Latest news with #4Chan
Fast Company
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
This 19-year-old YouTuber is directing a new A24 horror movie
The Backrooms started as internet folklore posted on 4Chan. Now it's been greenlit by A24. Last week, it was announced that 19-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons will direct the sci-fi/horror concept The Backrooms for A24, with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve set to star. This makes Parsons the youngest director the company has ever worked with. Variety described the upcoming film as 'based on the world of Parsons' viral YouTube horror universe.' The rest of the plot remains under wraps, with production expected to start this summer. Parsons posted the nine-minute short film The Backrooms (Found Footage) to his YouTube channel, Kane Pixels, in January 2022. The film was inspired by an internet story—or creepypasta (a term used to refer to short horror fiction posted anonymously on internet message boards)—that first appeared on 4Chan. Credited as the origin of the internet's obsession with 'liminal spaces,' the original post read: 'If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz.' The image accompanying the post was later traced back to a former furniture store in Wisconsin, unoccupied during a renovation. The creepypasta continues: 'approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.' Drawing on this eerie concept, Parsons' original short is set in 1996, when a filmmaker is suddenly transported to the carpeted room with no way out, pursued by something that only appears in his peripheral vision. Following the short's viral success, the filmmaker and VFX artist has posted further installments to his YouTube channel, which now boasts 2.69 million subscribers. Fans have long called for Parsons' Hollywood debut. 'This man is actually insane, he manages to create horror that is scarier than 90% of Hollywood horror films,' one fan wrote under his original YouTube video. 'I feel like there should be a complete film or series of The Backrooms,' another commented. 'The fandom is gigantic and there's everything you need for a movie.'
Sky News
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
4Chan being investigated by UK officials under new online safety rules
Why you can trust Sky News 4Chan, an online forum notorious for its extreme content, is being investigated by UK officials over its failure to comply with new internet safety rules. Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, said it had received complaints about potential illegal content on 4Chan, as it announced nine new investigations into sites that may have broken new rules. A porn site and seven file sharing websites are also being investigated. Under the new Online Safety Act, porn sites must develop strict age verification processes for users. Websites where people can see content shared by others, like 4Chan or social media, need to assess the risk of UK users encountering illegal content on their platforms. 4Chan has not submitted any such assessment, according to the regulator. 2:48 The seven file-sharing services have also been reported for the possible sharing of child sexual abuse material. Ofcom is also investigating whether porn site First Time Videos appropriately vets the age of its users. By July, sites hosting age-restricted content must have a "robust" age verification process in place. The rules have faced criticism from campaigners in the past for not going far enough. 1:11 Mariano Janin, whose teenage daughter Mia killed herself after being bullied online, told Sky News in April that the new rules are "too small, too little, too slow". In Australia, officials have taken dramatic action to try and deal with online harms for young people, and from December, under-16s will be banned from social media.
New European
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New European
Matthew d'Ancona's culture: Mountainhead is a whip-smart dystopian comedy
For those of us who have been in mourning since the finale of Succession in May 2023, travelling the world to watch its stars on stage as a form of grief management (reader, I went to New York), Jesse Armstrong's return as writer and director of this feature-length drama has been giddily anticipated. And it does not disappoint. In contrast to the international grandeur of the Roy family saga, with its debt to Lear and Greek mythology, Mountainhead is a bottle drama about four super-rich tech bros – claustrophobically confined for the weekend to the palatial mountain lair built in the Rockies by Hugo (Jason Schwarzmann); known to the other three as 'Soups', for 'Soup Kitchen', because he is worth a mere $521 million ('Like Fountainhead 'Mountainhead'? Was your interior decorator Ayn Bland?'). Like a younger Elon Musk, Venis (Cory Michael Smith) is the richest man alive and has just released a new version of his social media app, Traam, which has four billion users. Though its unfalsifiable deepfakes are causing riots and bloodshed all over the world, the tech titan is unmoved: 'We're going to show users as much shit as possible, until everyone realises… nothing means anything, and everything is funny – and cool.' His less wealthy but (slightly) more ethical friend and rival Jeff (Ramy Youssef) needles him for launching '4Chan on fucking acid' and does so knowing that – for all his bravado – Venis covets his own company's AI capacity that can bring a measure of order to the mayhem sown by Traam. Completing the quartet is the older Randall (Steve Carell), known as 'Papa Bear' and 'Dark Money Gandalf', who bears a striking resemblance to Donald Trump's first powerful Silicon Valley cheerleader, Peter Thiel. Inclined to quote Hegel, Kant and Plato, Randall – who has terminal cancer – is privately hoping to exploit Venis's deranged tech research in order to upload his own consciousness to the grid. Naturally, Venis loves the idea of a 'transhumanist' future: 'Tron-biking around, digital milkshakes, robot hand jobs!' Thanks to Armstrong's whip-smart dialogue, Mountainhead succeeds primarily as a dystopian screwball comedy; founded on the bathos of four men at a poker weekend casually discussing the means by which they might turn the chaos unleashed by Venis to their advantage. 'Maybe we do look at El Salvador as a dry run,' he suggests. But then again, why not 'coup out the US?' Even Hugo, the poorest of the four, dares to dream: 'If we take down China and the nation-state… now we're making memories!' Again, it is left to Jeff to offer a measure of perspective. Are they sure that dissolving the nation-state and seeking global tech domination is a good idea? 'Because Randall, I do think you're boiling an egg with no water.' None of which endears him to the group's elder ('he is a decelerationist and a snake!') If Succession was a bleak elegy to legacy media, Mountainhead is an even darker satire about the age that has followed, as Logan Roy knew it would. To adapt the grouchy patriarch's most famous line, such men may now rule the world; but they are not serious people. THEATRE Stereophonic (Duke of York's Theatre, London, until October 11) 'You need to show up; you need to pay attention; you need to tell the truth; and you need to deal with the consequences. Right?' Such is the advice of studio engineer Grover (Eli Gelb) to his assistant Charlie (Andrew R. Butler), as the two men seek to oversee a chaotic album recording that begins in June-July 1977 in Sausalito and ends a year later in Los Angeles. Though assumed to be a thinly-veiled account of the making of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (1977), David Adjmi's extraordinary play – transferred from Broadway, having scooped up a record number of Tony nominations – has its distant roots in Led Zeppelin's cover of Babe I'm Gonna Leave You. When Adjmi heard the track on a flight, he knew he had to write something about music. It took him a decade to develop and stage Stereophonic, with the help of former Arcade Fire member, Will Butler. The fruit of all that painstaking work is a drama of many layers and great subtlety, that uses the intense setting of all-night sessions in the studio – a glass screen dividing the engineers from the band – to drill deep into what makes the five performers tick, create music, and love and loathe one another. There is Peter (Jack Riddiford), the increasingly monomaniacal vocalist and guitarist, his relationship with star vocalist and songwriter Diana (Lucy Karczewski) in sharp decline. Bass player Reg (Zachary Hart), ill from booze and cocaine, wraps himself in a blanket of wretchedness, squandering the love of vocalist and keyboard player Holly (Nia Towle). Simon (Chris Stack) is the British-American band's de facto manager, as well as its drummer. Beyond the walls of the studio, their fame is surging; within, they are a portrait of familial dysfunction. Though Stereophonic brilliantly captures the golden age of the seventies album – and is studded with allusions to Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), the Eagles and the Watergate scandal – its power flows from the universality of the pressure-cooker conversations, rows and banter in which the characters reveal themselves. 'I guess I believe we're here to suffer,' Grover tells Reg. In contrast, each of the band members – to a greater or lesser extent – is a dreamer: hence, all the disasters, and all the magic. FILM The Ballad of Wallis Island (Selected cinemas) It cannot be emphasised enough that this wonderful movie is not one of those twee British romcoms in which middle-class people retreat to a remote landscape to discuss their difficult feelings. Directed by James Griffiths and written by longtime collaborators, Tim Key and Tom Basden, The Ballad of Wallis Island is a film of much greater power, wit and poignancy. Wading ashore on a tiny Welsh island, indie-folk singer Herb McGwyer (Basden) is welcomed by Charles Heath (Key), a reclusive millionaire who is paying him £500,000 to play a private gig for an audience of 'less than 100'. From the start, Charles's remorseless banter and quips drive Herb to distraction: he calls him 'Dame Judi Drenched' after he falls in the water; describes his 'rider' of Monster Munch, Braeburn apples and Johnnie Walker Blue Label as his 'Winona'; and says of his own travels: 'Kathmandu? More like Kathman-did!' Though Herb badly needs the money to pay for his next album, he is increasingly alarmed by Charles's manic eccentricity; by the lack of facilities on the island and its lone, under-stocked shop, overseen by the amiable Amanda (Sian Clifford); and by the dawning realisation that, in this case, 'less than 100' means 'one'. His host is an obsessive fan of McGwyer Mortimer, the folk duo of which Herb used to be half – until, nine years before, he parted ways with his partner in music and life, Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). 'I'm in Misery,' he says to his manager from the island's payphone. 'I'm going to wake up with no ankles!' But a greater shock lies in store when Nell arrives on the island, accompanied by her husband Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen). Charles's dream is to use the power of surprise to encourage a musical reunion. At this point – if it were called Folk Actually – the movie might have descended into intolerable schmaltz. But it does no such thing. Nell, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, and makes chutney to sell at farmers' markets, is distinctly unimpressed by Herb's desperate efforts to remain musically credible – including the acquisition of a large back tattoo and a series of 'collabs' with younger artists. For his part, Herb is completely thrown by Nell's sudden presence and initially coils up like a scorpion. In this respect, we see unexpected parallels with Charles, a widower whose logorrhoea, it becomes clear, is a symptom of quiet desperation. To watch him play Swingball furiously on his own is to behold a man wracked by grief, anger and loneliness; just as Herb is a tight knot of pain and loss. If there is a saving power in all this, it is Charles's passion for the music which reminds him of a happier time. And it is his total enchantment as they finally rehearse that helps Herb and Nell to remember why they were so good together, why the songs meant so much, and why they still do. The catharsis they experience does not reflect mawkish nostalgia but a gentle peace treaty with the past and a coming to terms with its place in their respective histories. For Charles, too, there is tentative hope that his frozen emotions may now thaw. A movie full of heart, in the best possible sense. STREAMING Dept. Q (Netflix, all episodes) Four months after he is shot in an ambush that kills a police constable and paralyses his partner DCI James Hardy (Jamie Sives) from the waist down, DCI Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) returns to work – and is reassigned to run a new cold case unit in the station's shabby basement. Based on the best-selling Scandi-noir thrillers by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, Dept. Q transposes the drama to Edinburgh, where Morck is respected for his talents as a cop but is a constant source of aggravation to his boss DCS Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie), under pressure from Holyrood to deliver results. Created by Scott Frank (who was also behind The Queen's Gambit) and Chandni Lakhani, the nine-episode series spreads its wings and takes its time – to compelling effect. The through line is the unsolved case of lawyer Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie); missing, presumed dead, for four years. Along the way, in a manner that recalls the early seasons of The Wire, the spectacularly anti-social Morck builds a team that includes Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), ostensibly an IT expert whose past in Syria is shrouded in secrecy, and Rose Dickson (Leah Byrne), a talented detective afflicted by PTSD. Morck himself is assigned a course of therapy with Dr. Rachel Irving (the always excellent Kelly Macdonald): help which he knows that he needs but is characteristically reluctant to accept. There is also a debt to The Silence of the Lambs, which I will not spoil. The plot is twisty, complex and absorbing. Goode, playing completely against type, has never been better, matching all the darkness with profane gallows humour. Dept. Q is one of the best television dramas of 2025 and richly deserves a second season.
Metro
12-05-2025
- Metro
After 10 years we unmasked our mystery stalker - we couldn't believe who it was
Madison Conradis was idly flicking through Facebook on her phone in bed one morning when she received a chilling message. An old high school acquaintance that she hadn't heard from in years had got in touch to ask whether she knew nude images of her were being posted online. Shocked, Madison asked for more information and the contact, who admitted to being embarrassed about knowing where the content could be found, signposted her to 4Chan and similar websites where women's images were posted against their knowledge or consent and with information about their names, work and whereabouts. 'It was the first time I realised websites like that even existed,' Madison tells Metro over Zoom from her home in Florida. 'It was scary. I had no idea where the pictures were posted or who was doing it. In my opinion it was worse than pornography sites, because it was alongside illegal stuff, such as non-consensual porn, child sexual abuse images, invitations to harass women and images of dead people. 'I was looking through revenge porn and harassment forums to try and find the images and there were things there that I saw that I don't ever want to see again,' adds Madison, who works in marketing. Eventually, she found two images from a photographer's proof gallery that had been taken six years before at a modelling shoot when she was 19. To this day, she doesn't know how the images were obtained – whether there was hacking or a software malfunction. 'When I found the photographs, I had that sick feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach. The anonymity of it was distressing. If I had known who was doing it, it would have been bad enough, but not knowing who was trying to harm me was the scariest part of it,' she remembers. Alarmingly, the poster had written alongside the pictures: 'Here is Madison. Here is her social media, her address, and her phone number. Go: Harass her.' After her initial shock, Madison, now 36, called her twin sister Christine before deciding to ignore the post, expecting it to fizzle out. But it didn't. She started seeing several posts on various seedy websites across a few hours, which would ramp up to hundreds daily. Some photos were sent to her dad's Instagram page, others to her clients' addresses and former work contacts. If you googled Madison's name, the image would be the first thing that popped up. 'It was terrifying. I didn't know who it was. It could have been anyone: a family member, a friend, the person walking behind me, a receptionist at the dentist's office… I had no idea,' she says. Madison is currently sharing her story on The Girlfriends: Spotlight, a podcast from Novel, where she recalls: 'I had a recurring nightmare where a masked person with a hood in all black was hovering over me. I couldn't see their face. It was so realistic, and I would often wake up in the night, jump out of bed and scream. It was because of the person harassing me, stalking me and not knowing who it was.' Unbelievably, the poster started requesting more images as Facebook users registered under fake names, even sending her direct messages demanding that she send new, explicit photos, or else they would further spread the already leaked photos. She changed her phone number, email address and deleted most of her social media, and occasionally things would quieten down. 'For a long time, I was second-guessing everyone around me. It really affected my trust in people,' Madison tells Metro. It was years before she went to the police because she assumed the poster would get bored and move on, but Madison also knew the police may be unable or unwilling to do anything about it, and she was proven correct. When she did make a complaint police told Madison they couldn't do anything. However, her sister Christine, a lawyer, was furious and went back to the police station with Madison to file a report. They opened a file, but nothing happened. '[Sextortion] was a fairly new crime at that time. It was just starting to be codified in police law. Education for police officers wasn't great at the beginning. They had bigger fish to fry, and that's probably why we didn't have much luck,' Christine tells Metro from her home in Florida. In 2015, Christine also fell victim to the anonymous poster when professional images from a boudoir shoot that she had sent to her husband were put on the internet, along with her name. With the police case seeming to go nowhere, the sisters decided to turn detective themselves and start their own investigation with the meticulously collected evidence and digital logs gathered since the first post a decade before. They set up a digital breadcrumb map, similar to a pinboard murder map seen on crime shows, examining all the clues and evidence they had from their stalker. Among them was a strange way of typing using spaces between ellipses. Examining his posts, they also discovered he had other victims, one of whom had been disturbingly posted in her catholic school uniform. 'There were posts soliciting someone to rape her. We zoomed in on the photograph, and Christine's husband Dana helped them sharpen the photo. He could read the school location. It was terrifying. If we could find her, any creep on the internet could,' Madison tells the podcast. Then they found a connection; all the women had a Facebook friend in common: Chris Buonocore, a former college friend of Dana's. And further evidence came when Madison went on holiday to the Florida Keys in 2016, and she posted a picture on her Snapchat showing nothing more than a beachfront sunset. 'Almost immediately, I looked down and had an anonymous message saying: 'That's a beautiful sunset that you just saw.' I knew the only place I had posted it was Snapchat – only 39 people had seen it,' she remembers. The last person who saw the post was Chris Buonocore, a fraternity brother of Christine's husband who had been to their wedding. Following almost a decade of paranoia and extortion, they had found the culprit. 'It was really shocking, but eventually made sense. He was an outcast, a little weird and creepy,' Christine tells Metro. 'There was relief to finally put a face and a name to it. It was like a huge weight off my shoulders,' adds Madison. 'I could trust people again. And I was weirdly excited; we had worked so hard, countless sleepless nights working 'til 3am working on this stuff.' They had enough evidence to take him to court and press charges. In court, documents showed that, over a seven-year period, Buonocore used fictitious phone numbers, text messages, and social media accounts to harass, intimidate, cyberstalk, and attempt to extort six women, including a minor. 'I felt very emotional. Having to speak in court about the impact of his actions was scary, and to think one judge could decide the fate of what you have worked so hard to do – put him in prison,' Madison tells Metro. The judge was on their side and sentenced Buonocore to 15 years in a federal prison. His harassment campaign had involved posting thousands of sexually explicit and nude images of the victims to the internet, as well as the victims' personal identifying information, including phone numbers, addresses, and social media account identifiers. More Trending Buonocore also solicited individuals on the internet to contact and harass the victims, including, at times, enlisting those individuals to attempt to extort additional sexually explicit images from the victims and other times encouraging these individuals to rape a victim. Seeing her stalker go to prison marked the end of years of stress for Madison, which had taken its toll on her career, relationships and physical and emotional health. 'You have ups and downs of depression, and physically I had major health problems due to high cortisol, a stress hormone,' she explains. 'I wasn't sleeping well, I was stressed, burnt out and suffering from nightmares for a long time.' And to this day, Madison still doesn't understand what motivated Buonocore to commit such a heinous crime: 'Some people are just sick in the head. A criminal is a criminal, I guess.' ● From Novel and iHeartPodcasts, Madison and Christine tell their story on The Girlfriends on 12 May, available wherever you get your podcasts. MORE: We're living every parent's worst nightmare after bullies left our daughter suicidal MORE: 'When my mum took her own life I discovered her secret battle' MORE: My 'best man' was a woman – my male friends were shocked
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Yahoo
Kidnapped US pastor Josh Sullivan rescued in South Africa - and 'miraculously unharmed' in deadly shootout
An American pastor abducted by armed men in South Africa has been rescued - and was "miraculously unharmed" in a deadly shootout. Josh Sullivan, who is originally from Tennessee, was kidnapped by four men as he was delivering a sermon to a church congregation in Eastern Cape province last Thursday. The gang stole two mobile phones from worshippers, seized Mr Sullivan from the pulpit, and drove the pastor away using his own pick-up truck. Officials said the Toyota Fortuner was found abandoned a few hours later, and a multi-agency taskforce launched an urgent investigation to find the 45-year-old. By Tuesday night, detectives suspected Mr Sullivan was being held at a house about a 20-minute drive away from the church where he was taken. A shootout began when suspects in a car parked outside fired at officers - and three unidentified men were killed. "The victim was found inside the same vehicle from which the suspects had launched their attack," a police statement added. Lt Col Avele Fumba said Mr Sullivan was "miraculously unharmed" and found to be in an "excellent condition" after being assessed by medics. Read more world news:Peru's ex-president jailed for 15 yearsIs this the end of the notorious 4Chan forum?Protesters tasered at pro-Trump town hall The missionary had been based at the Motherwell branch of the Fellowship Baptist church since 2018. Mr Sullivan has a wife and two children - and has now been reunited with his family. Police data shows the number of kidnappings across South Africa has surged by 264% over the past decade.
