The science of shitposting

Analyzing ephemerality via two weeks of of site activity,
we found that the median thread spends just five seconds on
/b/’s first page before being pushed off by newer posts, and
that the median thread expires completely within five minutes.
Even in a world informed by Twitter and newsfeeds,
where content is out of users’ attentional sphere quickly, we
argue that such rapid content deletion drives many of /b/’s
community dynamics. On /b/, ephemerality and deletion create
a powerful selection mechanic by requiring content the
community wants to see be repeatedly reposted, and potentially
remixed. We believe this is critical