http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxjlw4AnIX1rn1xxfo1_250.gi...
This isnt reddit...
Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
31–40 of 210 posts
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#32I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet somehow he's ridden on the coattails of Apple's ascent by positioning himself among the fandom as a "champion of good taste". In interviews he doesn't even come off as particularly pleasant.
Fanboys on either side of the aisle love to pat themselves on the back and reaffirm--almost daily--that yes, they did buy the best product imaginable. It's the same reason Gruber makes half a million a year writing snarky one liners. Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing.
While there is some truth to what you said, I don't think dragging John Gruber is appropriate. One can at least see that a post is well written (I actually think that in terms of plain English, Gruber does the best job within the tech. blogosphere) and that some care and thought has been put into framing a cogent argument. From there, it's up to you to agree or disagree. I am not referring to the links he posts, but the actual writing that he does.
MG Siegler on the other hand has been perfectly described by Lyons. All he does is generate venom, and copious amounts of it, followed by a couple of "Fuck You's"" and so-on. I think he's the National Enquirer of tech. reporting. And hence, ankle biting Chihuahua is more than correct.
If Dan's reading this, good-luck mate. I am glad you called out Siegler's bluff. What he was trying to do with the Path issue was simply 'diversion'. Rake up an issue that can get people talking - loud enough - that it drowns out the issue at hand (callous and selfish handling of privacy in the Silicon Valley).
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#33 Not big investments — maybe $100,000. They don’t need your money; they can raise money from anyone.
I dont agree with this. Many startup companies have to prove their mettle to get an investor want to invest in them. Also, there are significant chance of any startup going bust. He does not supplement what the odds are in making 10x/100x returns. So its difficult to buy the concept that just investing in them will make you richer in a few years. However, I do think Michael Arrington is doing what he can to protect his investment. But I dont think its the other way round..i.e -> Startups are not necessarily filtering investors based on the influencing ability of the investor.
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#34I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet somehow he's ridden on the coattails of Apple's ascent by positioning himself among the fandom as a "champion of good taste". In interviews he doesn't even come off as particularly pleasant.
Fanboys on either side of the aisle love to pat themselves on the back and reaffirm--almost daily--that yes, they did buy the best product imaginable. It's the same reason Gruber makes half a million a year writing snarky one liners. Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing.
Unfortunately I think it is worse than just justifying your purchase; for a lot of people it is defining their identity.
You say "iPhone's are stupid!" and all they hear is "I think YOU are stupid!".
A lot of people define themselves by distilling the version of themselves they want to portray to the world as a collective of company logos and brands.
I don't think it is healthy, but it sure makes sense why people do it.
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#35I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet somehow he's ridden on the coattails of Apple's ascent by positioning himself among the fandom as a "champion of good taste". In interviews he doesn't even come off as particularly pleasant.
Fanboys on either side of the aisle love to pat themselves on the back and reaffirm--almost daily--that yes, they did buy the best product imaginable. It's the same reason Gruber makes half a million a year writing snarky one liners. Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing.
If you haven't already - watch the documentaries "Century of the self" and "Human Resources" for more disturbing information on how this came to be.
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#36I stopped reading techcrunch about 9 months ago, after realizing that the majority of articles were friends of the author - and realizing it was almost impossible to get featured on there unless you were connected in some kind of monetary way.
And finally, in 2012, after mocking and lambasting traditional reportage and journalistic standards for years, the Internet finally learns that journalistic standards, expectations, and ethics are a set of rules learned the hard way, that are as relevant on the web as they were in print.
Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for "it's just a blog, man".
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#37Although this was a beautiful piece I can't help but feel Dan Lyons just gave Uncrunched, ParisLemon, TechCrunch and PandoDaily another million pageviews between them for the many rebuttals we're about to see.
It's like the Republican presidential debate rules -- anytime you mention an opponent, the opponent gets airtime to respond.
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#38I wonder how do you think about Arrington being forced out of AOL now, after reading this.
You really believe that Arrington was "forced out" of AOL?! Duh.
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fanboys on either side of the aisle love to pat themselves on the back and reaffirm--almost daily--that yes, they did buy the best product imaginable. It's the same reason Gruber makes half a million a year writing snarky one liners. Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing.
Unfortunately I think it is worse than just justifying your purchase; for a lot of people it is defining their identity. You say "iPhone's are stupid!" and all they hear is "I think YOU are stupid!". A lot of people define themselves by distilling the version of themselves they want to portray to the world as a collective of company logos and brands. I don't think it is healthy, but it sure makes sense why people do…
This is exactly what Apple set out to do, equate the brand with the self - much like fashion.
Harley Davidson is another example where this occurs.
Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool
#40This kind of thing - not the exact events or people described, but the atmosphere conveyed - is exactly what's been turning me off from Silicon Valley. I've interned here twice, and I know that it's full of the top engineers in the world. Yet the underbelly seems to be full of these ridiculous cutthroat business practices and an atmosphere of self-indulgence, self-importance etc, most likely because Silicon Valley is where the money is. It seems like it's turning into the Hollywood of the tech industry, and not in a good way. T'would be a shame.