This is a topic I've been thinking about the past few months, or possibly years, but I want to make a post about it now.
I've seen 4chan, a website filled with some of the most mentally "off" people on the entire internet, influence internet culture, and by extension, the culture of the real world as well.
4chan is the source of many memes that became popular in the mainstream, such as Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life, a meme that I saw a friend in high school repeat in real life a couple of years ago.
4chan has lead several other things to become popular in the mainstream. Minecraft started out as a community project on 4chan, and, eventually, it's popularity became enormous to where I saw bible books based on being published at my local bookstore. This has happened with other video games like Undertale and Five Nights at Freddy's, the former of which was given to the pope as a gift, both games were popular on 4chan when they first came onto Steam.
I'm not saying /pol/ had that much to do with it, but /pol/ was one of the only places that took Trump seriously when he first campaigned. Everybody was laughing at him and making jokes about him when he first campaigned, but /pol/ kept shilling, and in combination with news media outlits (like Fox News and Breitbart) along with events like the Syrian refugee Crisis and Hillary's leaked emails, the cultural perception of the masses changed to where Trump seemed decent in comparison to Hillary.
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.