3 ms·

Fake Steve is a troll, and a bad one at that. His posts are childish, but that's not the real problem with them. They consistently lack any real insight. Any ex

Fake Steve is a troll, and a bad one at that. His posts are childish, but that's not the real problem with them. They consistently lack any real insight. Any exposure he receives is just due to his immature writing. Can we now accept that he only got people's attention using classic trolling techniques and go back to ignoring him?

allenbrunson 19y ago
he uses some troll-like techniques, to be sure, but i still enjoy the writing, most of the time. he's been able to get at the truth from an oblique angle that nobody else has tried before. fake steve has real admiration for the real steve, which pokes through sometimes.
neilc 19y ago
I don't think FSJ "consistently lacks any real insight": http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-of-ideas.html http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-... http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-writers-strike-cracks-me-up.html http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-writers-strike-cr... Are both quite insightful, I think. Most of the time he's just going for a laugh, but there are often quite observant commentaries on the industry.
- procrastitron 19y ago
  Hm... you're right. Those are very insightful. Unfortunately, the two examples you came up with are 3 months apart, and fake steve posts new blog entries all the time. My experience has been that every time I see a link to one of his posts, and I read it hoping that this time he'll impress me, I keep being disappointed. However, I notice that the two posts you point out are much more business related than technology related. Since the real fake steve is a business reporter, perhaps he shines when he's in his element and falls flat when he strays out of it.
  - raganwald 19y ago
    "Unfortunately, the two examples you came up with are 3 months apart, and fake steve posts new blog entries all the time." You don't like most of his posts, but it's also the case that most of his posts are not on the HN front page. And thus, we have the value proposition for Hacker News: instead of filtering based on the author, filter based on the votes here.
    - procrastitron 19y ago
      But then how do you explain the popularity of this post? It was completely vacuous, but is still at 13 points as I write this.
      - raganwald 19y ago
        It's all statistics. My suggestion is that HN is supposed to be a better filter than just ignoring bloggers who infrequently post good things. And this off to a long digression about the opportunity cost of reading the bad articles vs. the benefit of reading the good ones and on and on... But yeah, it's not perfect. If anything, if there were no articles you disliked on the front page, then HN would probably be too conservative a filter.
      - bct 19y ago
        It involves Paul Graham.
mhartl 19y ago
You're missing the genius of it: Fake Steve Jobs is a fake troll. That's what makes him so funny.
- procrastitron 19y ago
  I understand that, and appreciate it if it's done well, but it doesn't stand on its own. Trolls are like lies, the best ones have a hint of truth to them. Most of Fake Steve's posts that I have read miss that crucial element.
admanrs 19y ago
id say fake steve is sort of a blog version of the daily show / colbert report for tech news. its ridiculous and cynical, but sometimes very true. however, this particular story is just silly fluff. thought news.yc might get a kick out of it though

allenbrunson 19y ago

he uses some troll-like techniques, to be sure, but i still enjoy the writing, most of the time. he's been able to get at the truth from an oblique angle that nobody else has tried before. fake steve has real admiration for the real steve, which pokes through sometimes.

neilc 19y ago

I don't think FSJ "consistently lacks any real insight": http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-of-ideas.html http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-... http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-writers-strike-cracks-me-up.html http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-writers-strike-cr... Are both quite insightful, I think. Most of the time he's just going for a laugh, but there are often quite observant commentaries on the industry.

procrastitron 19y ago
Hm... you're right. Those are very insightful. Unfortunately, the two examples you came up with are 3 months apart, and fake steve posts new blog entries all the time. My experience has been that every time I see a link to one of his posts, and I read it hoping that this time he'll impress me, I keep being disappointed. However, I notice that the two posts you point out are much more business related than technology related. Since the real fake steve is a business reporter, perhaps he shines when he's in his element and falls flat when he strays out of it.
- raganwald 19y ago
  "Unfortunately, the two examples you came up with are 3 months apart, and fake steve posts new blog entries all the time." You don't like most of his posts, but it's also the case that most of his posts are not on the HN front page. And thus, we have the value proposition for Hacker News: instead of filtering based on the author, filter based on the votes here.
  - procrastitron 19y ago
    But then how do you explain the popularity of this post? It was completely vacuous, but is still at 13 points as I write this.
    - raganwald 19y ago
      It's all statistics. My suggestion is that HN is supposed to be a better filter than just ignoring bloggers who infrequently post good things. And this off to a long digression about the opportunity cost of reading the bad articles vs. the benefit of reading the good ones and on and on... But yeah, it's not perfect. If anything, if there were no articles you disliked on the front page, then HN would probably be too conservative a filter.
    - bct 19y ago
      It involves Paul Graham.

mhartl 19y ago

You're missing the genius of it: Fake Steve Jobs is a fake troll. That's what makes him so funny.

procrastitron 19y ago
I understand that, and appreciate it if it's done well, but it doesn't stand on its own. Trolls are like lies, the best ones have a hint of truth to them. Most of Fake Steve's posts that I have read miss that crucial element.

admanrs 19y ago

id say fake steve is sort of a blog version of the daily show / colbert report for tech news. its ridiculous and cynical, but sometimes very true. however, this particular story is just silly fluff. thought news.yc might get a kick out of it though