Stop Acting Like You're Famous • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#211

Post by flexagoon » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 2:24 PM UTC

mapreduce wrote: post #110

Why is it so that every so often one of these feel-good LinkedIn-style posts make it to the front page? Is there so much demand for banality on this site? I come here to read good tech articles or articles that stimulate my curiosity and it is sad to see these articles upvoted to the top when so many other good articles at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest continue to languish.

I follow /best through RSS and I upvote every single post that I looked at the comments for. Even if I think it's dumb and disagree with it (like in this case), it made me interested in what other people think of it, so it provides value.

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#212

Post by ubertaco » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 2:24 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #171

Not only is this bad advice, it’s perhaps the worst advice. I clicked this expecting it to be about attitudes, expectations, and entitlement, such as people who expect special treatment because of their social media profile. Instead it’s someone who is encouraging you to actively suck at what you do and to take no pride in your work when it is a hobby. Let me counter this with an age old adage that is simply true: “A…

I might suggest reading the second and third sentences of the article, which directly refute your interpretation:

>Want to try a craft or artistic hobby? Focus on mastering the skill and enjoy the variety it can provide.

"Focus on mastering the skill" is directly the opposite of "actively suck at what you do and take no pride in your work".

>Let me counter this with an age old adage that is simply true

A thing that is repeated often enough isn't "simply true" just because it's repeated often enough. Perhaps consider the situational applicability and limited-exhaustiveness of pithy proverbs.

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#213

Post by d--b » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 2:24 PM UTC

brandall10 wrote: post #123

d--b wrote: post #84

Ok the most important sentence in this essay is its subtitle: “Advice for myself around leisure activities” Personally I am no perfectionist at all, but I don’t see the fun in making stuff myself that I could otherwise buy. I took up sewing, not because I want to sew the perfect shirt, but because men’s fashion sucks. That said, I sew stuff I can wear. So it needs to look at least as good as what I could buy. I don’t…

"I took up sewing, not because I want to sew the perfect shirt, but because men’s fashion sucks" I applaud taking up this skill, but there absolute is stellar men's fashion out there, it's just not outwardly public AFA retailers and brands. I was a member of https://www.styleforum.net for many years and highly recommend it. And you can get MTM custom clothing on the relative cheap. I've used https://www.divij.com/ in…

No offense but the fashion I like is way more colorful.

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#214

Post by jdefr89 » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 2:25 PM UTC

mapreduce wrote: post #110

Why is it so that every so often one of these feel-good LinkedIn-style posts make it to the front page? Is there so much demand for banality on this site? I come here to read good tech articles or articles that stimulate my curiosity and it is sad to see these articles upvoted to the top when so many other good articles at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest continue to languish.

Dunno where you been but the quality of HN has been degrading for quite some time…

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#215

Post by heywoodlh » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 2:29 PM UTC

I recently started my own Mastodon instance for myself in this same train of thought. I noticed that one of my toxic traits was reaching out to people too often about things I found interesting. Expressing my own interests on my own Mastodon instance — even if nobody is looking at it — has been amazing for me to be more self-sufficient emotionally when it comes to my interests. It’s almost like a tech diary for me at this point.

Similar to parent, I find tremendous value in making myself my target audience.

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#216

Post by _akhe » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 2:48 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #65

I haven’t studied the topic enough, but it would be very interesting to see when this dichotomy of money-making vs. self-interest really embedded itself into the act of creation. Somewhere during the Industrial Revolution, I suppose. But I also think the default mode of “art as self expression” plays a big part, and that’s more early-mid 20th century. Because when you read about creators during say, the Renaissance,…

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” ― L.P. Jacks

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#217

Post by vinceguidry » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 2:50 PM UTC

mapreduce wrote: post #110

Why is it so that every so often one of these feel-good LinkedIn-style posts make it to the front page? Is there so much demand for banality on this site? I come here to read good tech articles or articles that stimulate my curiosity and it is sad to see these articles upvoted to the top when so many other good articles at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest continue to languish.

It's good advice, pointing out a very hard-to-grasp aspect of human nature.

Here's a question for you. Why, if /newest is meeting your needs, did you feel the need to make this comment, hoping to adjust HN's sorting behavior for the front page?

You, and everyone who upvoted this to make this the top comment on this post, are making the exact same mistake pointed out by the linked article.

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#218

Post by rsanek » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 3:05 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #208

Springtime wrote: post #115

> Anything you do or create will probably receive little to no attention, so stop optimizing for a non-existent audience [...] The most egregious thing you can do with any activity is daydream about how you can make money off of it [...] In the end, find something you enjoy doing and just do it because you enjoy it. I don't understand the equivalence the author is ultimately making in suggesting that creating somethi…

The danger with wanting to polish things before putting them out into the world, is often you never share anything because it's never "done". And you may be polishing something in the wrong direction, which you would know if you put the unpolished version out into the world to get feedback.

i don't think that's an argument the article is putting forth though. its whole point is that nobody is going to see / care about your stuff regardless of polish, so you wouldn't be getting any feedback either way.

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#219

Post by Towaway69 » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 3:09 PM UTC

mapreduce wrote: post #110

Why is it so that every so often one of these feel-good LinkedIn-style posts make it to the front page? Is there so much demand for banality on this site? I come here to read good tech articles or articles that stimulate my curiosity and it is sad to see these articles upvoted to the top when so many other good articles at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest continue to languish.

Why is this the top comment (at time of writing)? It makes no reference to the actual content, just complaining that the article was on the frontpage.

I personally enjoyed reading the sentiment of the article and don't mind it being on the frontpage. But I would never think of writing a comment complaining that the article wasn't on the frontpage.

Why should the frontpage content only make you happy? This made me happy, so I was glad it was on the frontpage.

I guess the comment could also be juxtaposition on the headline: stop acting like you're famous.

Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous

#220

Post by _akhe » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

Gualdrapo wrote: post #7

peddling-brink wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I read “personal style” was, don’t make it your whole personality. And making things look good is in the eye of the beholder. If you like design and want to make pretty things, do that and don’t worry about the criticism. For me, pretty is my code, I couldn’t care less about the UX because I’m the only user.

But the second you want to make things for anyone else is when UI/UX matters. Some people (and many people on HN) take graphic design for granted, but it's the first thing they seem about your product. It matters. Your app can work flawlessly but nobody will use it if the text has poor contrast or the buttons are comically small, for example.

Design and branding matter a lot more than people realize. Not just in terms of appeal - it sets the stage for everything that follows.

Half the social media apps are the same thing: Feed, like, block people, follow, post (with image/video, etc.), hash tags, etc. but the slightest difference in design and branding sets forth a different content platform.

UI/UX isn't just aesthetics, it's utility and a huge part of what the thing is.