The Great Re/b/oot

The Great Re/b/oot refers to an event on 4chan's /b/ that started on March 26, 2007, when many users were banned, flashing yellow and white lights jazzed up the front page, and "Cotton Eyed Joe" was embedded into every page. It also signaled the end of forced anonymous, which Shii had started many years before. Four threads were stickied. Two of these were posted by moot and received over 9,000 replies. The first one described a letter he had received from an apparent terrorist named Han Saad. The second sticky was by Moot also, saying that moderators would now be cracking down and banning all retards from the site. The third sticky was a closed thread with two replies in which a user called Moot a faggot, followed by a resounding (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST). The fourth sticky was the 23M GET, which, unfortunately, was furries. Also, names and subjects were re-added to b. It is very likely that there will be many moar underage users, retards, and furries banned in the near future. All of /b/ rejoiced and creamed their collective panties.

The next day, the background turned /b/lack and techno music was embedded in every page. This was called "Transmission".

File:Typical namefag.jpg

Typical namefag

March 26, 2007 - Re/b/oot

The First Sticky

the best email i have gotten in ages moot !Ep8pui8Vw2 ## Admin 03/26/07(Mon)03:49:19

Han Saad wrote:

Greetings, m♥♥tykins.

I'm not sure why I've decided to write again, perhaps out of despair or some equally strange feeling such as abandonment. Don't think I intend to merely waste your time - I should be getting some much-needed sleep now, so I'll try and make each word count.

First and foremost, if nothing else in this letter means much to you, I would like to genuinely thank you for your continued work in keeping 4chan alive. I can only imagine what actually goes on behind-the-scenes dealing with hosting, funding, FBI gag-orders, etc. Really - thanks for not giving up on us when shit got tough and for continuing to balance the site's survivability with the user experience.

Now, I want to be forward but I hope not to lose your interest right away: this letter concerns /b/, its past and future. I promise to leave behind my assumptions of you as an administrator if you do the same for me as a /b/tard. A week or so ago, a magical thing happened on /b/ - a user was banned for posting " lol u tk him 2da bar|?"; and to the shock and awe of everyone on the board, the user posting the reply, "why was he banned?" was also banned! I'm laughing as I re-read that sentence, but it just goes to show how this seemingly mundane event single-handedly became the funniest event to take place that entire week. At the same time, however, what's sad is why this seemingly mundane event is worth mentioning at all.

The laissez-faire attitude taken with /b/ has no doubt been viewed by you or your staff as necessary to preserve the element that made the board what it is. Certainly, it has been effective in letting things flourish without complaint, while still allowing enough attention for dealing with illegal content. However, this hands-off approach has come to feel more and more like neglect. The flash-embedded synthesizer music, the custom CSS theme-days, the stickies, ... the mods. These things may seem like negligible facets of the entire entity that /b/ was composed of, but more important than the annoyance or amusement these things brought to a user, they all served to let us know that the mods were there - watching, playing, having fun with us. Even if users thought a sticky sucked or a GET was rigged, it all fit into the culture of the board - everyone was connected by it.

I'm not here to argue if /b/ sucks more or less now, or to whine on about the past. I feel sorry for you if the majority of email you look through are just bitches bitching. What I want to draw to your attention, however, is that /b/ is a lot more empty than you may think. Few things were as satisfying as watching a user post about their high school or upcoming 17th birthday party only to be banned. Why? You just knew it was coming, and that it was just as funny for the mod doing it as it was for all of us to witness and screencap it. Or a mod stepping in to point out a user was the only person in the thread talking to himself. Even random funny shit such as DSFARGEG - so much of /b/'s original content has been a product of co-existing with mods. Yet now, any emo pointing us to their shitty myspace and thus disclosing that they are indeed 13 years old, in spite of all the "b&" replies we can muster, nothing happens... It really sucks, moot :(

This is why I remind you of how awestruck we all were when someone was laughably banned as mentioned above. Did you see how well-received, well-needed it was? How it was instantly so funny and yet served as a sad reminder of just how rare an occurrence it truly was. It gave so many people hope once again! Please don't betray that spirit by clinging to the idea that /b/ shouldn't have moderators; their antics may be annoying to some, but what the hell isn't on the board!? " ZOMG NONE!!!1" applies to you guys as well! We need to know that you guys are still out there, still watching, playing, and having fun with us.

tl;dr - Please don't abandon us, m♥♥tykins.

With love and faggotry, Anonymous

The Second Sticky

for what it's worth... moot !Ep8pui8Vw2 ## Admin 03/26/07(Mon)05:37:01 No.22972938

im sorry for letting /b/ destroy itself. while forced_anon was cool for a while, it definitely began to suck a while back. discouraging the public banning of faggots amongst the moderators was also a mistake. unfortunately i thought letting /b/ run itself entirely was a good idea...

it wasn't.

from here on out, consider yourselves on notice. it's time to /b/egin anew and wipe out the shitheads that have been ruining this wonderful board.

03/26/07

The Third Sticky

Anonymous 03/26/07(Mon)06:49:47 No.22977880 sticky [Reply]

Hi I'm afraid of being banned by the crazy ass bitch mods, you might as well make rules for /b/ now fags

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

The Fourth Sticky

The 23M GET. Pokemon/furry get.

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

Anonymous Reacts

thumb

March 27, 2007: Transmission

The next day, the background was turned totally /b/lack, With "You could easily have me" by British electronic band Metronomy. A user posted a picture of Diglet and said, "/b/ is /b/ again". This was then stickied, with all da playa-haters getting b&. Anonymous thought that this may be a clever ruse, a repeat of the April Furs Day prank.

March 28, 2007: Revolution

/b/eware.

The day after that, the background turned gaey, and another sticky was added, in which a user was banned for posting DSFARGEG. The background music consisted of some nigras shouting, "I am the creator!" Much lulz and chaos ensued and the world soon asploded.

March 29, 2007: Showdown

The day after THAT, a flashing rainbow background was added, along with techno song, "Tiger Said Knock You Out" by Neon Kobra (a mash-up of "Let Your Backbone Slide" by Maestro Fresh Wes and "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor). Four threads were stickied, each of them a line from the first verse (four lines) of the song.

THIS IS A THROWDOWN
A SHOWDOWN
HELL NO I CAN'T SLOW DOWN
IT'S GONNA GO

March 30, 2007: Intermission

The next two days after the seizure inducing rainbow layout, there was complete silence...until April 1st, when only background music was added to announce the triumphant return of /b/, causing many a /b/tard to speculate whether this is all an intricate ruse or not.

Major changes to /b/ as a result of The Great Re/b/oot

~~Forced anonymous is disabled.~~ ~~Not anymore lol.~~ ~~Now lol.~~ Unagain lol
~~Tripcodes are now able to be used. Not anymore lol.~~ Again, lol.
~~The Subject field has been re-added to the submit form.~~ ~~Not anymore lol.~~ ~~Now lol~~ Unagain lol
~~Non-sticky threads are allowed to have as many posts as they want without being deleted~~ Not anymore, lol.
~~You can get banned for being stupid.~~ Sadly, not anymore.
Stickies are back and gayer than ever.
~~/b/ still sucks~~ ~~Not Anymore lol~~ /b/ always sucked.