Cancer
 Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it. |
"This thread gave me cancer."
"______ is the cancer that's killing /tg/."
From the Greek noun 'karkinos' which meant both the hard-shelled crustaceans you find on the beach, and the hard cysts ("cankers") you find under your skin when you're infected with a plague. When the term is used on 4chan, it means a meme that the speaker fears will kill the host organism (ie. anyone who looks at it), and likely infect others to kill them as well.
Just about anything can be called "a cancer," because butthurt fa/tg/uys will use extreme reactions as a first resort. Some ideas seem to attract this label more than others. Here's a short list:
- My Little Pony
- Cultist-chan
- F.A.T.A.L. in general (though extracting humor from it is well and good)
- Lengthy, marathon discussions about Matthew Ward when everyone already knows how much he sucks, and /tg/ just wishes it could move on
- the fights that break out when someone compares 4E to other editions of Dungeons & Dragons
- "Stat me" threads]
- Touhou (Before board subdivisions; seriously, Touhou's prevalence made MLP's look like Future Dog in contrast)
- Skub vs. Anti-Skub discussions by idiots who don't understand the meme involved
- /b/
- Quest threads