Ayashii grew out of the USENET culture in Japan. It was used as an extension of USENET, but as Ayashii popularity increases, it eventually grew out of USENET and into its own set of boards. Ayashii was a group of anonymous bulletin boards based on various underground and subculture interests related to technology. Due to the fact that Ayashii world came from USENET users, most of the topics were strictly about technology and more broadly Information Technology. More specifically includes “hacking, warez, copyrighted material, pornography including child pornography, snuff, drugs,bombs,etc”.(http://groups.diigo.com/group/ksudigg/content/tag/anonymous%20history) This was unlike 2chan, 2channel, and its derivatives which had boards which range from various topics depending on the site. Ayashii world was strictly about the underground geek culture.

Cool story.

The influence of USENET over Ayashii world also brought another aspect of the culture: nameless discourse. Raw, “no hold-barred” discussions were already present in USENET. (http://groups.diigo.com/group/ksudigg/content/tag/anonymous%20history) The ability of the same people to hold those conversations on Ayashii, because the major difference is that people don’t have to enter a name in order to community merely amplifies these discussions. The end result was raw, pure discourse of technology topics.

Ayashii pioneered several cultural concepts of the imageboard culture that most channers take for granted.

First, it introduced the concept of anonymous posting. Users “usually did not indicate their names in the name field”, so it’s in effect an anonymous forum. (http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/kaigo.html) In USENET, you have to have a user name to use the system but with the use of the username optional it basically told them, you don’t have to use a user name if you don’t want to. This turned out in a good thing because in Japan, people are forced to present to the public a façade, but in Ayashii they don’t have to, unless they want to or have to. This same cultural concept also gave birth of the use of the word ‘Nanashi’, or Nameless.

The second cultural concept that Ayashii created, was the in-joke or meme culture. You have your catchphrases, idioms and the like. However, it is unknown what idioms was born from Ayashii because we don’t have much information about it. But what we discovered that it was the place where the giko cat, from 2channel, was created.

Giko-cat, or by its native Japanese pronunciation “Giko Hanyann” or Giko-neko is a ascii drawing of a cat on all fours, in some cases he appears in a biped form on two legs with arms side by side. He usually says the words “Itte Yoshi”, which can mean “Fuck off” or “Piss off” depending on the context. What is unique about giko-cat and what they like is that the text in the word bubble can be replaced with similar words. That’s how the giko-cat became one of the first visual memes, because the cat can be easily replicated by copying and pasting the image and replacing the text with whatever the person wanted. Giko-cat was born from the wealth of ascii art that was created out of Ayashii. In Japan, it is typed as ‘AA’ for Ascii Art, but technically known as Shift_JIS art or SJIS Art. AA art was first used in protochannel for all kinds of art.

Within Ayashii, there was a board that was similar to /b/ known as the gesu or “scum” board. The Gesu board is where users can plan or discuss website hackings or invasions of websites. It was similar to /b/ where occasionally people wanted to raid websites for the lulz, but it was not completely mixed in with random discussion. The gesu board was simply just that, a board used as a staging ground to wreck havoc on other websites.

The main problem with Ayashii was that it did not had good servers, so it kept crashing from time to time. The server problems were so bad that eventually Shiba received personal threats over the crashes. The personal threats gotten so bad that eventually in 1998, he closed the site down. With many Nanashi without a home, they needed a replacement. That replacement came to be Amezou World.

If Ayashii was the grandmother of the Western Imageboard Culture, then Amezou could be considered the grandfather. Now, I consider Ayashii world as the protochannel, the channel before the first channel: which is Amezou.

When Ayashii World died it created a diaspora, or scattering of Ayashii Worlders. Those Worlders created their own BBSes based on Ayashii world’s system. When Amezou World started by an unknown coder named Amezou-shi (aka Mr. Amezou, as his real name is unknown to this very day) on June 9th, 1998. It just started as a page to a bunch of links of those boards created by people displaced because they lost a home. But he eventually created his own board which eventually gained users.

Amezou created two things that many channers take for granted when it comes discussion and contribution of text and pictures.

A. A new style of threading (Floating type vs. Tree type): Threads in Ayashii world had threads that are tree-type. Tree-type threads are threads consist of an OP (Original Post) and replies that “grow” throughout. Then people make new replies on those older replies and so on and so on. Those threads were difficult to go through and hard to read, and probably at that time there was no way for a linear mode at the time.

Amezou world did just that by inventing a linear mode for imageboards. Mr. Amezou as a coder made “new threads (discussion topics pages) would display above older threads, and newer postings to existing threads would follow the older postings in sequence.” (http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/kaigo.html) The end result is a thread system that is much easier and simpler to read. 2channel adopted it and it became the standard way to view threads. These threads are called “Floating threads”.

　　　　　　　　　　∧＿∧　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
　　　　　　　　　 （　´∀｀）　＜　I just shat on your coffee table.
　　　　　　　　／　　　　|　　　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
　　　　　　　/ 　　　 　 .|　　　　　
　　　　　　 / "⌒ヽ |.ｲ |
　　　＿＿ |　　　.ノ | || |＿＿
　 .　　　 ノく＿＿つ∪∪　　 ＼
　　　＿（（＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿_＼
　　 ￣￣ヽつ￣￣￣￣￣￣ | |￣
　　　＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿__| |
　　 ￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| |

B. Bumping: Mr. Amezou created a bumping system for those floating threads. New replies make a thread bump to the front page of the board, while unpopular threads go down and “eliminated eventually” by the new threads created along with bumping popular threads. (http://groups.diigo.com/group/ksudigg/content/tag/anonymous%20history) The threads that are unpopular are naturally “saging” below new threads.

The main problem Amezou faced wasn’t bad servers, it was vandalism. As Amezou got more popular, vandalism done by trolls spamming the site to make threads less readable. Eventually, violent threats led him to close down the site. But he did made one request to the community: Create sites similar to Amezou. Just like they did after Ayashii World died, many sites were created using the same program Amezou created.

One of those sites was 2channel, the same channel that would for the first time, bring this culture to the mainstream of Japanese society and would further innovate the culture. Many people from Amezou flocked to 2channel when it was launched. The same channel would be the same channel that would bring about the second generation of nameless expression.

This article is dedicated to ‘shii’, a former 4chan moderator who has intended to create an article about Ayashii World on his ‘Everything Shii Knows’ personal wiki, but never got the chance to.
Sources for further reading:

http://shii.org/knows/Ayashii_World

http://www.syberpunk.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?page=2ch

http://futuresoflearning.org/index.php/Firda_08/comments/new_media_practices_in_japan_part_ii_the_in
ternet/

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/8fq46/the_worlds_most_influential_person_is/c0951bi

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/kaigo.html

http://wikichan.net/index.php?title=The_Complete_History_of_4chan

http://monafont.sourceforge.net/index-e.html

http://groups.diigo.com/group/ksudigg/content/tag/anonymous%20history

But I know the root passwords of all my computers.

Seeing this thread actually made me go to Shii's site to check if you were just copying and pasting, lol.

Good work, saving to read later.

Wow, I always thought that Shii and myself were the only two English speaking people on 4chan who knew/cared about shit like this. I wish I could shake your hand, OP.

>>7216797
You are (not) alone.

There's just not as much people who care about it.

Very interesting read, OP.
Thanks.

Thank you for this , OP. Internet history fascinates me.

>>7216784
That needs to be updated. Invisibro moderates /tv/ as well as /g/ and /fit/.

>>7216784
How recent is this list?

>>7216780
Ah, I did the same thing.

>>7216714
Saving this.

>>7216784
I never thought much about our mods but I kind of like how we have one with a fake eye...

>>7216784
Most of this is wrong. This was written by a butthurt autistic kid that got picked on by a few mods.

>>7216784

OH NO OUR SUPER SECRET INFOS!

>>7217157
hi moot

>>7217157
Oh good you are here, mIRC was being a faggot and trying to make me register and shit. Could you please stomp the fuck out of this ban evading tripfag
>>>/jp/7217103

Also, this is pretty cool, OP. I did not know this history - thanks for sharing.

>>7217175
>I did not know this history
>Anonymous ## Mod

So how did you get to be a mod? I take it you are one of those who sucked moot's dick enough in IRC that he made you a janitor, then you got bumped up to moderatorship a few weeks ago?
How often do you even come to /jp/?

mod-kun please put wtH#ELL on autoban, thanks.

Back to /v/ mod, before you start deleting eroge threads, endorsing korean video game spam from /v/ and banning hong because "/jp/ is SFW board".

>>7217181
I believe this one is known as Ginger Mod, he prefers to make his presence known, not here obviously but on other boards. Definitely more of a friendship based promotion is my guess.

>>7217181
lol if you actually knew shit you would know that moot never goes on the IRC channel.

Very informal thread. 10/10, A+, would read again.

Also, I'm very interested in stuff like this, so it cought my attention. Thank you very much.

>>7217187
Personally, I'm curious why they don't do that automatically with tripfags who evade bans.

>>7217187
No fucking way. wTH is the best tripfag.

>>7217194
I enjoy his gimmick as the antithesis of everything /jp/, but he's really gotten obnoxious lately, especially after his trip became public.

>>7216714
I was actually mad at mod-kun a few weeks ago, but in retrospect I was shitposting. I just wish he could auto-ban the >/jp/ threads, wtH and corndog/route 66 bullshit, oh and half the tripfaggots.

This thread has just proven moot saids many bullshit during his interview in the past. Equality? You sir shit the world.

Actually this just about for the lulz, isn't?

>>7217198
Back to /hotglue/, spammer, >/jp/ and >/jp/ meetup is /jp/ culture.

What does this have to do with Touhou?

>>7217201

l2english

>>7217198
Don't forget >he thinks, japanese bird, flanfly, and saten/railgun.
The last two would probably be impossible to autoban since they just spam pictures, rather than catchphrases, but the former two would be easy.

Yea, public trips like WTH are exceptionally annoying because the autists require the stipulation that you talk like an underage faggot when using it.

>>7217198
I dunno, I lost faith on automated measures. Too many false positives, too easy to evade unless you keep updating filters frequently. Which is actually the problem with the current bottlenecked system.

Bah. Might as well go with the human moderation system and have a piece of meat be accountable for their actions so policies can evolve according to what the userbase wants/needs

what's the big deal with wtH #ELL

it's an open tripcode. I don't recommend you use it right now unless you don't have a static IP, in case he is banned at the moment.

Someone got me good with a fake trip mugenjohncel#S=47)?qY

that was on the autoban list. Appeal denied, so I have not used my normal IP since.

>>7216784
saved
>>7217175
shame on you.
I didn't either, but come on.

>>7216784
So outdated and so many turncoats now too but still informative in some background

>>7216733
>The main problem with Ayashii was that it did not had good servers, so it kept crashing from time to time. The server problems were so bad that eventually Shiba received personal threats over the crashes.

It's like I'm really reading about 4chan.

>>7217207
>>7217198 here.

I actually like Flanfly, because I'm moebro. Saten spam is bullshit, and so is /v/-level greentexting. But I have no problems with Japanese Bird~

>>7217222
Wow! How great!

So you post on /a/ and /jp/ at the same time, you say, dearest "moebro"?

>>7217224
I'm not gonna look down into the barrel of a ban-gun just to see if it'll fire.

>>7217226
Buttdevastated.

No, I don't post in /a/. What would it matter if I did? Your epeen sore? Can't people post in multiple boards, depending on their interests? Can't otaku like anime?

>>7217224
It's not "public", despite of what other people say.

>>7217229

>>7217229
>>7217237
I have high hopes for this.

Thanks mod.

>>7217234
>otaku like anime
Oh fucking wow, I've mistaken him for hotglue irc scum at first, but he's just a good old normalfag, trying too hard to fit in.

>>7217251
>I'm going to throw meaningless labels around to categorize people arbitrarily to show they are inferior to me but I don't really know what I'm talking about so when I get proved wrong I can just take it back and give them another label

Mod, please ban this guy, his posts are giving me a headache. I can't take it easy~

Today is a good day.

>>7217252
Good bye, WTH. You will not be missed.

>>7217234
There are no otaku on /jp/.

>>7217261
>when I get proved wrong
Cool, I'd like to see that
>mod cocksucking
Oh boy, you're just digging yourself a hole here.

>>7217273
Please get a trip so I can filter you~

>>7217277
>>7217281
You're so cute, you silly little man.

Why'd the info pic get deleted? It's on Reddit's interview with moot anyway.

>>7217308
Just get a new tripcode and post it on your formspring or soemthing so we know it's really you.

WTH, mod?

>>7217281
Oh crap i can see your shit posts again.
Time to add another filter~

A nice reminder to the moderation team how deep the claws the autistic shitspammers dig into /jp/

>>7217316
>>7217312
I feel like I'm watching a good friend die. ;_;

>>7217336
Don't go wtH /jp/ loves you and this whole thing will blow over eventually.

All of a sudden no tripfags or shitfag posters like wtH.
/jp/ quality improved alot.

>>7216763
>This article is dedicated to ‘shii’, a former 4chan moderator

Where is he now?

>>7217336
>ive been banned so many times my homepage is the IP reset on my modem

This made me lol for some reason.

>>7216780
>Seeing this thread actually made me go to Shii's site to check if you were just copying and pasting, lol.
I did the same thing when I saw this.

I feel obligated to say at this point that banning one of out shitposters is a step on the right direction, even if ban evasion makes it almost meaningless. But the spirit is in the right place.

It was a good thing and those that support the moron are just easily amused idiots.

>>7217352
Hear, hear.

>>7217352
You notice that the White Ren trip is keeping it's mouth shut the fuck up.

>>7217346
I'm actually wondering that myself.

>>7217360
>You notice that the White Ren trip is keeping it's mouth shut.

>>7217346
Exercised his right to vanish.

>>7217343
You can turn off case insensitivity with
HELL -i

>>7217360
Reported for your implications.

　 ∧＿∧　　　∧＿∧　　　∧＿∧　　 ∧＿∧　 　 　　∧＿∧
　（　・∀・） 　 <丶｀∀´>　　（　´∀｀）　 （　・ω・）　　　 （　´ω`）
　（　　　　つ┳∪━━∪━∪━━∪━∪━∪━┳⊂　 　 　つ
　｜ ｜　|　 ｜This thread has Ended peacefully｜ ｜ ｜　｜
　（_＿）＿） ┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻　（_＿）＿）

>>7217381
Bring back easymodo.

>>7217680
Name 3 things you would do if ghostmode was turned back on.

>>7217690
1. An unnecessary post.
2. A meta post in a meta thread.
3. Whine about someone or something.

>>7217690
1. Complain about janitors being dicks when they delete threads that most people enjoyed and weren't strictly against the rules.
2. Copy over my post that I wrote while the thread got deleted and got extremely frustrated that I didn't get to submit.
3. Suck your cock.

>>7217690
Stalk suigin
find nack
get/post thread links for 404'd threads

>>7217690
1. Shitpost
2. Shitpost
3. Circlejerk with other shitposters.

Good thread.

Too bad it quickly went to shit.

Is OP trying to wave his dick to us?

coz its tiny and cute :3

A+ thread OP.
Everyone else, see me after class.

>>7217742
A-after class? But my heart is not ready..!

>>7217727
The only reason to bump your own topic later.

>>7216738
Does anyone know how long it took for Amezou's board to rise to prominence out of the fragments? I assume that it managed to become known on all of the new sites as a place linking to the various other offshoots before it created its own boards, but I imagine the reasons behind it rising out of all the others is lost forever to the history of the internet.
I wonder whether the heart of /jp/ will ever find a new home together once moot kills 4chan off in favour of canv.as.

>>7217727

You're an enormous piece of shit.

Filtered.

>>7218018
You're right, but did you really need to post just to point that out?

>>7218056

Yes.

>>7218018
>>7218056
Welcome to my filter

>>7217690
1) Respond to dead/deleted threads (for when I have something useful to contribute after the topic dies)
2) Post when /jp/ is down
3) Post when for some reason I can't post at the moment (I've made 'please post this in the thread because I can't' posts before)

Ghostposting can be very useful, even if some idiots use it for stupid purposes.

>>7217690
I would do
>>7217692
>>7217696
>>7217701
>>7218242
all at the same time.

This was really neat to read.

>>7218242
Stop being selfish.

>>7216780
>Seeing this thread actually made me go to Shii's site to check if you were just copying and pasting, lol.

He IS copy-pasting, but from another website. Or possibly the owner of that website reposting here.

Fact of the matter, it's not something originally posted just now.

What was >>7216784?

Could someone post it again?

>>7218377
just look in the archive

>>7218736
the archive doesn't store the picture, just the thumbnail

USENET had memes though...even local BBSs had their own kind of slang and in-jokes that spread throughou the system to other users.

>>7220043
It's almost like memes and injokes existed before the internet!

Re-uploading mod info pic for those who missed.

>>7220052
much appreciated

>>7220052
>/a/ and /jp/ share a mod

does that mean we get modded by md geist?

>>7220062
I'm pretty sure A-San isn't that faggot.

Also I think he's not active anymore.

>>7216743
>>7216738
>>7216734
>>7216733
>>7216729
>>7216727
>>7216724
>>7216721
>>7216720
>>7216718
>>7216717
>>7216716
>>7216714
Shut up JKid

I don't get why you guys complained why AoC was janitoring, he did he's job well and his supposed annoyances were easy to put up with.

>>7220124
only the shitposters complained, AoC was actually good.

>>7220124
>>7220128
The same could be said about QUALITY CONTROL.
When he started nobody complained, actually, people made fun of it, but recently you can see all that hate towards him.

Does QUALITY CONTROL have any actual affect on the board, or is it just a poster throwing around his opinions?

>>7220149
Just a poster throwing around his opinions.

And mostly of the time he is right.

>>7220124
>he did he's job well
Only if you're a hotglue spammer from /v/

>>7220140
I personally think the increase in complaints against QC is due to the increase of immature spoiled brats who came here to shitpost without expecting an untrollabe reply in all their threads

>>7216714
A-san is still around, but possibly not as active as before. Definitely taking a more behind the scenes approach.

>>7220062
A-san and Geist are completely different. A-san was usually pretty laid back and more reasonable.

>>7220158
>Here I go, throwing around arbitrary labels again, and if I'm proved wrong then who cares, I can just apply another label

Fuck off.

>>7220062
No. And I'm 95% sure that the md geist guy quit or was fired.

>>7220173
Wasn't Geist just a plain douche, encouraging the whole "fuck this moeshit, I only watch mature anime for mature people such as myself" attitude that plagues /a/ these days?

Only /a/ kids who kept getting their anime spam threads deleted were mad at AoC.

>>7220196
Seconded. AoC as janitor wasn't exactly a Golden Era for /jp/, but it was better than it had been in a long time. Shitposters rejoiced when he left.

>>7220140
>QUALITY CONTROL.

Are you really comparing a shitspammer with AoC? One cleans shit up, the other shits on the floor.

>>7220256
Very often when I was about to post in a thread and I saw it was declared a QUALITY THREAD, I stopped and thought to myself "shit, he might be right, this thread is pretty shitty, and I shouldn't encourage it by replying seriously to it".

This thread.

This thread is an eyesore.

>>7220259
Stop pretending people agree with you, QC.

>>7220241
Apparently you missed him deleting any post that complained about him, and him posting "meido appreciation" threads.

>>7220291
>him posting "meido appreciation" threads.

Any retard could make those threads.

Besides, it was a cute character, why do you have a problem with her?

I could try to dismiss rumors as usual, but what's the point, you already made up your mind.

Times like these I really wish the ghost board was up. It was the designated place for metadiscussion instead of having this hanging around for days.

>>7220256

Colombia is actually worse. All he does is shitpost.

>>7220301
I highly doubt that since the images always had the same file name. Also, arbitrarily deleting 5 pages worth of posts every day doesn't count as good moderation. Another thing that AOC would usually do is just sitting in one thread deleting posts from a single person. This could go on for hours and he'd just ignore the rest of the board while this was going on.

>>7220317
It's not worth worrying about propriety when faggot mods are encouraging this sort of thing.

>>7220290
Stop pretending you think he's QC.

Fucking hell. AoC did a better job than most of us would have done. Seriously. Just shut up and get over it. Look how fucked this board is now. This thread started out interesting too.

>>7220259
Whenever I think of QC, I think of some autistic retard sitting alone randomly shouting "QUALITY THREAD" every 5 seconds.

>>7220378
Whenever I think of QC, I think of a shiny knight on a steed smiting frustrated peasants and riding towards the sunrise without asking for a prize for his undying efforts.

><moot> regging 4CHAN.net
><moot> FOUR CHAN
><moot> brace for faggotry

Prophetic.

Quality start, abysmal finish.

>>7220291
>deleting any post that complained about him
Compaining about the moderation is against the rules, faggot.

>>7220290
Stop being so paranoid Anonymous.

AoC was not perfect be he did a great job getting rid of stuff that other boards enjoy like all those disgusting memes, greentext and such. You might not like his posts or whatever, but he did a decent job during most of the time he was online (that's just my useless opinion though). And if the things mentioned earlier are not removed they will penetrate in "our culture" harder than ever, because for every old user leaving the board there are at least 2 new guys coming here without a clue of how things work.

Oh no, but if you made a shitty J-drama thread no one gives a fuck about or liked to post anime screencaps, he was probably a devil. Then you started to spam like crazy in your holy crusade for the true justice. Or maybe just for shit and giggles since you dislike this board but still come here anyway.