particularly relevant http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/03/0080963 "Q. Why would I want to join an inexplicable mob? A. Tons of other people are doing it."

I just wanted to thank you, this was the second post I read this morning because it looked interesting and you didn't disappoint. The way you master the English language is astounding and I only wish I was able to wield words as well as you.

1) Your post is pure gold.

2) You are probably such a transitory leader on /b/ or reddit.

A cryptic tl;dr would be: Lots of people want to be a superhero. Given the choice, most would opt for the power of invisibility.

Writing a long post is easier than getting people to do work for you.

Anyway, I don't see anything suspicious about those post times, not for 2008.

When a hive reaches a certain size it will establish a new hive, it too will have it's own queen.

Members of the hive will give off pheromones to signal the other members. Not all will follow, some will, however what's important is that the more pheromones of a certain signal propagate the larger the response. The workers are controlled by themselves to a large degree and the queen is in place with certain ceremonial roles. (laying eggs)

The only reason anonymous is a difficult concept to grasp is that from the day we are born we are taught to respect and obey a hierarchy of authority. This authority exists only in the minds of those that believe it. When the last person stops believing it, it will cease to exist.

http://images2.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/4642541/QUEEN-OF...