The most prominent of these are:
Rule 1. Do not talk about /b/
Rule 2. Do NOT talk about /b/
Immediately apparent is how these rules were stolen from the rules of Fight Club. Also apparent is how no one adheres to these rules...which is fitting, since /b/ itself essentially has no rules. /b/ refers to the "Random" forum at 4chan (I really recommend you do not visit this site at work). Wikipedia has a brief history and numerous quotes of what mainstream publications have said about /b/./b/ is famous for protests against scientology in a spontaneously created movement called Anonymous, creating the rickrolling meme (along with its predecessor - duckrolling), copious amounts of porn (you were expecting a link to porn, maybe?), Boxxy, "trolling for lulz," caturday (which grew into LOLcats), and probably half of the strange things you've seen on the Internet.
The content on /b/ remains ephemeral. It functions as a forum, except only the most recent posts remain active - the rest are purged (never to be seen again...except in the form of screen captures). Although this hasn't stopped other websites from archiving 4chan material.
Rule 34. If it exists, there's porn of it.
As Avenue Q (tangentially) points out, a vast amount of content on the Internet consists of porn (or pr0n, for the uninitiated). However, the Internet's breadth combined with anonymity results in bizarre creations of porn that you're bound to find at least one example either hilarous or disgusting (...or both). Porn itself isn't that surprising; until chaste Victorian society came along there were no qualms about having nudity everywhere (ironically, Victorian society also produced an abundance of nude paintings...but we all know that if you're tastefully nude you're not really naked, right?). The Romans in particular really loved them some nudity; and true to their throwbacks to Roman culture, Renaissance artists embraced the nude...figuratively (...usually).If you'd like to see a list of typical Rule 34 examples without risking grievous injury to your psyche (or to your internet priveleges at work), I'll recommend TVTropes' list of examples. Relatedly, there's (less common) rule 36.
Rule 36. If it exists, there's a fetish for it.
From coprophilia to vorarephilia (that's scat porn to vore - but more scientific sounding) there's an incredible breadth to the number of fetishes out there. Since the Internet allows people with like interests to easily connect, rare and strange fetishes tend to develop their own communities.
If that's too unsettling, true to its schizophrenic nature the Internet has an alternative Rule 36 for you.
Rule 36. There will always be something worse than what you just saw.
In the low bandwidth days of yore, trolls relied on shock images to harass or disgust potential viewers. In time some websites developed to cater specifically to these sorts of vulgar pornographic or gruesomely graphic shock images.
In a bizarre twist of Internet trends, rickrolling has displaced shock images as the "bait and switch" prank of choice. This doesn't violate the rule, however.
John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory
(Hey, that's the name, don't look at me)
A normal person when provided anonymity and confronted with an audience will turn into a jackass.
This theory was created by Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik in 2004. As illustrated in its original conception, this theory has managed to prove itself many times over. Anyone who has played on Xbox Live can attest to its truth. Relatedly, you'll come across plenty of 11 year olds playing M-rated games ready to teabag your corpse while yelling racial slurs into a microphone.
Godwin's Law
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
Created by Mike Godwin originally for USENET in 1990, Godwin's Law (or Godwin's Nazi-Corrolary) exists because anonymity allows us all to call other people Nazis with impunity. This trend exists because Nazis are generally considered the worst, most evil thing around. So what other insult could be greater? Subsequently, once someone has been called Hitler or a Nazi, a thread has been "Godwin-ed".The more recent version of this (or the 1950s version) is to call people Stalin or communist. FOX News and other right wing political institutions like to cover all their bases and call people fascist socialists. Apparently they missed that whole "Soviet Union fighting Nazi Germany for 4 years with 30,000,000 casualties"-part (along with numerous political and economic ideology clashes). So pick one or the other; someone cannot be Nazi-Stalinist.
Poe's Law
"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."
Eponymously coined by user Nathan Poe on the Christian Forums in 2005, Poe's Law has evolved to mean that parodies of extremist views are indistinguishable from serious posts without some blatant, transparent indication. It originally related to discussions of evolution, but has since branched out to cover fundamentalist and outlandish conspiracy theorists, as well.
Now all you need to do is to fomulate a post on 4chan about how liberals are like Nazi-Communist-Fetishist porno-junkies via a shock photo and you'll have all your bases covered.
