TIME Fondly Remembers How 4chan Hacked Last Year’s TIME 100 [Video]

One year ago, 4chan thrust its Dear Leader moot — and by extension, itself — into the public eye when it hacked the online poll for the TIME 100, TIME‘s annual list of key influencers in a variety of fields. Not only that: They rigged the poll such that the names of the first 21 people spelled “Marblecake, also The Game.” It was a truly epic hack. This post has more information on how it happened, and Urlesque has information on its, erm, cultural significance.

TIME is running its online poll once again this year, but it’s mostly been drama-free. There’s a more international crowd than one might expect: The top five are currently Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Chinese author and racecar driver Han Han, Korean figure skater Kim Yu-Na, noted Lady Gaga Lady Gaga, and — of course — Rain. But unless some diehard Nathan Myhrvold fan is trying to slip his name in there, probably no haxxing.

So: the folks at TIME have made a video retrospective of last year’s 4chan TIME 100 hack.

They do basically describe 4chan inhabitants as pathetic basement-dwelling troglos, but there’s a certain fondness even to that: The two key women at TIME who realized the poll had been gamed seem more amused by it all than angry, they don’t get too technical, but refer you to the resources where you can (such as the aforementioned Music Machinery post), and there’s even a great photo of moot himself all dressed up and charming the TIME staffers.  In short, it’s about as well-done a “people on the Internet sure are crazy!!!” video as we can hope for, particularly coming from those crazy people on the Internet’s most notorious victims.

(via Urlesque)