I remember some huge DDOS attacks like a decade ago, and people were speculating who could be behind it. The three top theories were Russian intelligence, the Mossad, and this guy on 4chan who claimed to have a Botnet doing it.

That was the start of living in the future for me.

4chan is disturbingly resourceful at times. I have heard them described as weaponized autism.

Ya, on hn it's merely productized.

That's a pretty accurate description of the site, lol.

On a side-note, I think you'll enjoy some of the videos by the YouTube 'Internet Historian' on 4chan:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvjwXhCNZcU

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiTqIyx6tBU

My favorite example of this is when I saw references to "Goatse Security" on the front page of the Wall Street Journal

This felt like something straight out of a post modern novel during the whole WSB press rodeo, where some user names being used on TV were somewhere between absurd to repulsive.

Loved it.

I believe that's the exact reason behind the pattern of horrifying usernames on reddit and imgur. It's magnificent in its surrealness.

Exactly, I'm having deja vues from Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End constantly lately.

>journalists reporting serious events

A facet I don't love is journalism devolving to reposting unverified, anonymous reddit posts.

"Discussed in Hacker News, the user that goes by the 'huevosabio' handle, stated as a fact that..."

‘He was then subsequently attacked by “OverTheCounterIvermectin” for his tweets on transgender bathrooms from several months ago’.

The problem with tweets on transgender bathrooms is that you can be attacked for them by either side at any point in the future, so the user OverTheCounterIvermectin should have known better.

I got quoted as noir_lord in the press.

My bbs handle from 30 years ago.