#BoobsForBieber Prank Exposes Weakness in 4chan’s Ranks

Media manipulation and the exploitation of minors are the twin engines that drive 4chan, so it’s no surprise that the message board concocted “Boobs for Bieber,” a hoax that banked on the notion of underage girls posting nudity to Twitter in the name of their idol. Here’s the thing though: 4chan is the one who came out of this exposed.

The threat of all-powerful, all-merciless 4chan and their cadre of mask-wearing hackers bringing greedy corporations and perceived evildoers to their digital knees seems a distant memory now with this latest attempt at a hoax. Even 4chan seems to know it, with several of their posters commenting dissent over the notion of getting children to flash for the internet in the name of Justin Bieber. “This is gonna suck so much,” posted one anonymous user. “Well, if your (sic) f*****s insist on doing it, at least use some other celebrity for fucks sake. We’ve already had #BaldForBieber and #CutForBieber. Do you n******s lack the vision to see how this will fail? Also, no lulz. Only underage boobs.”

The prank, which falls on the heels of the much savvier and less desperate-sounding “Bald for Bieber” (encouraging Bieber fans to shave their heads) and “Cut For Bieber” (encouraging Bieber fans to cut their skin) seems the least believable of the three (not that young girls are really that dumb* anyhow) and as one commenter succinctly puts it, “You should have used One Direction.” That they didn’t more or less shows the direction that 4chan is headed.

While a few news sources took the bait and responded with outrage and righteous indignation, the most penalized member of our society ended up being John Mallamas, a “whiteknighter” (as the 4chan slang goes) who realized it was all a prank and made several attempts to stop things from getting out of hand. ” Do NOT look for or click on the hashtagged trend ‘boobs4bieber,'” Mallamas tweeted. “You’ll end up with illegal pics on your harddrive.” For his efforts, 4chan posted his personal information, including home address, to the “anything goes” Wikipedia-like site Encyclopedia Dramatica. It is not currently known how Mallamas figured out it was all a prank (*cough).

If this sort of malevolence continues, I expect that, soon enough, we will see 4chan making SARS jokes or publicly claiming that Obama is not an American. Sharpen up the act, gang.If you like 4chan stuff, click here to find out about the Where’s Waldo-esque tendencies of moot. Or, if you like articles about nudity, click here.*yes, they are dumb, but they’re also much more internet-aware than you probably give them credit for. Likely, there will not be any actual posts from underage girls, and only the perverts will be left, swapping sad old photos.