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This is the kind of thing that one may get shamed for calling garbage, but it seems like he is just trying to make a clone of Humans of New York and make money

This is the kind of thing that one may get shamed for calling garbage, but it seems like he is just trying to make a clone of Humans of New York and make money by hiding ads in what’s supposed to be heartwarming human stories. Yes, this post and his brand is full of “humble” values and what not. He may be genuine, but I don’t think it’s praiseworthy. It feels like a tool for virtue signaling.

skybrian 7y ago
And why shouldn't more people try to do what Humans of New York does? If that's what he's trying to do, I'm for it. Originality is overrated, and even so, I'd expect someone attempting this to find their own way of doing things.
omosubi 7y ago
While I agree that it has a strong HONY feel and that monetizing the project via Instagram or corporate sponsorship cheapens it, I wouldn't call it virtue signaling by any means. He's dedicating 10 or 15 years of his life to the project. I think he would give up pretty quickly if it was all a tool to just say "I'm more woke than you". While he obviously comes from a privileged background, at least he's not just becoming a corporate clone like so many of us, myself included. Props to him for that
tasty_freeze 7y ago
Calling it virtue signaling is a cheap way to dismiss something. Virtue signaling is when a person trumpets their moral stance without a willingness to make any significant investment in it. This guy investing 10,000 hours into the project disqualifies it from that moniker.
- criddell 7y ago
  So people who buy a Prius are never virtue signalling?
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    Conversely, are people who buy a Prius always virtue signaling? Perhaps the appellation is an empty way to dismiss someone without engaging them?
    - criddell 7y ago
      > are people who buy a Prius always virtue signaling? Of course not. I was simply responding to the idea that a significant investment is all it takes to counter the claim that some activity is virtue signaling.
      - romwell 7y ago
        "Significant" is a relative term. Buying a Prius vs. buying a non-Prius is hardly a significant investment for people who make that choice. I guess the more proper word here would be sacrifice, something you never get back.
    - b_tterc_p 7y ago
      I meant to imply the consumers of his stuff were most likely virtue signaling. Not he himself. Your phrasing implies that dismissing someone without engaging someone is a bad thing. On the contrary it’s recognizing that most people’s opinions are based on nothing but their sense of community identity and aren’t worth engaging at all.
  - matt-attack 7y ago
    There’s no incremental cost to choosing a Prius. So yes they can easily be signaling. They have to have a car so you can’t the case that “they spent $30k so they must be authentic”.
    - tasty_freeze 7y ago
      I'm 3 days late to respond to this because I was out of action for a few days. For the great majority of people $30,000 is a non-trivial investment, one they must live with for years. Other than buying a house or having children, it is the most expensive thing most people will buy. (ignore the exact dollar figures below .. I'm not car literate, but hopefully you'll get the idea). Say someone bought a Mazda Miata, did the paperwork, and the dealer then sent them home in a Prius. What are the odds they would shrug and say, "Oh, ok, one $30K car is the same as any other $30K car." Zero. If the had wanted a Prius he would have bought the Prius, but he valued the Miata higher. In your scenario, the Prius buyer really wanted a different car, but was willing to buy the Prius because they wanted the world to think they were green. Fine ... but then they gave up something of value to make the statement: they will not to get to drive the car they really desired. Is it really so impossible to imagine that someone would truly prefer to buy a Prius on its merits and not because it is making a statement?
rolltiide 7y ago
so much cognitive dissonance here I'm not even sure where to start I don't understand your problem with people doing something tedious, somewhat interesting, that they might actually enjoy, that others might actually enjoy, and attempting to monetize it. Maybe the sponsorship works to make it worthwhile, maybe it doesn't, who cares?
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  I think this guy is making content that is easy to praise but in reality not very interesting- and has (hidden?) sponsor ads to boot. I think it’s pretty gross to read something to learn of a strangers life and be told to buy WeWork services as a casual FYI. But I don’t care what he does. It was just a comment. You’ve made several that imply I care a lot, which makes me seem unreasonable. If that was unintentional, please don’t do that. If that was intentional then go suck a different lemon, because I’m really not that bitter about this.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    Its not necessarily you, your post attracted others in this thread that do care more and there isn't a good way to address them all except replying at this level. I think its completely benign. I would be a little annoyed if the stranger’s life was a fake feel good story like the ones seen on Linkedin these days, but even then I would just accept the entertainment for what it is: entertainment. Ad supported entertainment.
peg_leg 7y ago
It's America. In the immortal words of Dr. Detroit: ALL FOR SALE
ska 7y ago
> It feels like a tool for virtue signaling. It's this sort of broad usage that makes me feel "virtue signaling" doesn't have any descriptive value any more.
throwaway66666 7y ago
I agree with your statement (not with the virtue signaling part, but I will ignore it for now). To me, it reminds me like one of those "I gave $100 to a stranger" youtube videos. That end up making $10k from views. There is nothing wrong with giving $100 to a person in need, while looking all smug and dressed up, and then... the world congratulates you by giving you a lot more than you gave. Rather than... I don't know, donate the $10k to several people in need to begin with? There is a disgusting fakeness associated with all of these things. A pretense of "Look at me! We are the good guys", while we are filthy narcissistic greedy people under the skin instead. Using somebody else's misery to feed our messiah complex. Or like those shitty "SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS", will people enjoy being around a hot mom breastfeed in public, but look down on a non-attractive mom breastfeeding in public? Facebook is littered with crap, staged, cheap money-grab, "experiments" like this. It's like, an action that is acted on seemingly selflessly but contains hidden catches and motives. It's not bad... just.. icky. I call this the Valentines-day-complex. It pretends to be a celebration of love, but under the hood it's all about chocolates and flowers and spending. It doesn't have to be about spending... but about spending it will be! Pass.
- codyb 7y ago
  If you haven’t made the 10k dollars with the video you may not have it to donate. In the end a person in need ended up with a hundred extra bucks, I’m hard pressed to think of negatively really. Ideally we’d root out the societal issues which leave so many people outside in our nation’s big cities.

skybrian 7y ago

And why shouldn't more people try to do what Humans of New York does? If that's what he's trying to do, I'm for it. Originality is overrated, and even so, I'd expect someone attempting this to find their own way of doing things.

omosubi 7y ago

While I agree that it has a strong HONY feel and that monetizing the project via Instagram or corporate sponsorship cheapens it, I wouldn't call it virtue signaling by any means. He's dedicating 10 or 15 years of his life to the project. I think he would give up pretty quickly if it was all a tool to just say "I'm more woke than you". While he obviously comes from a privileged background, at least he's not just becoming a corporate clone like so many of us, myself included. Props to him for that

tasty_freeze 7y ago

Calling it virtue signaling is a cheap way to dismiss something. Virtue signaling is when a person trumpets their moral stance without a willingness to make any significant investment in it. This guy investing 10,000 hours into the project disqualifies it from that moniker.

criddell 7y ago
So people who buy a Prius are never virtue signalling?
- pwinnski 7y ago
  Conversely, are people who buy a Prius always virtue signaling? Perhaps the appellation is an empty way to dismiss someone without engaging them?
  - criddell 7y ago
    > are people who buy a Prius always virtue signaling? Of course not. I was simply responding to the idea that a significant investment is all it takes to counter the claim that some activity is virtue signaling.
    - romwell 7y ago
      "Significant" is a relative term. Buying a Prius vs. buying a non-Prius is hardly a significant investment for people who make that choice. I guess the more proper word here would be sacrifice, something you never get back.
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    I meant to imply the consumers of his stuff were most likely virtue signaling. Not he himself. Your phrasing implies that dismissing someone without engaging someone is a bad thing. On the contrary it’s recognizing that most people’s opinions are based on nothing but their sense of community identity and aren’t worth engaging at all.
- matt-attack 7y ago
  There’s no incremental cost to choosing a Prius. So yes they can easily be signaling. They have to have a car so you can’t the case that “they spent $30k so they must be authentic”.
  - tasty_freeze 7y ago
    I'm 3 days late to respond to this because I was out of action for a few days. For the great majority of people $30,000 is a non-trivial investment, one they must live with for years. Other than buying a house or having children, it is the most expensive thing most people will buy. (ignore the exact dollar figures below .. I'm not car literate, but hopefully you'll get the idea). Say someone bought a Mazda Miata, did the paperwork, and the dealer then sent them home in a Prius. What are the odds they would shrug and say, "Oh, ok, one $30K car is the same as any other $30K car." Zero. If the had wanted a Prius he would have bought the Prius, but he valued the Miata higher. In your scenario, the Prius buyer really wanted a different car, but was willing to buy the Prius because they wanted the world to think they were green. Fine ... but then they gave up something of value to make the statement: they will not to get to drive the car they really desired. Is it really so impossible to imagine that someone would truly prefer to buy a Prius on its merits and not because it is making a statement?

rolltiide 7y ago

so much cognitive dissonance here I'm not even sure where to start I don't understand your problem with people doing something tedious, somewhat interesting, that they might actually enjoy, that others might actually enjoy, and attempting to monetize it. Maybe the sponsorship works to make it worthwhile, maybe it doesn't, who cares?

b_tterc_p 7y ago
I think this guy is making content that is easy to praise but in reality not very interesting- and has (hidden?) sponsor ads to boot. I think it’s pretty gross to read something to learn of a strangers life and be told to buy WeWork services as a casual FYI. But I don’t care what he does. It was just a comment. You’ve made several that imply I care a lot, which makes me seem unreasonable. If that was unintentional, please don’t do that. If that was intentional then go suck a different lemon, because I’m really not that bitter about this.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  Its not necessarily you, your post attracted others in this thread that do care more and there isn't a good way to address them all except replying at this level. I think its completely benign. I would be a little annoyed if the stranger’s life was a fake feel good story like the ones seen on Linkedin these days, but even then I would just accept the entertainment for what it is: entertainment. Ad supported entertainment.

peg_leg 7y ago

It's America. In the immortal words of Dr. Detroit: ALL FOR SALE

ska 7y ago

> It feels like a tool for virtue signaling. It's this sort of broad usage that makes me feel "virtue signaling" doesn't have any descriptive value any more.

throwaway66666 7y ago

I agree with your statement (not with the virtue signaling part, but I will ignore it for now). To me, it reminds me like one of those "I gave $100 to a stranger" youtube videos. That end up making $10k from views. There is nothing wrong with giving $100 to a person in need, while looking all smug and dressed up, and then... the world congratulates you by giving you a lot more than you gave. Rather than... I don't know, donate the $10k to several people in need to begin with? There is a disgusting fakeness associated with all of these things. A pretense of "Look at me! We are the good guys", while we are filthy narcissistic greedy people under the skin instead. Using somebody else's misery to feed our messiah complex. Or like those shitty "SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS", will people enjoy being around a hot mom breastfeed in public, but look down on a non-attractive mom breastfeeding in public? Facebook is littered with crap, staged, cheap money-grab, "experiments" like this. It's like, an action that is acted on seemingly selflessly but contains hidden catches and motives. It's not bad... just.. icky. I call this the Valentines-day-complex. It pretends to be a celebration of love, but under the hood it's all about chocolates and flowers and spending. It doesn't have to be about spending... but about spending it will be! Pass.

codyb 7y ago
If you haven’t made the 10k dollars with the video you may not have it to donate. In the end a person in need ended up with a hundred extra bucks, I’m hard pressed to think of negatively really. Ideally we’d root out the societal issues which leave so many people outside in our nation’s big cities.