Aaaaaaah hi this really cheers me up you have no idea. I was just like you, believe it or not I browsed 4chan since I was 11 years old and it pretty much shaped who I was and how I acted, and the people I associated with, for most of my recent life. It was very unhealthy for me. I was taken advantage of a lot from when I was 13 up until 17 by guys I met who browsed the boards I frequented, I just wanted to be cool like them, I felt like that was the only way I would be accepted and I felt like I couldn’t make friends otherwise. I went through a phase where I was just super insufferable and unfunny and I couldn’t be true to who I was on the inside I guess, because I put up this front of being this edgy internet girl who “isn’t like the ‘other’ girls!!!”. It’s a pretty small aspect of how I changed myself to suit these people I hung out with and 4chan “culture” but, I would even stop using emoticons a lot (except for ;_; because that was the only one 4chan liked) because 4chan deemed them “uncool”!!!!! But fuck that emoticons are cute, if you’re having a casual conversation why not throw a couple of these in ^_^ : ) I even used to dislike feminism because of all the regurgitated nonsense that people would spew all over the boards and how my friends always made fun of feminists but then I grew up and realized that they were being immature and ignorant. I was so afraid to express myself and my opinions, because I knew that they weren’t “cool”, it was pretty much like being in a high school clique, except online and with a lot of disgruntled, lonely anonymous posters. 4chan was like my home for a while when I was little (that’s so fucked up in hindsight, my parents would have killed me if they saw the kinds of stuff I was looking at and reading) because I felt like an outcast, and all these people on 4chan were self-described outcasts, so I felt like I fit in there. But as I grew and made friends who were actually nice people who cared about me, I realized that I didn’t have to put on an act anymore. Surrounding yourself with people who love you for you is the best thing ever. And it feels very good to grow out of icky phases in your life! Like a bug shedding its skin. I’m so glad that I can help people, because when I was younger I would have loved to have a good role model like that, I probably would have grown up a lot sooner. Sorry for being so long winded tho and thank you