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The rise of pity marketing

newstatesman.com

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Re: The rise of pity marketing

#11

Post by SoftTalker »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #5
the_af wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes from corporations, I'm with you: nothing is genuine, everything is carefully manufactured to elicit an emotion (to buy and consume). But from individuals? Sure, there's astroturfing, but there's also genuine messages with no ulterior motives. Or do you think everyone posting here on HN has ulterior motives?

I think it all comes down to what your definition of authenticity is and acknowledging that the vast majority of social media behavior is learned to elicit some sort of reaction and not to necessarily replicate your real-life behavior and mannerisms. As far as HN goes, I find myself posting for upvotes sometimes instead of having the more nuanced conversation. It’s why I typically abandon my account around 2-3k upvot…

> I typically abandon my account around 2-3k upvotes.

I’ve done the same thing about three times. My rough limit is 5k. It’s time. I think HN is better than many forums but posting for karma is a motivation everywhere it is possible.

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#12

Post by [deleted] »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #9

The pity commercial is why I hate watching the Olympics in the US. They'll skip over half the competitors just to show us how poor and sick some athlete's mother is or whatever. Sometimes you even miss the winner while the person they were talking about doesn't even medal!

[deleted]

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#13

Post by [deleted] »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #3

> This manufactured pity instead blindly inflates the value of the work in question – as if to say: if the story is sad enough, the art is automatically good. This poor fool still believes that social media has a shred of authenticity left. There is no such authenticity on social media platforms, the entire system is designed to generate content that creates engagement. I think it says more about our society that peo…

[deleted]

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#14

Post by mberning »

The role of shame and self respect as a social regulator has been severely diminished. Going out in public is sadly like going to a circus side show nowadays. Everything is ugly and people are very crass. Oh well, better get used to it, it’s not going to get better.

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#15

Post by silisili »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #9

The pity commercial is why I hate watching the Olympics in the US. They'll skip over half the competitors just to show us how poor and sick some athlete's mother is or whatever. Sometimes you even miss the winner while the person they were talking about doesn't even medal!

That's pretty much why I don't watch AGT or anything of it's ilk. I really wish this trend would end already...

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#16

Post by andsoitis »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #6

Are we sure all the examples cited were manufactured? Isn’t it possible that in a lot of the examples, someone had a bad day and other people responded with kindness?

why would you lament your failure or your mishappenings by broadcasting to the world?

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#17

Post by noduerme »

I wonder if this means all the great music we made as a rock band in the 90s without getting signed can get a new audience. It logically should, since pretty much everything in the genre has been some form of theft or reiteration, until everyone forgot that music like that had existed 20 years earlier and suddenly the stars aligned and ripoffs of rip-offs were considered original. (To be fair, we stole everything from the 1960s).

I'd never play the pity card, though. One has to live with oneself, even if most people pretend they don't.

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#18

Post by tptacek »

andsoitis wrote: post #16
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #6

Are we sure all the examples cited were manufactured? Isn’t it possible that in a lot of the examples, someone had a bad day and other people responded with kindness?

why would you lament your failure or your mishappenings by broadcasting to the world?

Ordinary people do that all the time.

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#19

Post by apsurd »

the_af wrote: post #4
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #3

> This manufactured pity instead blindly inflates the value of the work in question – as if to say: if the story is sad enough, the art is automatically good. This poor fool still believes that social media has a shred of authenticity left. There is no such authenticity on social media platforms, the entire system is designed to generate content that creates engagement. I think it says more about our society that peo…

When it comes from corporations, I'm with you: nothing is genuine, everything is carefully manufactured to elicit an emotion (to buy and consume). But from individuals? Sure, there's astroturfing, but there's also genuine messages with no ulterior motives. Or do you think everyone posting here on HN has ulterior motives?

> When it comes from corporations, I'm with you: nothing is genuine...

the insight is that our culture is consumed by capitalism and so individual people actually do mimic corporations because the corporation is all mighty.

hustle culture, influencers, content creators are all very literally trying to make a business of their identity.

i am not judging, i am saying it's very clear what's going on.

To your point, not to say authenticity is dead. There are still voices. It's by no means a given. i don't think it's unreasonable to default suspect everyone posting content online has a commercialized agenda.

Re: The rise of pity marketing

#20

Post by apsurd »

silisili wrote: post #15
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #9

The pity commercial is why I hate watching the Olympics in the US. They'll skip over half the competitors just to show us how poor and sick some athlete's mother is or whatever. Sometimes you even miss the winner while the person they were talking about doesn't even medal!

That's pretty much why I don't watch AGT or anything of it's ilk. I really wish this trend would end already...

Also shark tank. i joke with my brother: "here comes the pitch, product, gross sales, and btw i have cancer, my mom has cancer."

It's a cold joke. My mom had cancer. It's not the having of cancer i'm annoyed of obviously. How in the hell is this relevant to... oh right. it's a fucking national televised show. It's competing with The Bachelorette.

sigh. curmudgeons unite. i enjoyed your comment. feel seen!

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