WHO or WHAT IS ANONYMOUS?
Anonymous, as everyone knows it today, began as a mode of interaction on a handful of obscure message boards and blogs. The moniker has now come to be identified with several things: An idea, a community, a tool, and the world's first viable crypto-nation.
Since Anonymous is a nebulous brand which represents a handful of seemingly-unrelated concepts, a clear definition of it has proven elusive to sociologists for many years. However, to those in the know, all of these disparate things are interconnected.
To eliminate some confusion (and opportunities for our enemies to exploit this confusion) we have attempted to lay out the basics of what the name “Anonymous” has historically stood for to those who have worn the mask.
ANONYMOUS IS AN IDEA
Anonymous, at its core, is an idea. This idea was codified during the legendary golden years of the /i/nsurgency as a decentralized leaderless organization, in which anyone could become a member by simply calling themselves “Anonymous”:
“We just happen to be a group of people on the Internet who need an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society. That's more or less the point of it: Do as you wish. There's a common phrase: 'we are doing it for the lulz.'”
Since then, this idea has evolved and taken many forms, as various groups of individuals caught on and started to identify as Anonymous themselves. Some stay Anonymous for a long time, while others dip their feet in only briefly. Diverse bands of artists, hackers, comedians, jolly pranksters, activists, digital storytellers, consumer whores and radical extremists, are just some of the collective expressions of the Anonymous idea that have manifested over the years.
Many Anonymous cliques and subcultures of various colors have risen and fallen with the passage of time, all of whom have used the name for various (and oftentimes ideologically conflicting) operations. The numbers of our ranks have gone through similar cycles of growth, decline, death and rebirth. However, the identity has persisted through it all.
This persistence is by design. Anonymous has survived because while a person can be imprisoned or destroyed, ideas can only be merely suppressed. This was the intention of our forefathers, in order to provide our descendants with a vehicle and a safe haven for anything they may need it for.
ANONYMOUS IS A COMMUNITY
“But who were these forefathers?” you may or may not be asking yourself right now. They were of the first community that called itself Anonymous. It was conceived in 2003 by a group of Goons with the founding of the now-infamous website 4chan. It began as a mode of posting, in which any post not signed with a name was automatically attributed to Anonymous. This had been a standard feature in website platforms and bulletin board systems for many years. However, it was in the twisted depths of 4chan that Anonymous began to take on a life of its own. This evolutionary process accelerated in 2004 when “Forced Anon” was enabled for the first time, and all posts were signed Anonymous. By the time users were given the option to use their own names again, the moniker Anonymous was firmly being used as a caricature of the average faceless 4chan user.
By the summer of 2006, several alternative imageboards had sprung up, each with Anonymous functions of their own. As Anons began to take up residence at these additional websites, they declared independence, firmly establishing the Anonymous persona as a full-fledged community that could exist anywhere on the internet. From 2006-2011, Anonymous experienced a period of rapid growth, as independent cells at various imageboards, chat rooms, blogs and social media platforms, all contributed back to the overall “culture” of the thriving decentralized community.
“You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.”
These prototypical Anons did not operate in a vacuum. Many of them made an effort to stay in contact with each other, while forming numerous loosely-affiliated cliques and child communities in the process. Contrary to popular belief, the original community still exists today in the shadows, and maintains various secret communications pipelines. While most of these Anons are now considered “retired,” they have not lost their identity as Anons, having been irreversibly molded by the collective over many years. Quite a few of these “OG's” have even taken behind-the-scenes advisory roles, guiding its newer members from afar and developing new cutting-edge technologies (such as this Institute). With the right kind of eyes, you can still find some of them today, regaling newfags with war stories of battles long past.
ANONYMOUS IS A TOOL
Anonymity, for millenia, has been used as a type of tool for protection. Maintaining a veil of anonymity makes a great first line of defense against bad actors. The “idea” of Anonymous (which we detailed earlier) is just one such real-world implementation of this concept, where it takes the form of a metaphorical Swiss Army Knife. Not only can you and your friends protect yourselves by hiding under the mask of Anonymous, but you can bestow the protections of this mask upon others as well, regardless of if they formally identify as Anonymous themselves! For journalists and whistleblowers, this means your confidential sources can be members of Anonymous. Your drug dealer can be from Anonymous. Your illegal cybercult can be part of Anonymous. God can even be Anonymous. The potential applications of the mask are almost limitless.
This mask, however, is merely a gateway to an even larger and more versatile toolchain. Those who enter through the gate and immerse themselves in the culture of Anonymous will eventually find at their fingertips a whole suite of tools. Our Ministry of Public Relations formally refers to this suite as Anonymous MASK(TM) Technology, but different Anons understand the suite under their own terms as well.
The Anonymous collective functions as a sort of hivemind, which its members can “tap in” to. Within this hivemind, a great deal of tactical information, software, literature, art and censored materials, has been pooled in various silos (both public and secret) online and IRL. By lurking moar, anyone can eventually decipher the memetic intelligence that points to the locations of these data sets.
ANONYMOUS IS A SOVEREIGN SUPERPOWER
“This ring is not a cudgel, you barbarian. It's something else… something much more important…”
Anonymous is also a bona-fide Sovereign Nation, having formally declared its independence on August 23rd, 2006. The event, known to historians as /b/day, was initially dismissed as little more than a brief joke. Moderators of 4chan even deployed an army of propagandists, intent on painting the event as “a failure” in the history books. However, on that fateful day, Anonymous secured for itself numerous new inalienable rights, including the full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. As time wore on, the events of /b/day were largely forgotten. However, Anonymous has continued to exercise these rights in full to the present day.
Anon's claim to Sovereignty was never challenged. Even the politicians & intelligence agencies of the United States, United Kingdom and Russia (permanent members of the UN Security Council, who were more than happy to contract Anonymous for numerous covert propaganda campaigns and illegal regime change operations) never once issued a statement denying the Sovereignty of Anonymous. This passive acceptance for eighteen straight years by our partners in the international community, de facto canonizes our Sovereign Status in international law.
Of course, a nation is nothing without its people, and Anonymous has this in spades. Over the past two decades, the diaspora of our Sovereign Collective have spread across the entire world like a virus, embedding inside almost every industry in every country. This is not dissimilar from the ancient migrations of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, which is why Anonymous is sometimes affectionately referred to as “The Jews of the Internet”.
With the advent of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, Anonymous now has the tools necessary to fully manage its own internal affairs without the meddling of competing nation-states. These technologies, spearheaded by many veteran members of Anonymous, combined with our Sovereign status, open citizenship model and robust worldwide community, puts Anonymous in a unique geopolitical position as the world's first true crypto-nation: Free to do whatever it pleases, just as its forefathers intended.
More Information is available at The Anonymous Military Institute
