Trolls trolling trolls: 4chan gets prank-called by 4chan | Show and Tell | Denver | Denver Westword | The Leading Independent News Source in Denver, Colorado
Navigation

Trolls trolling trolls: 4chan gets prank-called by 4chan

It started out according to plan. The joke was, you go to omegle.com, a chat site that pairs you in an instant message room with a "random stranger," then you go to that site and basically prank-call said stranger by asking him or her where Waldo is. Hilarity ensues --...
Share this:
It started out according to plan. The joke was, you go to omegle.com, a chat site that pairs you in an instant message room with a "random stranger," then you go to that site and basically prank-call said stranger by asking him or her where Waldo is. Hilarity ensues -- in theory. In practice, though, it was almost even more awesome than intended: The site ended up getting so flooded with trolls that they ended up, well, mostly trolling each other. Confused? Get an explanation -- and some truly comical exchanges -- after the jump. If you're not familiar with 4chan (fair warning: that link is really NSFW), and particularly /b/, 4chan's "random board," it's essentially a meeting room for millions of hackers, nerds and general Internet weirdos to exchange in-jokes and pornography, get together and pull pranks en masse. For an idea of how effective they can be, consider what happened when the Oregon Tea Party recently tried to cop their unofficial slogan, or the hapless Mormon Chat representative we interviewed last week.

The point of trolling omegle is that, like pretty much all chat sites, it's mostly populated by basement-dwelling creeps looking for cyber-sex -- feel free to shudder a little bit -- so you can string them along for a while before coming out with the question (meaning most of the exchanges are unprintable, but suffice it to say that a common response to the query was something along the lines of "in my pants"). Here's a fairly benign one:

You: Hey, Have you seen Wally?
Stranger: have you seen my tits?

It was a good troll, and the thread garnered hundreds of responses, some funny, some clever, some just disturbing. And it went on that way for a while. But then, something interesting happened: As The Game, as /b/ folk refer to it, increased in popularity, trolls started running into each other. At first, it seemed serendipitous:

Stranger: hi
You: Good day.
Stranger: have you seen waldo
You: I am looking for someone named Waldo.
You: This is awkward..
Stranger: /b/rother?
You: Aye
Stranger: this made my day
You: Screencap
Stranger: you better post this shit
You: I shall.

Gradually, it became increasingly clear that, because of the proliferation of trolls on the site, there was hardly anyone real left to troll. At that point, the trolls started trolling each other, trying to string each other along in order to win The Game. There were a few pretty great exchanges, but this one, with its impeccable sense of timing, was probably the most epic:

You: ohai
Stranger: hi
You: have you seen waldo?
Stranger: yes
You: where?
You: i must meet him
Stranger: go down and take a left
Stranger: and you will see
Stranger: The Game
You: FFFFF
You: UUUUUUUUUUUU

Well played, random stranger. Well played.

KEEP WESTWORD FREE... Since we started Westword, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Denver, and we'd like to keep it that way. Your membership allows us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls. You can support us by joining as a member for as little as $1.