very clever people posting there

Nobody denies the extreme cesspool-like aspects of some corners of 4chan.

The one thing you can uncontroversially say is that 4chan is diverse. It's almost like reddit, where each subreddit has its own distinct culture, mods, etc.

I would say that overall, 4ch does attract... a pretty clever crowd. Almost everything there is layer upon layer upon layer of self-reference and iteration. Meta on top of meta on top of meta. Not saying you have to be a genius to "get it" but I don't see a dummy enjoying it.

I'm also saying this as somebody who doesn't particularly like the place. I grew out of that shock humor stuff about two decades ago.