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I don’t want to be an internet person

palladiummag.com

231–240 of 319 posts

Re: I don’t want to be an internet person

#231
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had a constant, sarcastic, tired energy about them. They had difficulty being genuine about anything. I knew such a guy on IRC back in 2003. We all kind of looked up to him on the channel. He was quite eloquent and had (what seemed to us) an enormous knowledge of history and philosophy. His sarcasm bordered on sophisticated nihilism. He spoke to us like Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now . His occupation was ne…

I wouldn't say it's pathetic. People try and get power/control/ a sense of meaning anywhere they can. This man probably didn't have a great life and found his only refuge and belonging to be in IRC. The alternative may have been to confront harsh reality and realize you're nobody to noone.

>This man probably didn't have a great life and found his only refuge and belonging to be in IRC. The alternative may have been to confront harsh reality and realize you're nobody to noone.

That sounds quite pathetic to me.

Re: I don’t want to be an internet person

#232
I went down the rabbit hole after reading this, as I love sub cultures and yearn to see some new ones. Some learnings:

Now there is a certain avant garde playing with the narrative thing going on, which is part of it, so the story that you can find out about the thing is changed at the time its going on and after its happened. The lore is recorded by people within the culture and they are in on it. Certain of the interactions with the author and the characters she met were on the whole staged, or intentional trolling of the author. "some young writer is coming so let's tease her".

The trolling, anti-cancel culture, the pro-autism always-online which may have come from the chans is almost 100% opposite from the "white pilled", positive, almost over the top caring messages that the subculture is putting out. But it's not the same as the we are all going to make it greed-optimism of crypto.

As we see in these fellow comments, most people who have encountered internet people have found them to be nihilistic, anti-social, maladjusted and negative. This sub culture is trying to be the opposite of it, but it exists along side a kind of schizoid-side - it's very odd.

Compared to other NFT young people meet ups (the author previously wrote a popular article about the Bored Yacht Club parties) - this subculture appears to have more women.

Compared to other NFT projects, this art project does not prioritize holding or purchasing an actual NFT image, and seems to value a kind of plagiarism, "just download the png" or anti ownership in a way. It reminds of of plunderphonics/vaporwave from last decade.

The traditional and social politics of the founders seem at odds with a rave and taking drugs. puzzling to me! Someone here says that the drug - Ketamine is apparently chosen as reduced social anxiety?

Re: I don’t want to be an internet person

#233

I'm pretty sure this generalizes to everything. People who cultivate a persona in any sub-culture or domain seem to be a fish out of water when confronted in a different context. Take someone from the rave scene and plop them down in a microbrewery bar and everyone will gawk at the brightly colored fidgety person that has no idea what to order. Take a polished SV entrepreneur and deposit them in an Idaho roadhouse an…

tbh it seems like the author herself is the one that's the fish out of water. I doubt the people in question are remotely as interesting, avant-garde or important online as the gushing intro suggests, but the rest of it seems to mostly be a story of how a clique were nonplussed by the complete stranger (a female one too!) turning up to their party asking lots of questions about online stuff. Sounds like half the people attending weren't "very online" (the attendees that don't know what the NFT is but are here because a friend invited them, and the scantily-clad girls that aren't normally seen at such events but seem very much to the tastes of the people organizing this one) and the ones that do know about the NFT apparently weren't interested in talking to strangers who aren't buying...

I'm also not sure the world of multiple anime-girl edgelord personas with NFTs necessarily generalises that well to the "very online". She could probably have had a quite different experience at a party of gushingly earnest activists or the sort of nerds who stop being shy and awkward when someone asks them about their favourite MMORPG or open source project.

Re: I don’t want to be an internet person

#236

I'm pretty sure this generalizes to everything. People who cultivate a persona in any sub-culture or domain seem to be a fish out of water when confronted in a different context. Take someone from the rave scene and plop them down in a microbrewery bar and everyone will gawk at the brightly colored fidgety person that has no idea what to order. Take a polished SV entrepreneur and deposit them in an Idaho roadhouse an…

Yeah, this is the kind of article that should be written by an open-minded anthropologist, not a Stanford grad intent on being opinionated. Unfortunately, every time a "hit piece" like this gets published, it makes the Internet just a little bit less weird and amenable to interesting subcultures.

It is a magazine and not a journal of anthropology.

Re: I don’t want to be an internet person

#237

I'm pretty sure this generalizes to everything. People who cultivate a persona in any sub-culture or domain seem to be a fish out of water when confronted in a different context. Take someone from the rave scene and plop them down in a microbrewery bar and everyone will gawk at the brightly colored fidgety person that has no idea what to order. Take a polished SV entrepreneur and deposit them in an Idaho roadhouse an…

I'm sorry, are you making some sort of offensive joke or do you really think the world works in such stereotypes and prejudices? Rave people are "brightly colored and fidgety" ?? A polished entrepreneur is incapable of ordering in a low class bar? Jesus F Christ.

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. If it were just one comment, I'd post a warning instead, but you've been doing it a lot, and it seems to have been a problem for years:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20753535 (Aug 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20330020 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18621993 (Dec 2018)

That's not cool.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: I don’t want to be an internet person

#238
post #122
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are peoples' names less made up than their pronouns? It seems just as rude to refuse to use someone's preferred name as you would their preferred pronouns.

I mostly agree with that: if someone is a participant or a potential participant in the conversation then we should refer to them in a way they find acceptable, provided their demands are reasonable and in good faith. On the other hand, if someone is speaking or writing about me in a language I don't understand then it's hardly my job to tell them what pronouns to use and I can't even reasonably tell them how to pron…

My problem is the author deliberately states they didnt bother to ask, and does so in a way that is almost bragging about it.

Through the article, this happens in various forms.

If the point of the article is to criticise someone's behaviour for being an "internet cool person"; opening by your opinion piece by stating you were too cool to bother to do something; and later stating that you as the writer are a normal person, and that you feel sick after infilitrating a group, there is a level of hypocrisy there.

I agree with you there are legitimate cases for ignoring someone's preferences to improve the quality of information imparted. However, the author doesnt state any apart from "didnt bother".

Re: I don’t want to be an internet person

#240
Never heard of the guy he's talking about, but started getting strong "weirdo" vibes wrt the author after the third paragraph of character assassination, largely based around this persons appearance.

For anyone who read all the way through - does it get anywhere close to making a point or is it mostly about how ugly people the author doesn't like are?

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