# Christopher Poole Moot
Christopher Poole, known online as moot, is the New York teenager who launched the 4chan imageboard in 2003 and later became famous when 4chan users hacked the 2009 Time 100 poll to vote him World's Most Influential Person. The moot handle is one of the most recognized names of early web culture, tied to the site that spawned much of 2000s meme output.
## Overview
moot is the online handle used by Christopher Poole, the founder of the English-language imageboard 4chan[3]. He picked up the name on the Something Awful forums before starting his own site, and kept using it in nearly every public appearance tied to 4chan for more than a decade[6]. For most of that stretch he avoided photos and kept his real identity out of the press.
The moot handle stayed attached to 4chan even after Poole's legal name went public. By the time the Wall Street Journal identified him in 2008 the two names had already fused in the minds of anyone paying attention to imageboards, and coverage kept pairing them for years[3]. Outside 4chan he later ran the remix site Canvas, the drawing app DrawQuest, and eventually took a job at Google[6].
The name reached its widest audience in April 2009 when 4chan users voted moot to the top of the Time 100 online poll and hid a coded message inside the leaderboard[1]. That single stunt turned an obscure webmaster handle into a mainstream news story.
## How It Spread
The moot handle went viral in April 2009 when 4chan users tore through the Time 100 online poll. After the ballot URL was found to accept simple HTTP GET requests, /b/ posters wrote scripts that fired votes at any candidate ID they wanted[1]. Time announced on April 27th that Poole had won World's Most Influential Person with 16,794,368 votes[1]. The stunt had a second layer: the first letters of the top 21 finishers, read in order, spelled 'marblecake also the game,' a wink at the IRC channel used during Project Chanology raids[1].
In May 2010, TechCrunch reported that Poole had raised $625,000 for a stealth project called Canvas Networks, based on an SEC filing[2]. The Canvas private beta opened on January 31st, 2011 with about 4,000 invites, and Vice noted the odd choice to require Facebook Connect for logins during that phase, breaking with 4chan's anonymous model[7]. When Canvas opened publicly on September 6th, 2011, Digital Trends described it as a Photoshop remix hub built to track how a meme mutates from the first upload to its ten-thousandth edit[5].
In November 2012, Poole's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to the Oregon startup Moot.it, arguing that his decade of use of the handle gave him a protectable right of publicity[4]. The BBC covered the dispute and quoted the letter's line that confusion between the two names would be 'unavoidable' among 4chan readers[8]. Moot.it's lawyers publicly refused to drop the name and threatened a malicious prosecution suit if another letter arrived[4].
## How to Use
moot is a person and a handle, not a template you remix. In practice, the name shows up when people are talking about 4chan's early history, the 2009 Time 100 hack, or the founder image that goes with those stories[6]. Common convention is to spell it in lowercase, matching how Poole signed off on 4chan announcements and interviews[3].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Christopher Poole Moot?
Christopher Poole is the founder of 4chan and has gone by the online handle moot since 2003[3].
### Where did Christopher Poole Moot come from?
Poole launched 4chan on October 1st, 2003 at age 15 from his bedroom in New York City using his mother's credit card for hosting[3].
### What does Christopher Poole Moot mean?
moot is the pseudonym Poole first used on the Something Awful forums and then kept for 4chan and his later projects[6].
### How do you use Christopher Poole Moot?
The name is a reference, not a format. It comes up when people talk about 4chan's history, the 2009 Time 100 hack, or the moot.it trademark fight[4].
### Is Christopher Poole Moot still popular?
Poole stepped away from 4chan in January 2015 and joined Google in March 2016, so the handle is retired from active use[6].
### Why did moot win the Time 100 poll?
4chan users found that the ballot accepted simple HTTP GET requests and wrote scripts that pushed him to first place with 16,794,368 votes[1].
### What was the 'marblecake also the game' message?
The first letters of the top 21 finishers in the 2009 Time 100 poll spelled that phrase, a nod to the IRC channel used during Project Chanology raids[1].
### What was Canvas?
Canvas was Poole's image remix site, funded with $625,000 in 2010 and opened to the public in September 2011[2].
### Why did Poole send Moot.it a cease and desist?
He argued that a decade of using the moot handle gave him a protectable right of publicity, and confusion with the startup was unavoidable[4].
### Where did Poole go after 4chan?
He joined Google's Google Plus team under Bradley Horowitz in March 2016[6].
## References
1. [https://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-hack/]()
2. [https://techcrunch.com/2010/05/14/4chan-founder-moot-raises-625k-for-stealth-startup-canvas-networks/]()
3. [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/jul/20/internet.google]()
4. [https://observer.com/2012/11/4chan-founder-moot-sends-cease-desist-letter-to-startup-moot-it/]()
5. [https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/canvas-4chan-founder-moots-newest-meme-generator/]()
6. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/christopher-poole-moot]()
7. [https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvdadw/moots-canvas-is-not-the-new-4chan]()
8. [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20408037]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/christopher-poole-moot
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