"Rules of the Internet" is a loose collection of rules and aphorisms spawned by 4chan. Depending on whom you ask, they are either not meant to be taken seriously or are very Serious Business. Most of them don't apply except for within the community they originated from, and the list is continuously changing, but through Memetic Mutation, a handful have become well-known.
Also, almost none of the numbers are standardized, so it's not uncommon to find many rules reordered or simply replaced altogether. The only numbers that are standardized are Rule 34, Rule 50, and Rule 63, as well as possibly Rules 1 and 2 (and that's probably only because of Fight Club).
Some of the more notable rulesnote include:
- Rule 0: Don't fuck with cats.
- Rule 1: You don't talk about /b/. Explanation
- Rule 2: You DON'T talk about /b/.
- Rule 3: We are Anonymous. Explanation
- Rule 4: We are legion. Explanation
- Rule 5: We do not forgive, we do not forget. Explanation
- Rule 6: Anonymous can be a horrible, senseless, uncaring monster. Explanation
- Rule 7: Anonymous is still able to deliver. Explanation
- Rule 8: There are no real rules about posting. Explanation
- Rule 9: There are no real rules about moderation either — enjoy your ban. Explanation
- Rule 10: /b/ is not your personal army. Explanation
- Rule 11: No matter how much you love debating, keep in mind that no one on the internet debates. Instead they mock your intelligence as well as your parents. Explanation
- Rule 12: Anything you say can and will be used against you. Explanation
- Rule 13: Anything you say can and will be turned into something else. Explanation
- Rule 14: Do not argue with trolls—it means they win. Explanation
- Rule 15: The harder you try, the harder you will fail. Explanation
- Rule 16: If you fail in epic proportions, it may just become a winning failure. Explanation
- Rule 17: Every win fails eventually. Explanation
- Rule 18: Everything that can be labelled can be hated. Explanation
- Rule 19: The more you hate it, the stronger it gets. Explanation
- Rule 20: Nothing is to be taken seriously.
- Rules 21–24: Original content is original only for a few seconds before it's no longer original. Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality. Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality. Every post is always a repost of a repost. Explanation
- Rule 29: On the internet men are men, women are also men, and kids are undercover FBI agents. Explanation
- Rule 30: Girls do not exist on the internet. Explanation
- Rule 31: Tits or GTFO—the choice is yours. Explanation
- Rule 32: You must have pictures to prove your statements/Anything can be explained with a picture. Explanation
- Rule 33: Lurk more—it's never enough. Explanation
- Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.
- Rule 35: If there is no porn of it, porn will be made of it.
- Rule 36: No matter how fucked up it is, there is always worse than what you just saw.
- Rule 37: You cannot divide by zero (just because the calculator says so).Explanation
- Rule 38: No real limits of any kind apply here—not even the sky. Explanation
- Rule 39: CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL. Explanation
- Rule 40: EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER Explanation
- Rule 41: Desu isn't funny. Seriously guys. It's worse than Chuck Norris jokes.note Explanation
- Rule 42: Nothing Is Sacred. Explanation
- Rule 43: The more beautiful and pure a thing is—the more satisfying it is to corrupt it.
- Rule 44: If it exists, there is a version of it for your fandom... and it has a wiki and possibly a tabletop version with a theme song performed by a Vocaloid.
- Rule 45: When one sees a lion, one must get in the car. Explanation
- Rule 46: The internet is SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS. Explanation
- Rule 47: The pool is always closed. Explanation
- Rule 48: The only good hentai is Yuri, that's how the internet works. Only exception may be Vanilla. note
- Rule 49: No matter what it is, it is somebody's fetish.
- Rule 50: A Crossover, no matter how improbable, will eventually happen in Fan Art, Fan Fiction, or official release material, often through fanfiction of it.
- Rule 61: Chuck Norris is the exception, no exceptions.
- Rule 62: It has been cracked and pirated. You can find anything if you look long enough.
- Rule 63: For every given male character, there is a female version of that character (and vice-versa). And there is always porn of that character.
- Rule 64: If it exists, it has “LOOOOORRRREE!” Explanation
- Rule 65: If it doesn't, there will be.
- Rule 66: The longer the LORE around something is, the weirder it gets.
- Rule 67: If it has lore, it also has lore from alternate timelines, especially if the main lore is copyrighted by a big power hungry corporation.
- Rule 68: Everything has a fandom, everything.
- Rule 67: 90% of fanfiction is the stuff of nightmares.
- Rule 70: Do not talk about the 100M GET failure. Explanation
- Rule 72: If a song exists, there's a Megalovania version of it.
- Rule 77: The Internet makes you stupid.
Tropes Named by the Rules of the Internet:
- Divide by Zero: Trope namer is rule 37
- Rule 34: "There's porn of it"
- Rule 50: "There's a crossover with it"
- Rule 63: "There's a gender-flipped version of it"
- Serious Business: named by rule 46
- There Are No Girls on the Internet : Rule 30, memetic version
Tropes associated with the Rules of the Internet:
- The Artifact:
- The references to /b/ are due to it being the most popular 4chan board when the rules were first written. Since then, it has been overtaken by /v/ and then /pol/. Ironically, this means Rules 1 and 2 are unintentionally more obeyed than ever before.
- Although the rules as a whole have faded into obscurity, "Rule 34" and "Rule 63" are still frequently used when referring to pornographic and gender-swapped art, respectively.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Rule 45
- Corrupt the Cutie: Rule 43
- Crossover: Rules 50 and Rule 44; There are even cases of well-known video game characters, turned into ponies, and then modded into Touhou games. You can control Pyramid Head Pony in a SHMUP that used to feature Moe anime girls.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil and/or Digital Piracy Is Okay: Rule 62
- Epic Fail: Rules 15 and 16.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Rule 9001 is "It's over 9000!!!"
- Forced Meme: Rule 41 is a reminder that repeating something over and over again doesn't make it funny nor does it make it a meme.
- Four Is Death: Rule 4
- G.I.F.T: Rule 7, Rule 12, Rule 13, Rule 14, Rule 18, Rule 42 and Rule 43 are pretty G.I.F.Ted.
- Rule 48 is metaphor for "G.I.F.Ted people always spoil the fun".
- G.I.R.L.: Rule 29 and Rule 30
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Rule 48
- Homage: Rules 1 and 2.
- Hypocritical Humor: Many of the rules contradict themselves later.
- Information Wants to Be Free: Rule 62
- The Internet Is for Porn: Rule 34. Yes, there is even porn of this very trope.
- Memetic Mutation: Everywhere. They are the rules of this trope, after all.
- Morton's Fork: Rule 35
- Pedo Hunt: Rule 29
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Perhaps the only surefire way to exempt yourself from any rule of the internet — or even real life — is to use your massive affluence to make yourself immune from any rules. Who would tell you you're breaking the rules when you're the one with their tax money?
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Rule 10 and Rule 38
- Shaped Like Itself: Rule 9001
- Shout-Out: Many rules of the internet are references, e.g. Rule 42 or rules particular to certain communities that may be localised memes.
- Rule 42 is a subversion in that it states "nothing is sacred". It's effectively an anti-shoutout.
- Sparse List of Rules: Rule 34 was written first, and even now there are a number of gaps of varying size.
- Streisand Effect: The idea behind Rule 19. The more you want something to not happen, the more likely it will happen just to piss you off.
- Subverted Kids' Show: Rule 43 in action — corrupting an innocent kid's show into something amusing to adults.
- The Wiki Rule: Rule 44 includes this.
NO EXCEPTIONS!