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> When you, the student writer, understand that nobody wants to read your shit, you develop empathy. That's a bold claim. I'd argue part of the reason that no

> When you, the student writer, understand that nobody wants to read your shit, you develop empathy. That's a bold claim. I'd argue part of the reason that no one likes advertising is that the writers, by and large, don't have empathy with my feelings, they are trying to force the issue. Clickbait headlines, for example, attract me...and if the article behind it does not fulfill the headline (which it so often does not), I'm ticked off. I don't feel empathized with, I feel used, cheated, thwarted. I can easily rattle off other, similar examples, but the end result is the same: Empathy would be great, but empathy is not necessarily what the "student writer" learns. And if your writing is trying to get around my feelings rather than fulfilling them, you are left with an unhappy user.

mark-r 8y ago
Then that's a failure of the clickbait author to apply the principle beyond the headline. Certainly there's an epidemic of that, but it doesn't mean the advice is unsound.
- ergothus 8y ago
  I didn't comment on the advice, I commented on the conclusion the author made that learning that people are uninterested in your material leads to empathy. It'd be great if it did, but that's hardly a given.
  - mark-r 8y ago
    The author was extrapolating their own experience which did lead to empathy, conjecturing that anybody else going through the same process will have the same insight. I think the implication is that to be a success at advertising the empathy is a necessary skill, and you will either pick it up or wash out. Certainly there are other paths to writing that would not lead to the same insight.
ben509 8y ago
I think people assume empathy is a positive thing. It's less of a benevolent feeling towards someone else and more of a skill, of how you learn someone else's perspective and internalize it to imagine how they feel. You can use that to positive effect to understand how to collaborate or help them work through pain. But you can also use that to negative effect, as click-bait authors, con-artists and interrogators demonstrate.

mark-r 8y ago

Then that's a failure of the clickbait author to apply the principle beyond the headline. Certainly there's an epidemic of that, but it doesn't mean the advice is unsound.

ergothus 8y ago
I didn't comment on the advice, I commented on the conclusion the author made that learning that people are uninterested in your material leads to empathy. It'd be great if it did, but that's hardly a given.
- mark-r 8y ago
  The author was extrapolating their own experience which did lead to empathy, conjecturing that anybody else going through the same process will have the same insight. I think the implication is that to be a success at advertising the empathy is a necessary skill, and you will either pick it up or wash out. Certainly there are other paths to writing that would not lead to the same insight.

ben509 8y ago

I think people assume empathy is a positive thing. It's less of a benevolent feeling towards someone else and more of a skill, of how you learn someone else's perspective and internalize it to imagine how they feel. You can use that to positive effect to understand how to collaborate or help them work through pain. But you can also use that to negative effect, as click-bait authors, con-artists and interrogators demonstrate.