Anonymous from 4chan as the Evolution of Fight Club

The novel, Fight Club, and its movie adaptation in 1999, exposed to America a new way of life through the notion of a secret underground group dedicated to solely beating each other up to a pulp for fun, committing flamboyant vandalism, and creating a better world through terrorism. The concept of a fight club appealed to the masses because it represented a freedom and escape from the everyday boring lives that many white-collar workers lived. However, with the movie’s release into culture through mass media, the elusive cult-like status of the group had been publicized and its allure was somewhat lost. Fight Club was revealed everywhere and before long, it just wasn’t special anymore. As Chuck Palahniuk describes in his afterword, “old ladies would meet in a church basement… where ‘the first rule of the quilting society is you don’t talk about the quilting…” (211). Now, when your grandma knows about fight club and is talking about it, obviously something went wrong. The concept of fight club had aroused the interest of society, but the knowledge itself condemned the creation of new secretive groups in accordance with rule one, “The first rule about fight club is you don’t talk about fight club” (Palahniuk 48). To be able to finish a forty-hour week and release pent-up aggression through physical violence was an ideal world that many people wanted to be a part of, but simply did not have access to.

While the fight club paradox as an American cultural entity was developing, the internet was slowly gaining popularity in the background. This latest media source had everything that was needed to establish the next fight club. It was convenient, easily accessible to the masses, allowed for group communication and most importantly there was no need for identification online. People realized this potential and soon began contributing to a community that would eventually become a new digitized fight club.

In Fight Club, we see the narrator (hence referred to as Joe) move from support group to fight club to project mayhem. Because in real life this sequence is cut short, we resorted to the internet and its virtual world. The internet with all its perks was perfect for forming the next underground society. This escape into cyberspace was first developed in America in 2003 as the image board 4chan, which introduced the central idea of anonymity (for simplicity’s sake, we will refer only to 4chan, which was the first English image board of its kind although there are many other older similar sites including the original Japanese 2channel and futaba channel). Collectively, the users of these sites commonly refer to themselves as Anonymous. A quick warning, due to the black humor and sometimes vulgar language/images of the site, please use discretion in following some of the links later provided in the works cited. Also, since 4chan is an image board after all, many of the links will be to discussions saved in the form of images.

The basis of 4chan is simple. You can say whatever you want and post a picture along with it (within certain boundaries such as no child pornography etc.) completely anonymously. The anonymity allows anyone in the world to supply information or opinions safely without being judged. Under this system, anything can be taken either seriously or not seriously and therefore all content must be treated equally. With these basic guidelines, 4chan is divided into different “channels” where various topics are discussed, from photography to video games. Each channel is abbreviated for simplicity, such as /v/ for video games or /sp/ for sports. The most infamous and popular of these channels is random, which was arbitrarily named /b/ since /r/ was already taken by the request channel. In /b/, there are basically no rules for the users with a few minor exceptions. However, this also means that users can be banned by the moderators of the website indiscriminately [see http://www.4chan.org/rules.php ; http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff50/I_AmLegion/1202270740885.jpg]


Combine anonymity with complete freedom of speech and you have one of the simplest formulas for free play. As Huizinga concludes, all play must be voluntary, provide no material utility, be secluded temporally or spatially, and have rules. The internet already meets all of these qualifications although the last rule is a bit more obscure. Anonymous, as self-proclaimed representatives of the internet, created what is generally agreed upon as the “Rules of the Internet” (see http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/thehamsterwheel/Rules.jpg). Glancing through the list, it should be obvious where the inspiration came from. From rules 1 and 2, “do NOT talk about /b/,” the overlying concept of what Anonymous does and what they stand for is based almost entirely around fight club and Project Mayhem. Because fight club also follows Huizinga’s formal definition of play, since “all fighting that is bound by rules bears the formal characteristics of play by that very limitation,” we can draw parallels between the two easily through the various extensions of fight club into an internet phenomenon (Huizinga 89).

The main contributing factor of fight club’s sense of play and appeal as a group is in its escapist qualities. As Joe puts it, “after a night in fight club, everything in the real world gets the volume turned down” (Palahniuk 49). Everybody, at some time or another, wants to get away or break free from life. Joe first finds his escape through support groups then fight club, while the other men eventually move on to project mayhem. Connecting all of these getaways is pain. Voyeurism of pain or feeling his own physical pain in the case of fight club makes Joe “[feel] more alive than [he’d] ever felt” (Palahniuk 22). To Joe and the other men, pain (whether it’s their own or afflicted on someone else) is a method through which they can forget what’s happening in their current lives and appreciate just being alive. We, as humans, take comfort in our own perceived glory through dwelling on the misery of others. Since there is nothing holding back what can be said on /b/, it isn’t surprising that a lot of the content revolves around hate and violence. Stories of people’s despair are posted for others to laugh at, similar to how Joe went to support groups just to make himself feel better (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY). While the support groups already provided the pain as an escape, project mayhem and /b/ use violence to have fun at the expense of the others. To accomplish this, Anonymous uses internet terrorism mainly through spamming and hacking websites, the online equivalent of vandalism and crime.

Many examples of Anonymous’ current work, such as crashing websites, can be found in their “war” against the Church of Scientology, which started just January of this year. What began as the removal of a youtube video soon led to the issue of free speech and censorship on the internet due to the Church’s “[misuse of] copyright and trademark law in pursuit of its own agenda” (see http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=261308). Anonymous decided to expose and “expel [the Church] from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form” for “the good of [their] followers, for the good of mankind” and of course “for the laughs” (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ). Herein, lies a paradox. Huizinga states that once a group “recognizes a higher goal [other] than the gratification of the self, the group or the nation will… pass beyond the ‘play’ of war to true seriousness” (211). Does this mean that as long as there is a “higher goal” in what Anonymous is doing, their actions cannot be “true play” anymore? What if this generalization of a “higher goal” was simply a by-product of the play? Huizinga’s solution to play versus seriousness lies in ethics; however, even he is lost for an answer as he concedes in the end that “moral awareness will always whelm the question” (213).

Although we have applied Huizinga’s terms and definitions for play directly to the cultures of fight club, Project Mayhem, and 4chan, Huizinga would have never categorized these as results of play or even being play. Huizinga could have never imagined groups like fight club or even the internet existing when he wrote Homo Ludens during World War II. He looks down on gatherings composed of “a blend of adolescence and barbarity” because he thinks they become “hotbeds of sectarianism, intolerance, suspicion,” all of which to a certain degree describe 4chan (205). However, he contradicts himself by making the generalization, “the connection between culture and play is particularly evident in the higher forms of social play where the latter consists in the orderly activity of a group” (46). The solution to this paradox lies in the definition of “orderly” and “barbarity.” Huizinga lived through World War I and experienced the rise of fascism in Germany first hand. In his mind, play became corrupted as people became brainwashed and controlled by the government and so Huizinga became biased against all groups who did not portray the noble, honorable, and fair side of play and war. Because of this, he states that “to be a sound culture-creating force [the] play element must be pure” (211). 4chan, fight club, and Project Mayhem would fail completely at fitting in with Huizinga’s romanticized ideals of play due to their almost cult-like status and actions. However, Huizinga’s prejudiced view causes him contradict one of his first presumptions, “Play… lies outside morals. In itself it is neither good nor bad” (213). Essentially, play should not be viewed subjectively or judged with ethics in mind. With that said, free play on the internet and fight club is what founded the unique culture even if it may seem morally “bad” to people like Huizinga who idealized civilization and play groups.

As /b/’s popularity grew despite the first and second rules, the channel eventually developed into its own unique culture. People looked to /b/ to escape their monotonous lives in order to participate in a virtual society where they could make a difference or gain attention, even if it means getting arrested for something like an empty threat (see http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/net-shooting-threat-australian-man-held/2007/12/08/1196813079398.html). Hiding behind a computer and lacking an identity makes expressing ideas very easy. Because of this free contribution to culture, the channel is loaded with inside jokes, black humor, and stories of violent or sexual acts. As stated openly by rules 42 and 43, “nothing is sacred. The more beautiful and pure a thing is - the more satisfying it is to corrupt it” (see http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/thehamsterwheel/Rules.jpg). If we looked back to Fight Club, Joe claims, “I was in a mood to destroy something beautiful” as he completely breaks the new guy (122). These two ideas link together the fact that once the world equalizes through the deconstruction of civilization (the beautiful, sacred things), life would be “better” for everyone. After this inspiration strikes Joe, project mayhem is born. The cyberspace society of /b/ was built upon these similar principles of play it shared with project mayhem with all the violence and vandalism replaced by its internet counterpart. In Fight Club, “Project Mayhem [is] going to save the world” while in reality, the culture of Anonymous is starting to revolutionize and “own the friggin’ world, never mind that [they] blew it up in the process” (pg 125, see http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff50/I_AmLegion/1203554914619.jpg).

The theory behind the origin of /b/ and what Anonymous tries to do is all an extension of fight club and Project Mayhem. Rule 30 of “rules of the internet” states that “there are no girls on the internet,” which brings forth the ideas of gender in fight club and Project Mayhem into question (see http://www.4chan.org/rules.php). This idea of gender issues, considering the lack of an identity on the internet, is an area that definitely needs further analysis and inquiry. Another topic that could be expanded on is the concept of a “spoil-sport” that Huizinga mentions. Marla as a “spoil-sport” in fight club also has a counterpart in 4chan called “newfags” (see http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff50/I_AmLegion/1202243882175.png). These people are new to the rules and culture of Anonymous and sometimes go around exposing them; hence, “if you don’t know what this guy did wrong, you are one.” Even with this exposure, Anonymous is a relentless force just like Project Mayhem. While Joe is in an institution after Tyler’s death, fight club and Project Mayhem live on because people are always willing to contribute to a part of what they think is something greater. The culture essentially brainwashes people as they become addicted to their new potential voice as a part of Anonymous. The principles and appeal of /b/, as an evolution of fight club and Project Mayhem, are spreading quickly as we immerse ourselves more and more in cyberspace rather than the real world.

Works Cited

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1996.

4chan rules. Accessed 20 March 2008 http://www.4chan.org/rules.php.

4chan ban. Accessed 20 March 2008 http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff50/I_AmLegion/1202270740885.jpg

Rules of the Internet. Accessed 20 March 2008 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/thehamsterwheel/Rules.jpg.

Anonymous on FOX11. Accessed 20 March 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY
Online Group Declares War on Scientology. Accessed 6 April 2008
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=261308

Message to Scientology. Accessed 20 March 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ.

Revolution. Accessed 20 March 2008 http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff50/I_AmLegion/1203554914619.jpg.

Net shooting threat: Australian man held. Accessed 5 April 2008
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/net-shooting-threat-australian-man-held/2007/12/08/1196813079398.html

/b/ guy. Accessed 20 March 2008
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff50/I_AmLegion/1202243882175.png