Christopher Poole / moot

About

moot is the online pseudonym used by Christopher Poole, the creator of English-language imageboard 4chan and media remixing web app Canvas.

Online History

Poole created 4chan in 2003 when he was 15-years-old living in New York City. According to an article in The Star^[8], moot frequented the Something Awful forums prior to creating 4chan. The site was launched on October 1st, 2003 as a place to discuss Otaku culture, inspired by the Japanese image board 2chan, with a primary focus on anime and manga. Poole remained somewhat anonymous until his name was revealed in a Wall Street Journal^[1] article on July 9th, 2008.

Time Magazine Poll

In April of 2009, a website was launched for the annual Time 100 poll to decide who would be given the title World’s Most Influential Person. After the link was posted on 4chan, Anons decided to work together to skew the results. Eventually they were able to vote moot to the top of the list, and also managed to vertically spell out “marblecake also the game,” a reference to the IRC channel used during Project Chanology raids, by arranging the first 21 nominees’ names in a particular order. Marblecake came from the IRC channel #marblecake that was used during raids against Scientology during y.^[5] Time^[4] announced that Poole had won the title World’s Most Influential Person with 16,794,368 votes on April 27th, 2009.

In a stunning result, the winner of the third annual TIME 100 poll and new owner of the title World’s Most Influential Person is moot. The 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole, received 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100) to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Oprah Winfrey. To put the magnitude of the upset in perspective, it’s worth noting that everyone moot beat out actually has a job.

Canvas

Canvas is a social web application focused on remixing media (mostly images) using a built in image editing tools. On May 14th, 2010, TechCrunch^[2] reported that Poole had managed to raise $625,000 in funding for the project. A private beta was launched on January 31st, 2011, with only 4,000 invites. On September 6th, 2011, Canvas announced on their official blog^[3] that they were opening Canvas up to the public.

Reputation

Poole has become a respected Internet entrepenuer, and has spoken at conferences at the Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and South by Southwest. In 2008, he was referred to as “the most influential web entrepreneur you’ve never heard of” in an article in The Observer.^[6]

Advocacy of Online Anonymity

Poole spoke during the TED2010 conference about the importance of online anonymity on February 10th, 2010. He contrasted anonymous websites like 4chan to sites like Facebook and Twitter that encourage the sharing of personal information.

Poole expressed a similar sentiment during his keynote presentation at South by Southwest Interactive on March 13th, 2011 and specifically pointed out how he disagrees with Mark Zuckerberg’s view of anonymity online.

“Zuckerberg’s totally wrong on anonymity being total cowardice. Anonymity is authenticity. It allows you to share in a completely unvarnished, raw way. The cost of failure is really high when you’re contributing as yourself.”

Stature Within 4chan

On 4chan, specifically within the random “/b/” board, moot is regarded as a celebrity of sorts and is often featured in threads dedicated to posting various images of the site’s creator. Several exploitables exist that use photos of moot.

Search Interest

Search queries for both “christopher poole” and “4chan moot” reached their highest volume in April of 2009, the same month Time Magazine announced Christopher Poole had won the annual Time 100 poll for World’s Most Infuential Person.

External Links

^[1] Wall Street Journal – Modest Website is Behind a Bevy of Memes

^[2] TechCrunch – 4chan Founder ‘Moot’ Raises $625K For Stealth Startup Canvas Networks

^[3] Canvas Blog – Hey Canvas, We’re opening up the site to the public today!

^[4] Time Magazine – The World’s Most Influential Person Is…

^[5] Music Machinery – Inside the Precision Hack

^[6] The Observer – The 20-year-old at heart of web’s most anarchic and influential site

^[7] Time Magazine – The Master Of Memes

^[8] The Star – Funny how `stupid’ site is addictive

^[9] Art Info – On the Creative Crucible of 4chan Where People are Free to be Horrible Assholes