Australian Shitposters

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Part of a series on Australia. [View Related Entries]

About

Australian Shitposters refers to the commonly held stereotype that Australian 4chan users are responsible for the vast majority of shitposts created on the site, which is often attributed to the timezone difference preventing mods in the United States from regulating Australian submissions.

Origin

On March 13th, 2013, former 4chan owner Christoper Poole replied to a thread on the now defunct /q/ (4chan discussion) board asking "Who is hurting your feelings moot?", to which he replied that "90% of shitposters are Aussies" (shown below).

Spread

On March 16th, 2013, a 4chan user posted a racists on 4chan comic featuring an Australian shitposter interacting with Poole to /q/ (shown below).^[3] On April 9th, a post was submitted to /q/ complaining about the increased shitposting volume present during prime hours in Australia.^[4]

On December 5th, 2015, a screenshot of a 4chan post complaining about Australian shitposting was submitted to /r/4chan,^[5] where it gathered upwards of 6,500 votes (92% upvoted) and 450 comments prior to being archived (shown below).

On December 17th, YouTuber Gillian Seed uploaded footage of a man dancing with an illustration of an Australian shitposters superimposed over his head titled "Australia on /pol/" (shown below). On December 23rd, Redditor freyzha submitted a post asking "Why do people on image boards have such a strong aversion to Australians?" to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[1] subreddit, to which Redditor RunninOnStalin replied that it was a "running gag" on 4chan.

On February 8th, 2016, the internet culture blog Age of Shitlords published an article titled "Australian Shitposters are Ruining the Internet." On July 16th, FunnyJunk^[2] user thecancerthatkills submitted a compilation of comics and green text stories mocking Australian shitposters.

Canadian Shitposters

During the summer of 2016, many 4chan users began speculating that Canadians had surpassed Australians as the biggest shitposters on the imageboard. On July 21st, a 4chan thread asking "Why are Canada and Australia such virulent shitposters?" was submitted to the /pol/ (politics) board on 4chan.^[6] On July 26th, a thread titled "Why are Canadians the biggest shitposters now and how have they surpassed the Aussies?" was submitted to /pol/, which included a graph showing Canadian shitposting exceeding Australian shitposting in 2016 (shown below).^[7]

2019 Christchurch Mosque Shootings

On March 15th, 2019, a post was submitted to 8chan's /pol/^[1] board announcing a planned attack that would be livestreamed on New Zealand resident Brenton Tarrant's Facebook page (shown below). The post was accompanied by an illustration of an Australian Shitposter and links to his manifesto.

That day, shootings took place at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand. The attacks were livestreamed by the shooter on Facebook, which showed the shooter entering a mosque while shooting a shotgun, before switching to an assault rifle and shooting people inside. In addition to the 8chan post, other social media accounts rumored to be created by the shooter used the Australian Shitposter illustration.