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I was on 4chan /g/ basically every moment where I had more than an hour's worth of computer time from around 2010 to mid 2013. In those days as a PC hardware enthusiast and someone who was just beginning to use GNU/Linux, I felt I fit in with the culture fairly well. Of course, there was always "shitposting," but I found the amount of garbage to be tolerable.

As I finished high school and started diving more deeply into GNU/Linux, reading /g/ slowly became less and less enjoyable. At one point, I became so jaded that I felt I understood rms's famous quote regarding /g/: "I tried to look at that page but saw online inane comments." I guess I wasn't as much of a fan of the battlestations, rms memes, desktops, and riced-out GNU/Linux desktops as I previously was.

However, /g/'s influence on me will never be lost. Even after reading more and more hacker news, I still prefer the anonymous style of posting. I say GNU/Linux instead of Linux. (It may be a bit ironic that I learned about rms through a forum where he is a meme that is usually portrayed negatively.) And, to be be honest, I still kind of like battlestation threads (though I may read more usesthis.com instead of /g/). I will also probably never buy any apple products.

Thank you to whomever posted this on /g/, as it really opened my eyes as to how large the intersection of these two communities really is. Perhaps I'll drop by again sometime.




RMS isn't really portrayed negatively on /g/. Sure he is made fun of but there is still large minority who agree with his philosophy.




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