When you think about it, /pol/ was able to achieve a total cultural victory. We have people talking about zionism, ZOG, jews controlling the world, pedophile cults, cannibalism, goyim and other similar language being common knowledge, the stuff that 10 years ago would be the schizo ramblings of a madman are now mainstream. If I went back and told you 10 years ago this would be what the general public would think, you'd laugh at me. You'd laugh at anyone who tells you that, because it seemed impossible. But /pol/ won, even if now they're accused of being a bunch of zionist puppets.
What are you even talking about? You're basically saying that pol just devolved into schizophrenia.
It was the breeding ground of qanon and plenty of absolutely retarded commoner theories.
I suppose in some sense it was great because it allowed for free flow of all those ideas and in theory the best ones would flourish.
In reality, because it is a pseudonymous imageboard all discussion about ideas was fragmented compared to a forum. Sure screenshots of funny or interesting pol/image board posts are valuable but it's really hard to sit here and see people say it was a valuable discussion space.
And although I would posit that many pol users were retarded I can appreciate there were some really smart people using it too (not just writers but readers also) and it obviously had an impact on popular culture and actual politics - the problem is because the conversation was so fragmented and ephemeral and the participants more transient and temporary than a Sudanese refugee making a fly by night fraudulent day care center it was not overall a productive endeavor.
Or at the very least it was not as productive or valuable or as lasting as it could have been. I can't think of any amazingly valuable pol posters that stood the test of time besides maybe qanon (which was retarded)
The xitty/twitter is just as bad and even worse than the imageboard format for exploring and discussing ideas. Although because it has more stable identities (usernames) it is somewhat easier to discern value.
By comparison on k-farms and other better structured discussion venues (a forum basically) ideas can be explored at much greater detail and for longer periods of time. It's far easier to find older stuff and quote it instead of using screenshots and relying on pretty mediocre image board archive services.
All this is to say: no matter what you think pol achieved it didn't reach as great of potential as it could have. The people who engaged super heavily on it put their efforts into a form of machine that didn't really have much finality.
I get that there is a cultural divide when it comes to tripfags and namefags and the sheer chaos that comes from an active imageboard is exciting and does push boundaries in some ways but although it offers an alternative to the xitty and mainstream social media it is such a basic, rudimentary and ineffectual discussion format that it is pretty much just wasted effort.
It is sad to see what could have been. As an example on k-farms I see way more people who do deep dives of stuff and build cool tools to help explore ideas. And what's even better is they generally stick around for far longer and you can more reliably talk with them.
Anyway all of these projects, including the k-farms rely on addiction and obsessive activity (whether intentional or not) and it's always a very small percentage of users who are actually valuable and can move a discussion forward and can actually understand things at a large scale. You get those users on imageboards also but it's just a lot more ephemeral so the longevity of ideas and projects borne from the interesting discussions is a lot less.
By comparison I come on the k-farms and can see a post from a known member who knows their shit and I can know it's going to be 99% worth my time to look at.
