21 October 2006 - 14:35DON’T MESS WITH FOOTBALL

A thread made on 4chan’s /b/ board in September has made it onto national American news channels and websites. The thread, screenshotted to the right, details a plan to detonate “dirty bombs” in 7 NFL stadiums around the US on Sunday, Oct. 22. It’s fairly well written, and almost looks legit, save the fact it was posted on /b/. Now is the time to panic! The hotdog and beer sales that fuel the American economy are in danger! This is where things get interesting.

One of the staples of /b/ culture is copying something somebody has done, and pasting it again and again ad nauseam. Long story short, the ‘threat’ was cross-posted to a bunch of different places. In one way or another, a repost of the threat makes it onto the desk of a law-enforcement official and shit hits the fan. Next thing you know, the story is on CBS, ABC and CNN, and the original poster, 19 year old Jake Brahm of Wisconsin, faces 5 years in prison — for a post he made in /b/. In the defense of the news networks and police, they saw a repost and without 4chan in your address bar, a post like this might start to look pretty serious.

A guy my age faces 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, for a joke post he made on a comedy message board. Turns out maybe the internet really is serious business.

Youtube videos:
CBS – “over and over again”, the dangers of copypasta. It mentions the fact that it was a “hoax”, and shows the 4chan front page, but doesn’t make it clear that /b/ is the internet equivalent of infants screaming at each other on a jungle gym. Spawned the meme “DON’T MESS WITH FOOTBALL”

CNN – This one is hilarious. “The site that this particular message was posted on is… not one that’s been used for Jihadist threats before” This guy obviously hasn’t been to /b/ before. He does thankfully say it’s not a “credible source”. Never before have I felt so much like a news story about a hoax wants me to go crazy and panic-panic-panic.