In the age of obsession with authorship, ownership and rights to intellectual property, 4chan image boards are an anomaly. While the image board does provide you with the option of putting your name down, the majority of posters choose to post anonymously, and in fact the posters who do include the name may become ostracized by the other members of the community and be labeled as "noobs," or amateurs.
The desire for anonymity is of course understood on the Internet however this degree of it is rather rare. The majority of Internet communities are out to build just that, a community, with identities and characters, however 4chan almost depersonalizes their members.
While this would be just an interesting occurrence on an average imageboard, 4chan has a fair amount of influence not only on the Internet culture but on normal pop culture as well.Rickrolling, LOLcats, macro culture in general, and many more aspects that we consider a normal part of the Internet originated on 4chan. In American culture, most people would try as hard as they can to claim the pioneering of an idea, however in the 4chan anonymous context, who takes the credit?
No one does. No one, to my knowledge, tries. "it is us, it is 4chan, it is the Internet."
4chan is the mostly anonymous community that shapes the entertainment oriented Internet.
