Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram • Hacker News Board

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#211

Post by chrischen » Fri, May 04, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #204

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

Think of it this way: It's a lot easier to look at someone ostentatiously wealthy and just say "well, I'll just cut out the bad parts like doing hard drugs and pissing it all away by being an asshole" than it is to look at Mother Teresa and say "I'll be just like her, except a billionaire". That is to say, making a ton of money seems a lot harder than just not being an asshole.

I thought doing the hard drugs is part of the glamor.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#212

Post by jstarfish » Fri, May 04, 2018, 12:49 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #112

iamcasen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most age old ways to get rich is just like you said: write a book titled "I'm really rich! I will teach you my secret!" People eat that shit up!

It's so meta. I still remember the "Hey I quit my job and got rich as a blogger who tells you how to quit your job and get rich as a blogger" craze of 2010.

It's still pretty bad with travel blogs. They'll always have at least one mention per article about how you, too, can travel the world and get paid to blog about it, after you drop $300 to join TravelBlogSuccess.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#213

Post by tashi » Fri, May 04, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

codyb wrote: post #202

gowld wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just about every revolutionary hero is a mass murderer, from Che to Mao to Stalin to Churchill to Washington. And not everyone knows all the history of symbols.

Did Washington kill civilians? He was a slave owner. Not sure mass murderer is on the money like it is for Stalin and Mao. Don’t know enough about Che.

Does destroying houses and food supply so that civilians starve or freeze to death count? If so, yes. See the Sullivan Expedition.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#214

Post by dade_ » Fri, May 04, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

Surfaces are important, because it is all most people ever get.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#215

Post by FridgeSeal » Fri, May 04, 2018, 1:22 AM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #187

joosters wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are forced to avoid tax on their profits? Oh the humanity!

If the sudden taxes kill the company, then certainly. It's in the US's best interest for them to avoid those taxes because if they don't then the US loses out on taxing future profits of that company.

Whelp, better just never tax anyone just in case they make some money in the future that we can continue to not tax, because then they'll threaten to fire all their workers and take their money overseas!

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#216

Post by chiefalchemist » Fri, May 04, 2018, 1:30 AM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #113

Nexxxeh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the message of Fight Club ostensibly anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, the exact opposite of the lifestyle of #richkidsofinstagram ?

Fight Club had a lot of messages. I could name a couple more: * A generation of men raised with absent father figures is leading to listless depression. * Every person has an idealized version of themselves in their head where they are powerful and purposeful. * Modern middle class culture has no real danger in it, and we have lost our connection to the world of physical violence and dominance. * Living for the acqui…

I think, in a way, FC and The Matrix were the msg. That is, be complicit and conform, as zombies so. Or don't, and be alive, be yourself.

Sure there are particulars. But is FC's consuming consumer that much different (metaphorically) from being a battery for the machines?

I don't think so.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#217

Post by abecedarius » Fri, May 04, 2018, 2:06 AM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #79

I am always amazed by how many people get into this "Beat the system and make tons of money" mindset. If there's anything that has proven itself time and time again, it's that people who seek immediate wealth, and who fantasize about their "million dollar idea", are absolutely not the kinds of people who become successful and wealthy. The people who become devoted to a field or a technology - who make the business th…

I'll speculate that one common way this mindset gets acquired is by encountering enough ways that the system really is rigged, or that the pieties learned as a child seem false. There's not much distance between "the system is rigged" and "I want to be the predator, not the patsy." I'm not defending this way of thinking: I think it's wrong. But to counter something it helps to understand it, not just marvel at it.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#218

Post by dillondoyle » Fri, May 04, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #106

smacktoward wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

I don't know if it's a matter of the protagonist looking cool. When Breaking Bad was on the air, I had a surprising number of friends who identified with Walter White. He did not look cool, he did not act cool, and the writers of the show did everything in their power to communicate "This man is a moral monster and a horror of a human being." Yet some people that I otherwise respected still identified with him. They…

I think a big part is the emotions surrounding the combined feeling of thinking you're smarter than the rest while being stuck at a lower station in life. Unfairness compounded by the one thinking they're smarter so it's even more unfair. 'I'm smarter than this guy, why is he rich'

It's very easy to fall into this mindset and I think a lot of people identified.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#219

Post by anoncoward111 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 2:35 AM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #44

neaden wrote: post #4

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said…

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

Kind of like how people want to look like Rambo too. They don't care about the moral consequences of their hero's villainous actions- they just want muscles and guns.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#220

Post by ShabbosGoy » Fri, May 04, 2018, 2:44 AM UTC

nailer wrote: post #82

Nexxxeh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the message of Fight Club ostensibly anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, the exact opposite of the lifestyle of #richkidsofinstagram ?

No. Project Mayhem was anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist. The message of Flight Club was that nihilism is a destructive force.

Similar to A Clockwork Orange. Ultimately nihilism/anarchism are juvenile philosophies that one (hopefully) outgrows when they are older.