6 ms·

Are Zettelkasten the latest Hipster fad? A fortnight or so ago, I saw a link on HN mentioning 'Zettelkasten' and had to look up the word, because I'd never hea

Are Zettelkasten the latest Hipster fad? A fortnight or so ago, I saw a link on HN mentioning 'Zettelkasten' and had to look up the word, because I'd never heard it before. Since then, there must have been a Zettelkasten reference at least every other day.

Lucent 6y ago
Feels more like viral marketing for Roam than anything.
- theon144 6y ago
  Honestly I'm just glad that "Zettelkasten" as a concept is getting more exposure and it's being called what it is, instead of getting eaten up as "a part of Roam". The literal cult surrounding it certainly doesn't make it easy.
raindropm 6y ago
Part of it because there is new hot notetaking/KM app called Obsidian, post on Show HN* about a week ago and people seems super interested. Also posted a just little while further back was another service called Roam which similar in principle. *(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598)
slightwinder 6y ago
It's not really new, but finally the years of spreading the cargo-cult is paying. There is now roam, a new fancy tool which does nothing new, but spreads hard with the new generation and connects well with the zettelkasten-terms. And there recently was was a book about smart notetaking, which sold somewhat well with people who seek some solution but don't know much about this space.
metasyn 6y ago
I got interested in building one about 6 months ago after finding Devine Lu Linvega's memex: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/home.html https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/home.html
raxxorrax 6y ago
Tagged info can already constitute a Zettelkasten, since relations exist on matching tags. A wiki is much more advanced and a superset of Zettelkasten functionality. In light of the "graph"-craze I could imagine that we will hear more of it. That said, it can be helpful for sourcing all kinds of stuff, but still think it is a hipster fad. edit: some dictionaries suggest that "outliner" is a fitting translation. I don't think that is true due to the hierarchy outliners seem to require.
type0 6y ago
Off course, there's even a Zettelkasten markdown notebook (Electron based) called Zettlr https://www.zettlr.com/ https://www.zettlr.com/
frogpelt 6y ago
You may have experienced the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. https://www.google.com/search?&q=baader+meinhof+phenomenon https://www.google.com/search?&q=baader+meinhof+phenomenon
- jldugger 6y ago
  https://hn.algolia.com/?q=zettelkasten https://hn.algolia.com/?q=zettelkasten suggests the vast majority of posts are recent, and the older ones received far less traction.
klysm 6y ago
Certainly a fad I think partly due to the book “How to Take Smart Notes”. Personally I think it’s a very well thought out argument about why this particular note taking system works and why it might work for you. But as the author says, it is meant for academics, particular those in the humanities although it doesn’t state that explicitly. I believe this kind of work doesn’t share a lot of commonality with the research that readers of HN would do - although it is a very effective tool for some stuff we do. I think if you’re gonna read it, don’t take it as “the one true way” to take notes. Take what you like and do what works for you.
- fsloth 6y ago
  "I believe this kind of work doesn’t share a lot of commonality with the research that readers of HN would do - although it is a very effective tool for some stuff we do." I'm not sure what your expectations of the "normal" HN reader are but lots of people engage in stuff like creative writing, essays, general research to esoteric topics and so on. For example I have a notebook I constantly scribble on. I've moved a portion of that scribbling to a zettlekasteln like system to a great benefit - although I just use text files and in a simple onedrive directory structure.
erikig 6y ago
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or Frequency Illusion is the phenomenon where something you recently learned suddenly appears everywhere
- c3534l 6y ago
  Sure, but there's also culture and things go in and out of fashion and ideas go varying level of viral, too. I have certainly seen a post become popular and decide that an essay I read which has some passing similarity might likewise be too. So I post it, and someone links it on Facebook, and we run in similar internet circles and it hits you twice in different ways.
- ramblerman 6y ago
  To some extent that applies. In this case a strange new word like Zettelkasten also caused me to look it up the first time i saw it. Which was sometime this year. I.e. had it been appearing everywhere before, I would have looked it up earlier.
- Normille 6y ago
  I stand [partially] corrected. Searching through the archives, I find the term first appeared on HN 4 years ago, with a few mentions a year, ever since. But there's definitely been a cluster of mentions over the past month or so: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=zettelkasten&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- codingdave 6y ago
  That is certainly a thing. But on HN, we really do have topical trends. When an article gets popular, and piques our interest, people keep researching it. And finding related topics and articles, and those also get posted. We also see it impact the "Show HN" posts - before coronacrisis, we were seeing so many curated job postings sites that it got to be a bit of a joke. Just in the last couple week, we've see an uptick in blogging tools, and in the past couple days, an uptick in data gathering sites for police action. Trends do exist.
  - 6y ago

Lucent 6y ago

Feels more like viral marketing for Roam than anything.

theon144 6y ago
Honestly I'm just glad that "Zettelkasten" as a concept is getting more exposure and it's being called what it is, instead of getting eaten up as "a part of Roam". The literal cult surrounding it certainly doesn't make it easy.

raindropm 6y ago

Part of it because there is new hot notetaking/KM app called Obsidian, post on Show HN* about a week ago and people seems super interested. Also posted a just little while further back was another service called Roam which similar in principle. *(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598)

slightwinder 6y ago

It's not really new, but finally the years of spreading the cargo-cult is paying. There is now roam, a new fancy tool which does nothing new, but spreads hard with the new generation and connects well with the zettelkasten-terms. And there recently was was a book about smart notetaking, which sold somewhat well with people who seek some solution but don't know much about this space.

metasyn 6y ago

I got interested in building one about 6 months ago after finding Devine Lu Linvega's memex: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/home.html https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/home.html

raxxorrax 6y ago

Tagged info can already constitute a Zettelkasten, since relations exist on matching tags. A wiki is much more advanced and a superset of Zettelkasten functionality. In light of the "graph"-craze I could imagine that we will hear more of it. That said, it can be helpful for sourcing all kinds of stuff, but still think it is a hipster fad. edit: some dictionaries suggest that "outliner" is a fitting translation. I don't think that is true due to the hierarchy outliners seem to require.

type0 6y ago

Off course, there's even a Zettelkasten markdown notebook (Electron based) called Zettlr https://www.zettlr.com/ https://www.zettlr.com/

frogpelt 6y ago

You may have experienced the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. https://www.google.com/search?&q=baader+meinhof+phenomenon https://www.google.com/search?&q=baader+meinhof+phenomenon

jldugger 6y ago
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=zettelkasten https://hn.algolia.com/?q=zettelkasten suggests the vast majority of posts are recent, and the older ones received far less traction.

klysm 6y ago

Certainly a fad I think partly due to the book “How to Take Smart Notes”. Personally I think it’s a very well thought out argument about why this particular note taking system works and why it might work for you. But as the author says, it is meant for academics, particular those in the humanities although it doesn’t state that explicitly. I believe this kind of work doesn’t share a lot of commonality with the research that readers of HN would do - although it is a very effective tool for some stuff we do. I think if you’re gonna read it, don’t take it as “the one true way” to take notes. Take what you like and do what works for you.

fsloth 6y ago
"I believe this kind of work doesn’t share a lot of commonality with the research that readers of HN would do - although it is a very effective tool for some stuff we do." I'm not sure what your expectations of the "normal" HN reader are but lots of people engage in stuff like creative writing, essays, general research to esoteric topics and so on. For example I have a notebook I constantly scribble on. I've moved a portion of that scribbling to a zettlekasteln like system to a great benefit - although I just use text files and in a simple onedrive directory structure.

erikig 6y ago

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or Frequency Illusion is the phenomenon where something you recently learned suddenly appears everywhere

c3534l 6y ago
Sure, but there's also culture and things go in and out of fashion and ideas go varying level of viral, too. I have certainly seen a post become popular and decide that an essay I read which has some passing similarity might likewise be too. So I post it, and someone links it on Facebook, and we run in similar internet circles and it hits you twice in different ways.
ramblerman 6y ago
To some extent that applies. In this case a strange new word like Zettelkasten also caused me to look it up the first time i saw it. Which was sometime this year. I.e. had it been appearing everywhere before, I would have looked it up earlier.
Normille 6y ago
I stand [partially] corrected. Searching through the archives, I find the term first appeared on HN 4 years ago, with a few mentions a year, ever since. But there's definitely been a cluster of mentions over the past month or so: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=zettelkasten&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
codingdave 6y ago
That is certainly a thing. But on HN, we really do have topical trends. When an article gets popular, and piques our interest, people keep researching it. And finding related topics and articles, and those also get posted. We also see it impact the "Show HN" posts - before coronacrisis, we were seeing so many curated job postings sites that it got to be a bit of a joke. Just in the last couple week, we've see an uptick in blogging tools, and in the past couple days, an uptick in data gathering sites for police action. Trends do exist.
- 6y ago