>>13It's like giving a mouse a cookie. Desktop threads are impersonal selfies that attract a certain kind of person. first, note that ALL rice threads are bound to become desktop threads, as desktop screenshots can show off icon themes and color schemes as well as crops, and the shitposter loves to post their desktop.
I can tolerate them once in a while, but if it happens too often it trains them, like dogs being taught a trick. The trick is posting desktops. Desktop threads start arising daily, and then before they even have a chance to die. It becomes the same shit every day. They attract people who don't even care about the board and just want to post in desktop threads, mindlessly exhibiting their macs with waifu/yiffing pictures open before branching out into other threads looking for an opportunity to derail into moe anime, furfaggotry, rice, or tripfag drama, the only things they come for.
That crowd from /g/ seeks out desktop threads to post in, and they ARE autistic enough to have familiar "home boards" they shitpost in because anywhere else is too unfamiliar, until, of course, they find desktop threads there too. They need to be corralled into 8ch's dedicated wallpaper/rice boards before it's too hard to clean up. If you were on 4chan's /g/ a few years ago, you'll remember that the mods tried to send them to /wg/ once and just ended up getting the board spammed by butthurt bronies and poser weeaboos.
It's not even intrinsically technology related like free software or net neutrality
It's graphic design transplanted into a computer screen and infused with $ man program; vi .program.conf x 100, which is a topic on its own, but one that doesn't seem to have the same effect on boards for some reason. Perhaps because the worst of the desktop-posting crowd just steals configs or sticks to .Xresources.