9gag

Origin

9gag is a comedy website set in Hong Kong but hosted in the United States. It was launched in 2008. The site’s content is mainly a common repetition of many popular memes; most commonly rage comics. The site allows the same style of image sharing like 4chan, reddit, and funnyjunk, but allows people to post directly with their facebook accounts and has a “like” system (Similar to those found on reddit and Funnyjunk ) on individual posts. Users may comment via facebook, as well as share with others. 9gag also has a subscription feature called “Admiring” in which someone who “Admires” your posts will see them on their home page.

The 9 rules of 9GAG

There are certain rules 9GAG strictly enforce which resemble both “The Rules of the Internet” and forum rules.
1. 9GAG is just for FUN.
2. 9GAG is JUST for fun.
3. Get Involved.
4. If you’re funny, you get Likes.
5. Play Nice.
6. Respect originality and creativity.
7. Moderate your content.
8. No repost.
9. Report Abuse.

Rules for uploading pictures

- UNFUNNY content will get your account suspended. 9GAG is a community of FUN ONLY.
- Respect originality and creativity. Try using Google Images to find the origin of the post.
- Think of a descriptive or creative title, instead of “LOL”, “True”, “:)”, or “if…then fuck you”.
- Search for dupes before posting. Post with 9GAG watermark will be removed
- “Get this to the Hot page” is worse than “Like this / Press L” and both will be removed
- No blogspam Many, many sites just recycle pics from other side and put ads on it.
- If you would hesitate to show the content to your coworkers, your mum, or Uncle Bob, please mark it as NSFW.
- NSFW posts will be removed if not marked as such.
- [Fixed] posts should be added using the “Fix this post” button
- Make sure you have checked our 9 Rules

9gag “Memes”

9Gaggers, in response to allegations that their site only “steals” existing memes, have begun a concentrated effort to bring their own memes to light. These are by nature forced memes in origin. The 3 most successful of these are: Sad Frogman / Sad Bear Guy , The name is: Tadá! and the newest creation If you know what I mean, Mr. Bean . These are for the most part only used on 9gag, although they have seen some spread beyond it via facebook.

Feud with 4chan

In early 2012, 9gag has come into conflict with users of the popular site 4chan. This conflict was provoked by 9gag users claiming to be the creators of memes originating on 4chan, and claims of 9gag superiority from a group styling itself “The Legion”, a reference to Anonymous. This has spurred constant arguing and flame wars with 9gaggers and “/b/tards”.

Operation: 9gag

On December 21st, 2011 4chan members, furious over 9gag’s antics, planned a raid on the website. The planned raid included the posting of Gore, porn and other such materials to the newest uploads section of the website, while another team was to perform DDoS attacks on the web server. 9gag, hearing of the attack, was quick to retaliate, forming what they call: “The 9gag army”. They responded to 4chan’s threat with the following message: “The 9gag army is coming for you 4chan.” Naturally, this erupted 4chan’s passion, as thread after thread sprung up, dedicated to defeating 9gag. On 9gag, multiple posts went up in defense of 9gag, calling their fellow 9gaggers to arms.

Operation: DeepThroat

^[2]
On December 20th, 2011, one day before the raid, 4chan members launched another Op, known as “Operation: Deepthroat”. The operation was to be a 3 part take down plan, involving some of the largest memetic sites on the internet, such as reddit, tumblr, and funnyjunk. Within hours, the message had been spread all across the 4 participating websites, and the battle was on.

The Raid

On December 20th, the raid had officially started. Hundreds of fake accounts took to the newest uploads section, uploading gore and pornography, some of it involving children. Each entry was quickly down-voted, and then removed by the moderators. However, for as fast as the moderators could work, posts continued to fill up the newest uploads page, until they ultimately had to shut down all site services, including voting, new account creation, commenting, submitting content, and viewing the newest uploads. This period of high alert lasted for over 40 hours, well into the specified raid day.
Meanwhile, as the spam raid continued, the clock had struck midnight on the 20th, signaling the begging of the DDoS attacks. The DDoS attacks had already begun earlier on the 20th, but not to full effect. Within hours, 9gag was knocked offline in some areas, for unknown amounts of time. For several locations, 9gag was unreachable, and in other places, unusably slow. However, many servers continued to function, preventing the massive black out the Op had intended.

9gag’s Retaliation

Nearly a day before the 4chan raid, 9gag had discovered their intentions through several posts that had surfaced on the websites “Hot page”. The posts were in fact, set up by 4chan users, in an attempt to confuse their enemy. One such post was apparently written by a 4chan member acting as a 9gag member, inciting a DDoS attack on 4chan. In a clever mishap, 9gag ended up firing upon their own site. The instructions that were given to them actually gave the coordinates to 9gag. Unaware of this mistake, 9gag members fired upon the given coordinates, unaware of their mistake. In short, 9gag was tricked into DoS’ing itself. Due to the servers massive capacity, little effect was had. 9gag, having discovered their mistake, launched a DDoS attack on 4chans main page, shutting it down for a small amount of time.

While the homepage was down, all the boards continued to function, allowing for continued raid coordination.

Cyber-Bully Attack

In early January 2012 users of 4chan attacked memorial pages dedicated to a 15 year old suicide victim, and promptly blamed 9gag. The trolls posted offensive and mocking materials to the page, bringing 9gag under fire from the family.

The German Burger Contest

On January 16th, 9gag user schierer posted a picture to try and gain votes for a “9gag burger” that he had created for the Mcdonald’s burger contest. The 9gag burger quickly gained around 32,000 votes, putting it at the top. place by nearly 29,000 votes. Not to be out done, 4chan users concoted their own burger, named after Christopher Poole, 4chan’s creator (AKA: Moot). The “Mcmoot” fell far behind the Mc9gag in it’s early stages. 4chan was unable to muster the numbers that 9gag was able to. However, 4chan, known for their creativity, devised a better way to win. A twitter user by the name of Matheusavs28 (who’s account is now gone) created a Votescript for 4chan to use. Within days, the Mcmoot had surpassed the Mc9gag by well over 100,000 votes. But they weren’t done yet. The contest clearly stated that the top 20 burgers would be chosen and then tested, so for 4chan to insure dominance, they created 20 new burgers. With the revised voting script, the votes came pouring in. Each burger surpassed the 9gag burger by about 20-30 thousand votes.

Second Gore Attack

Another attempt to attack 9gag was announce of 4chans random board to take place midnight 2/15/12 as phase 2 of its December attack.

Sources

*http://markwins.blogspot.com/2011/12/4chan-vs-9gag.html
*http://firstsearchblue.com/9gag-down-9gag-com-down-from-ddos-attack/
*http://firstsearchblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Screen-Shot-2011-12-20-at-11.56.03-PM.png
Images
*http://imgur.com/5PEWS^[1]
*http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPjfnZp0AiAjhbrtPG6pERN7pekk8RFPPVQDrEoa8LR-xsneoodX-z4YtMng^[2]
*http://9gag.com/gag/1177988^[3]
*http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPjfnZp0AiAjhbrtPG6pERN7pekk8RFPPVQDrEoa8LR-xsneoodX-z4YtMng^[4]