 Membership in the group has ranged from 35 members in 2007 up to a rough 200 at their peak in mid-2011.The origin of the Patriotic Nigras has been traced by cyber-rights researcher Peter Ludlow to the /b/ imageboard of the imageboard 4chan where board members decided in late 2005 to "raid" Habbo Hotel, a popular avatar-based social networking game.The raid took the form of numerous black men presenting avatars with outsize afros and Armani suits blocking access to the virtual pool and telling other users that "the pool is closed because of AIDS."