4Chan has a complex and interesting history with enjoying the female form and with feminism.
>How 'femanons' get by (4 main methods)
>Denigration of femininity, assuming a pose of submission and subordination to male posters
>Degradation of male identities, hooking into the popular construct of 4chan posters as ‘incels’ or betas. Posts in this category tended to posit women as social superiors, either guiding 4chan men to improve themselves, scorning them as worthless, or some combination of these strategies
>Assuming a right-wing political identity that incorporates womanhood, but aligns with other 4chan norms against a posited Other
>Empathetic bonding with other posters beyond, despite or indeed because of gender.
>Notably, the two longest threads, with 332 and 325 posts, belonged primarily to categories b and d respectively. This immediately indicates that the construction of womanhood on 4chan is more complex than ‘incels degrade women’. Moreover, the degradation of men — by both male and female posters — was the most common type of thread. We should recall, however, that the degradation of particular men can sit within the discourse of masculinism, such as when men are criticized for behaviours coded feminine. Naturally, there was plenty of female degradation as well: as noted above, the customary response to any opening introducing the poster as female is ‘tits or gtfo’. Variations included ‘tits first, then we can talk’ (No. 808285798, 2019) and an image of the logo for stationary product ‘Post-its’ predictably photoshopped to read ‘Post-tits’ followed by ‘or GTFO’ in smaller font (No. 808287398, 2019).
>However, Manivannan’s analysis seems to be correct in that this meme functions primarily as a test, intended to establish whether or not the original poster is acquainted with 4chan discourse. Simply ignoring it gains respondents’ respect, whereas actually supplying photographs of breasts with a timestamp produces insults and incredulity as to why any woman would do such a thing. As one femanon responds to the request, demonstrating her knowledge of 4chan discourse. ‘I’ve been on here for 4.5 years [so] tits or gtfo doesn’t work on me’ (No. 190256634, 2018) Another poster explicitly affirms Manivannan’s thesis:
>Tits or gtfo applies to women who come on here and needlessly tell us they are a woman. This is a site for anonymous discussion, if a woman is going to go out if her way [sic] and out herself as female for attention, then she may as well go all the way and show off her body as well. No one cares if women come on here for actual discussion, or say they are women when it’s actually relevant (No. 160914208, 2018).
