By Jessica Roy 10/08/12 5:23pm

Moviegoing

Mr. Gallagher (Photo: IMDB)

Guy Who Made 4chan the Villain of His Slasher Film Shocked by 4chan Backlash

Michael Gallagher just wanted to tap into the zeitgeist.

The 23-year-old filmmaker–known for his popular YouTube series, Totally Sketch–is about to release his first full-length feature film, a low budge horror flick called Smiley. But what should amount to buzzy excitement leading up to the film’s launch has been eclipsed by personal attacks on Mr. Gallagher made by notorious message board 4chan and hacktivist collective Anonymous.

The reason? Mr. Gallagher painted both 4chan and Anonymous as the villains of Smiley. Obviously, this didn’t sit well with either group. Read More

By Jessica Roy 8/06/12 3:28pm

1 /b/illion

Moot (Photo: Austin 360)

Moot Returns to the 4Chan Fold to Launch Q&A Feature

4chan is either the beginning or the end of the Internet, depending on who you ask. The beginning camp points out that so much of the content on Reddit and Buzzfeed originated in 4chan’s message boards. The end of days camp merely shakes their head and points to /b/.

The polarizing message board clocked its billionth post today, prompting Moot (née Christopher Poole), to post a news update to 4chan for the first time since 2008. The fearless leader of the original meme factory, who can occasionally be seen at parties around town clutching his backpack, offered some insight about the changes over the last four years. He also announced a new recurring feature that would allow 4chan users to engage in a more direct dialog with him. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 2/03/12 2:46pm

ALL YOUR MEME BELONG TO US

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Moot’s New Startup Canvas Celebrates Its First Birthday and One Millionth Post

Canvas members received a celebratory email in their inbox this morning. The image-driven social website celebrated its first birthday this week, as well as its one millionth post. As a sign the startup is all growns up, Canvas also announced that you no longer have to use Facebook to sign up.  Email notifications “when someone replies or remixes one of your posts” are also now enabled, which should encourage users to visit the site.

When Christopher Poole, the fair-haired boy prince of meme land,  first founded Canvas, it sounded like purposeful departure from his first startup, 4chan. Instead of the malwebolence of the /b/ boards, users were asked to “Keep it safe for work | Don’t be mean | Stay on topic.” That may have helped the startup pick up $3.63 million in funding, but it yielded mixed results, at first. (Nazi necrophilia, anyone?)

But that appears to have changed. Read More