this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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You got things backwards.
The hackers known as anonymous all went their separate ways long ago, leaving 4chans anonymous to be little more than a series of social media accounts releasing videos periodically. You say "they released a statement yesterday".... Er... That's all they do. They haven't had any power and members with skill sets since 2008 or so.
...and antifa do exist. Most anarchist are, or are willing to call themselves antifa. A huge number of people used black block (blocking out), and mutual aid to manage, organize, and run the Black Lives Matters riots, and the Portland Corrections protests.
Behind the Bastards had a whole series detailing it, including all the local chapters and groups that cropped up or started in that period.
So pretty much the opposite of what you said: Anonymous doesn't really exist beyond constantly releasing statements, and antifa does exist and will most likely take up organizational roles if any long term street protests erupt.
There’s no organization called “Antifa,” though. It’s just a concept. There’s organizations calling themselves “Black Lives Matter” but most of them are (or were) just trying to (a) organize or (b) get donations and do nothing. Both are just ideas meant to unite disparate groups.
It’s like saying there was an official organization called La Résistance in France during WWII. It’s distributed, small, independent groups with similar ideologies that got a name in retrospect. There’s no central organization.
No, the joke you're making is about Anonymous, and the authorities trying to find the leader of them.
Antifa (Antifaschistische Aktion, Anti Fascism) on the other has and will periodically form into local chapters (usually out of members of other more permanent anarchist, communist, and protest groups), to participate in protests, produce things like stickers or book drives, run pop-up or community libraries, events and form other organizational structures, events, or projects.
You're confusing temporary, and anarchistic, with not existing.
From Wikipedia:
So yeah, antifa is a movement which does periodically have people participate in it. They're just usually temporary and anarchistic.
Likewise with the French Resistance, or Marquis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquis_(World_War_II) - yes there were various groups, and they had different structures, some of which were independent detached cells, but at various points some were aided with more official supply, intel, organization, and assistance from allied forces, and required more communication and so some become more "official" due to this. So it was mixed, some completely independent, others less so.
This is part of what makes these organizations effective, and difficult to stop. It's not the same as them not existing.... Not having set and formal national leadership, being temporary, or anarchistic, is not the same as not existing, or having no members.