420chan

About

420chan is an English-language imageboard created by Kirtaner.^[1] Mainly focused on the discussion of recreational drug use (mostly cannabis) and professional wrestling, the board has become one of the most popular English alternatives to 4chan.

History

420chan was created on April 20th, 2005, by Something Awful forums member Kirtaner; he registered "420chan.org" as a holiday-based joke. However, the administrators of the already-existing imageboard 420chan.net complained about Kirtaner using the same name for his domain, resulting into the development of 420chan.org as a real imageboard.^[2]

On August 23rd, 2006, moot banned illegal activity and raids from 4chan's /b/, resulting in a massive exodus of raiders to other imageboards, mainly 7chan and 420chan. Since then, the board /i/ (Invasions) from both imageboards has been the base of several raids. One of the most notorious attacks was on the white supremacist talk show host Hal Turner, in which Anonymous doxed him and Kirtaner hacked his website to redirect to 420chan.org. Since late 00's, 420chan remains the last of the three alternate chans (711chan, 7chan and 420chan) to attract major traffic, especially since the shut down of 711chan and the dormancy of 7chan.^[3]

Features

420chan has over 60 boards organized into several categories. Some of the most popular boards include /wooo/,^[9] dedicated to professional wrestling, /weed/,^[10] dedicated to discussions of cannabis and cannabis culture, and /b/ & /high/,^[11] which is one board devoted to random discussion, similar to 4chan's /b/. Unlike other imageboards that default to an anonymous name and number for posters, 420chan creates names by randomly selecting from a database of possible names and nouns.

Highlights

While 420chan isn't as large of a memetic hubsite as other imageboards like 4chan, it has been the origin of several memes and injokes, mostly related to wrestling and drugs. In order to keep track of the imageboard's history and in-jokes, the wiki Taimapedia was created on June 26th, 2010, including also several pages related to boards associated information, like drug use.^[4]

Dicks Everywhere

DICKS EVERYWHERE is the default phrase for posts without any text on the imageboard, first used in 2007. Although it was designed to curb some of the users from spamming the board with porn, other users soon began posting variations that replaced “Dicks” with a word more relevant to the image attachment, spawning the phrasal template X, X Everywhere, which later was associated to a template including Buzz Lightyear and Woody from Toy Story.

Stoner Comics

Stoner Comics (also known as Tree Comics), are a series of MS Paint-styled web comics that use psychedelic drugs as a comedic plot device, mostly cannabis. The comics illustrate various commonly shared experiences or sensations while under the influence of marijuana, with each pane carrying more colors as the story progresses. It's rumored that the first stoner comics appeared on 420chan, though the earliest archived comics can be found on 4chan's /b/.

Transgender Transition Timelines

Transgender Transition Timelines are photos and videos showing the process of changing from one gender to another, either by crossdressing or through surgery and/or hormonal therapy. The practice of exhibiting extensive documented timelines of transitions anecdotally began on the /cd/ (Transgender Discussion) board of 420chan, although at this time it is not possible to identify individual posts of this type.

Cena Wins Lol

“Cena Wins Lol” is a catchphrase taking a jab at the predictability of WWE professional wrestler’s John Cena’s matches, which most of the time result in his victory. While the earliest archived usage of the phrase can be found on 4chan's /a/ in 2011, it's rumored that it may have originated around 2010 from various pro-wresting discussion boards, like 420chan’s /wooo/ board.

Netjester

Netjester is a AI conversation bot introduced on September 5th, 2009. Since its introduction, Netjester gained a following on the 420chan due his responses, in similar vein to Cleverbot.^[8]

TCC-Tan / Mascots

TCC-Tan is the main mascot of 420chan, represented as a stoner girl in underwear with a giant bong on her back. Originally created by vanessie from Something Awful, she was added into 420chan's default theme as titled background image.^[6] This inspired fan art of her, along with the use of the original illustration as exploitable.

Aside of TCC-Tan, the site has several mascots, mostly for individual boatds, some of the most notable ones being:

Yakui was the mascot of the board /yakui/, now replaced by /nc/ (Net Characters), known for her maid outfit and her addiction to pharmaceuticals.

Bikko is the unofficial mascot of /smoke/, the tobacco discussion board. Originally made by the doujin artist ‘Romantic Fool Since 1995,’ and featured on the hentai manga Kesson Shoujo, she gained a fanbase on several communities.[7]

/wooo/-tan is a character used to represent /wooo/, which morphed into a gender swapped version of the WWE wrestler Ric Flair. The colors of her outfit are a tribute to the colors of the board.

Traffic

According the net analysis page Alexa, 420chan is among the top 30,000 most visited pages in United States, and among the 60,000 most visited pages worldwide.^[5] From all the boards, /wooo/ (Pro Wrestling) is the most trafficked.

Search Interest

External References