"4chan was always this bad" is a surviving meme with no merit.

10 years ago you could have a thread without /pol/ buzzwords coming up. 10 years ago the snarl word of the day was "hipster" for god's sake, you can look back through the archives and see the decline.

Yeah, fair point.

I haven't been a 4chan user for a long time (pre-Sarkeesian era), so my comment shouldn't be interpreted as an expert opinion on the decline of 4chan.

That said, doxxing and raiding someone in this way just because they're unpopular wouldn't have been out of the ordinary in 2010.

I dunno, 15 years ago the doxxing and death threats was reserved to child molesters and animal abusers, and vote flooding done just for fun. But I guess people got too drunk on that power.

My memories are fairly vague, but I do remember the "Pool's closed" raid leading to some random grandmother getting flooded with phone calls from /b/tards.

The Chris Chan saga also started in 2007, from what I just looked up.

There was definitely a gradual decline, but it was happening even back in the 00s.

I think it’s gotten worse, especially after GamerGate led to people tasting political power, but I think “reserved” was never completely true - even in the 2000s it had the same reputation for leaking unpleasantly. Mobs are simply volatile.

It's likely not the same people but instead a slow culture shift as new people come in and push the limits a little bit more. There's also a feedback loop as the more extreme actions will drive out less extreme users and attract more extreme users.