First time you go there is a Chaotic mess that feels you went back to 90's.
Then in shock you start to see the subs like /pol/ then you click and bam More chaos.
Threads and threads you are more lost.
Then you click catalog and set order Reply-by-count.
Then it does start to make sense. You read people talking in two ways. On the text and on the image attached.
It is full-duplex com.
In the 90's I used to read my Mainstream media + Pravda (the other side) jornal.
Now I read the local MSM and 4chan (the other side ) jornal.
Do many HN users actually frequent this website or should I be reinstalling my OS right about now??
You are safe... don't worry. Unless you started downloading stuff from random users on 4chan. But if you did that i'm not sure we can help you!
4chan's indeed a cesspool, and /pol/, /b/, among some others are the worst. In fact, they're called "containment boards" for this very reason.
oh my it's like watching a baby taking the first steps.
You gotta ask yourself "by whom?". Actual users of the site, people having serious discussions about the site, writers of pop articles aimed at non-users of the site, or someone else?
Even then, you have this conflation of /b/ (or I guess these days /pol/) and 4chan at large. Some communities are more welcoming than others.
It's pretty interesting, because as long as I've been conscious on the Internet it's always been posed as an 'inaccessible cult.' Probably due to all the inside jokes, I guess?