Since the inception of 4chan’s /b/, /b/tards there have been calling themselves newfags and oldfags in order to gain a sense of superiority of one another. These two groups have a long conflict with each other since its inception. Newfags are considered “the cancer killing /b/” because a good portion of them are middle to high school age. Oldfags consider /b/ as never good, because of its constantly deteriorating quality.
Newfag: A person new to /b/. Someone who doesn’t understand the imageboard mindset and just acts plain stupid by posting the same way as in Western internet forums. They usually come to /b/ because of the news and they heard of it via second hand exploits. These people will usually ask you about a well-known meme. These people will use /b/ as a personal internet army. They usually use /b/ as a camwhore site.
Oldfag: Channers who’ve been on /b/ for a long time. Considers newfags “the cancer killing /b/”. But they keep going to /b/ despite this because they like the nature of /b/. They usually contribute to the site in any way possible.
The number of newfags has outnumbered the oldfags for various reasons. The great majority of them are underage channers that heard of /b/ via word of mouth and via the news. Second reason is that many of the /b/tard oldfags usually mature out to other boards in 4chan, usually to boards that interest them. In some cases they move to smaller chans outside of 4chan such as 7cham 420chan, and 99chan. In some cases they stop going to 4chan and move to smaller communities or more unique communities such as Reddit.
However, newfags will eventually become oldfags by time and experience. These newfags will create the same conditions as the oldfags complain. Then they will be the ones the mature out. But there is a good chance they will return to /b/ if they are bored. In some cases they go to /b/ and another other non b board.
Since 4chan has grown from /b/, these two groups have been used in other boards within 4chan to determine who is the in-group and out-group. As more imageboards was created the same two groups were used in different contexts such as raids and invasions. In addition, these words can apply in contexts outside of /b/ such as in anime, technology, and video games.
However, there are too many channers that fit into the newfag-oldfag continuum, so the number of categories must grow to adapt to this expansion of the chanverse.
Newfags can be divided into three sub stages: Newfags, youngfags, and agingfags. Newfags can be considered to be new people to the chan scene. Youngfags are channers that know the basic culture and norms, but have a lot to learn in knowledge and history. Youngfags can be considered as channers who know basic knowledge, norms, and culture.
Oldfags can be divided into three sub stages as well: Oldfag, ancientfag and originfag. Oldfags can be considered those who know the recent history of the chans. Ancientfags are those who’s been there since the golden ages of the chan. And originfags are those who have been participating in the culture since the chan has been born.
Each category is divided into a set of usual behaviors, traits, and age length of channing. More research has to be done on determining the age length of these subdivisions. In addition, an alternative way to determine the age and group of a channer depending on knowledge and on amount of material archived since first exposure. However, the older the channer is in channer’s age the more elitst (and hostile) the channer is when it comes to knowledge and culture of the chanverse.
Ndee “Jkid” Okeh - YSJkid@gmail.com