We're not going to actually show you five million 4chan posts, since we and all of you would likely be sent to prison for a long time. But here's a word cloud generated from 5,576,095 posts. (Click on the photo above to enlarge.)

The word cloud comes courtesy of MIT grad student Andres Monroy-Hernandez. He and several colleagues collected 5 million posts from 4chan's anarchic /b/ board over two weeks and analyzed them in academic paper about the site.

Unsurprisingly, the cloud is dominated by swears, slurs and memespeak. Here's an explanation of some of the more popular words:

  • Desu: The reason "Desu" dominates the word cloud is there's this meme on 4chan where people spam "Desu"—a Japanese linking verb—repeatedly in a thread
  • Cancer: Cancer is anything bad that is seen as "killing" 4chan. Dumb memes, for example, are "cancer".
  • OP: "Original poster." The person who starts a thread.
  • Tits, gtfo: "Tits or get the fuck out.". What 4channers say when a woman posts on 4chan.
  • Faggot: "Faggot," is so big among the teen boys who troll /b/ that it's become a meme. Often, someone will post their intention to do something bad—commit suicide, or shoot up their school, eat a piece of poop. The response: A taunting chorus of "Do it faggot".
  • Moar:More.

[Flickr]