I don't think "just a bunch of bored kids" is a particularly useful analysis.
But it seems to me that the analogy with King Mob is apt, and that Anonymous, under the (in the value-neutral sense of the word) pretence of anti-authoritarianism, can actually shade into fascism at times. You don't necessarily abandon your animal/human nature when you pick up the anonymous mask -- rather it seems that anonymity pushes the human animal -- with all its attendent impulses -- closer to the surface.
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yeah, I'm also not usually fond of simple, reductive explanations of anything either, especially for things as messy as social issues, with all the biological, economic, media, marketing, moral, and familial factors to take into account. /b/ is what it is for a lot of reasons, some very specific to it's particular beginnings (I'll get into that in another post I think). But as far as the kind of anti-authority pretence, I think it's for the most part to do with the meaningless and powerless feeling that suburban white kids have. You'd think they have everything, but that's the problem, there life is
all entertainment. Their sociopathy is a result I think of lazy parenting and
especially marketing that tries to appeal to people's insecurities, envy, competition, etc. That message that you should have it all right now, for free, why don't you, loser? It's really fucked these kids up. And as far as the anonymity being what has allowed their worst, subconscious desires and emotions to come out... definitely... but there are a lot of boards that are anonymous. Even a screenname is relatively anonymous, why 4chan? Again, I'll get into some of those factors in a later post, but part of it, I hate to say, is because the mods there, who are teenagers themselves (the board was started by a 15 year old anime fan) have just kind of rolled with it and allowed the worst aspects and elements to snowball and become trends. So people seem to almost be acting a little bit worse than they might have "naturally" because it's the norm there. The potential was there, but it should have been diverted.
One distinction I'd like to point out, is that one time, I remember, on Ytmnd, one of the kids who made sites there committed suicide. So Max, the creator of the site, posted the news and a little tribute. Did all the kids, who are very similar to the 4chan kids demographically, turn it into a joke? No, they all were very sad and sympathetic and offered their condolences and respect. And I think it's because Max hasn't let the worst aspects there, as juvenile as the site can be, completely take over. Whereas, on 4chan... Do you remember recently that teenage kid, I think in England, who was threatening to jump off a building? Really sad story. Basically, as the cops tried to talk him down, a crowd of people, some teenagers, gathered below and actually started taunting him and telling him to jump. I guess they helped him make up his mind, because he did. And disgustingly, instead of being horrified or remorseful, the kids in the crowd were laughing and darting past the police lines to take pictures.
When I saw that, it reminded me of /b/ culture and I figured it was probably kids from there, or products of the same cultural symptom. So I stopped on /b/, and they had this thread about it, and
EVERYBODY was laughing, trying to act all nihilistic and cold, saying it was the
funniest thing they ever heard. The 1 or 2 people who were horrified were met with "moralfag", or lame Darwinist shit about how life is meaningless, let the weak die, his parents were failures. All I could think to post was: "Remember this. Some day, you are going to be really depressed, or really down on your luck, and no one will help you out. Or you'll have a kid some day, who'll be tormented by his/her peers, talking about suicide. THEN you'll remember and regret this." I think seeing that made me realize that moral relativity just isn't going to cut it culturally, and theory that doesn't take intangible but important factors like love into it's equations is useless.