Usage of the term Anonymous in the sense of a shared identity began on imageboards. A tag of Anonymous is assigned to visitors who leave comments without identifying the originator of the posted content. Users of imageboards sometimes jokingly acted as if Anonymous were a real person. As the popularity of imageboards increased, the idea of Anonymous as a collective of unnamed individuals became an internet meme.
Actions attributed to Anonymous are undertaken by unidentified individuals who apply the Anonymous label to themselves. Incidents which are said to be associated with Anonymous are rarely connected to an organized group.
"Anonymous is the first internet-based superconsciousness. Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know they're a group? Because they're travelling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely."
—Landers, Chris, Baltimore City Paper, April 2, 2008.
"Anyone who wants to can be Anonymous and work toward a set of goals…We have this agenda that we all agree on and we all coordinate and act, but all act independently toward it, without any want for recognition. We just want to get something that we feel is important done…"
—Anonymous
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