5 ms·

This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make c

This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make conclusions about their life views based on their jargon: "I think what they're saying is you just need to form a single value store and react to it, dividing life into small composable micro components that are DRY. We can really comprehend how this minimalism impacts engineers..." Language like WSB uses is meant to frustrate outsiders and limit posers. It makes it hard for the media to reprint things that are said, and even if it does, it would be nonsense. That's intentional. And yes, there's double meanings and jokes to some of this language. Many WSB'ers comprehend the gambling-esque nature of what they do, and how many of their strategies aren't traditionally recommended.

curiousllama 6y ago
“Computers are haunted never go near them” - every SWE I know
- arcticbull 6y ago
  https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks is a wonderfully funny essay on the topic.
- vsareto 6y ago
  The alternate title to Ghost in the Shell
nostromo 6y ago
This comment reads like a "they're really playing 4-dimensional chess" moment. There are definitely some smart people on wsb, but I very much doubt the use of silly language (like, say, calling bears "gay bears") is anything other than users being intentionally ridiculous and funny.
- brodouevencode 6y ago
  $420.69
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    Funding Secured!
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Stonks only go up. Why be a bear if stonks only go up? Makes no sense. [edit] to be clear, I'm parroting WSB.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    Buy, when the Fed is drunk and high.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  The language there is definitely used as a shibboleth, a stenograph, and a ward. Enough of the people there are knowledgeable enough to know 1) the types of automation that go into mining social media, and 2) how to communicate in a manner that maintains plausible deniability in the event of interest from authorities. Everyone else plays along so they can be part of the group.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    To me, chan language is linguistic evolution. Massively increase the mutation rate, provide instant fitness feedback, and run the simulation for a substantial amount of time. You're essentially selecting for the most mematic strains on the user population.
nabla9 6y ago
>Language like WSB uses is meant to frustrate outsiders and limit posers. This is true, but WSB is also fundamentally nihilistic. 4Chan started as teenage boys from middle class families saying bad things for and fun trolling for fun. "haha lol normies take it seriously" Typical teenage nihilism that is normally not very harmful. Then it gradually escalated into really hurting people and crazy people joining. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_All_Normies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_All_Normies
- mechEpleb 6y ago
  4chan is still mostly teenagers and 20-somethings from middle class families shitposting for fun
  - diveanon 6y ago
    Qanon disagrees. 4chan trolling nearly resulted in a coup, its reached a new level of seriousness.
    - dstola 6y ago
      >4chan trolling nearly resulted in a coup A few things: 1. It wasn't a coup, it was a protest to protest the unfair election and overall left wing bias. Same way BLM was to protest the unfairness of how black people are treated. 2. It was mostly organized on Facebook and the general "normie" web
      - zzleeper 6y ago
        unfair election? what exactly do you mean?
    - username90 6y ago
      A coup can't succeed without support from the military, the police or a majority of the population. A few hundred badly organized crazy people can't perform a coup, they can however perform acts of terrorism which is what they did. Crazy people sometimes kills high level politicians, there are many cases like that in history, doesn't mean it was a coup or it was even near succeeding.
fspeech 6y ago
I don't get how this hurts the elites or whoever else apathetic to the WSB crowds. Margin loans are collateralized. Wall street firms are making record trade profits (or at least much better than main street banks). Like lottery this can only hurt those who actually play the game.
whoknew1122 6y ago
Language like WSB uses is meant to amuse edgelords and (hopefully) upset 'normies'. When normies are offended by cavalier use of slurs and labels (and if you're offended, you're by definition a normie), the edgelords point and laugh at the normie who doesn't share their same nihilistic worldview. WSB is what happens when immature, nihilistic, overly online middle class boys grow up into immature, nihilistic, overly online men-children. The only thing that changed as they aged is now they have to hide their power level while in normie society.
- volkk 6y ago
  i think that's reductive and while it feels true, it probably isn't. it's the same logic with which i can say HN is a bunch of mostly male programmers who take themselves too seriously, think they are much smarter than everyone and probably mostly all share the same personality traits it's not quite true, and reducing a whole lot of people into one easy bucket dumbs all of the conversations down. IMO wsb is pretty riveting, and i would love to hear more nuanced takes on the sociology/mindset behind these types of communities, especially the legality when it comes to the market and what the future holds. at what point will WSB become illegal in the way that it moves stocks around? etc.
- buryat 6y ago
  WSB is more about laughing at themselves rather than trying to amuse or offend someone. WSB doesn’t care much about so called “normies”, they have never attacked anyone outside of wsb and labels don’t spread outside of wsb either. WSB never had nihilistic worldview, there’s plenty of people supporting each other, there’s regular donations to charities, and etc. WSB is just a tongue-in-cheek ridicule of the finance world, that’s it. Attempts to see some specific class of people lurking there is just not true at all and mostly people project their views on the finance world onto WSB as well while it’s a completely different thing.
  - bathtub365 6y ago
    They’re engaging in blatant market manipulation. I’d say that harms people outside their group.
dkarl 6y ago
There are a lot of statements in these subcultures that can't be definitively pinned down as ironic or not ironic. For example, calling software "broken" started as a gross oversimplification that drew attention to itself as a gross oversimplification. It could be used when you wanted to gloss over complex questions of what the software is good for and what you need it to do, while at the same time, to avoid lying by omission, drawing attention to what you were omitting. But then people started calling software "broken" to express, "My gut feeling is that this software sucks, and I think it would be a waste of time for me to question or attempt to substantiate this feeling," and they felt validated in that attitude because there was a perfect means for expressing it in the programming lexicon. Now when I hear someone say "broken," it doesn't have the reassuring subtext of "I know this is a gross oversimplification, and I'm open to providing more detail about my reasoning." It might mean the opposite. (Or it might mean, "I'm making outrageous statements because I know I'm right, and I would relish the opportunity to bully anyone who questions me.") Similarly, one person might say "everybody hates me, and I can't blame them because I'm worthless" in a deliberately ironic way, to express an emotion and at the same time signal their awareness that what they believe under the influence of that emotion is not true (since their mom is bringing them tendies in the basement.) The next person might say the same thing with no intended irony.
PascLeRasc 6y ago
The Bogleheads forum uses its own form of language to gatekeep too. I’ve found it so much more smug and closed-minded than WSB.
ACow_Adonis 6y ago
if anything, I think WSB shows off the hacker humour pattern: "haha, only serious". that's also an element of internet troll evil clown: "oh, you didn't really think that I meant that!"

curiousllama 6y ago

“Computers are haunted never go near them” - every SWE I know

arcticbull 6y ago
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks is a wonderfully funny essay on the topic.
vsareto 6y ago
The alternate title to Ghost in the Shell

nostromo 6y ago

This comment reads like a "they're really playing 4-dimensional chess" moment. There are definitely some smart people on wsb, but I very much doubt the use of silly language (like, say, calling bears "gay bears") is anything other than users being intentionally ridiculous and funny.

brodouevencode 6y ago
$420.69
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  Funding Secured!
arcticbull 6y ago
Stonks only go up. Why be a bear if stonks only go up? Makes no sense. [edit] to be clear, I'm parroting WSB.
- blackrock 6y ago
  Buy, when the Fed is drunk and high.
mywittyname 6y ago
The language there is definitely used as a shibboleth, a stenograph, and a ward. Enough of the people there are knowledgeable enough to know 1) the types of automation that go into mining social media, and 2) how to communicate in a manner that maintains plausible deniability in the event of interest from authorities. Everyone else plays along so they can be part of the group.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  To me, chan language is linguistic evolution. Massively increase the mutation rate, provide instant fitness feedback, and run the simulation for a substantial amount of time. You're essentially selecting for the most mematic strains on the user population.

nabla9 6y ago

>Language like WSB uses is meant to frustrate outsiders and limit posers. This is true, but WSB is also fundamentally nihilistic. 4Chan started as teenage boys from middle class families saying bad things for and fun trolling for fun. "haha lol normies take it seriously" Typical teenage nihilism that is normally not very harmful. Then it gradually escalated into really hurting people and crazy people joining. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_All_Normies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_All_Normies

mechEpleb 6y ago
4chan is still mostly teenagers and 20-somethings from middle class families shitposting for fun
- diveanon 6y ago
  Qanon disagrees. 4chan trolling nearly resulted in a coup, its reached a new level of seriousness.
  - dstola 6y ago
    >4chan trolling nearly resulted in a coup A few things: 1. It wasn't a coup, it was a protest to protest the unfair election and overall left wing bias. Same way BLM was to protest the unfairness of how black people are treated. 2. It was mostly organized on Facebook and the general "normie" web
    - zzleeper 6y ago
      unfair election? what exactly do you mean?
  - username90 6y ago
    A coup can't succeed without support from the military, the police or a majority of the population. A few hundred badly organized crazy people can't perform a coup, they can however perform acts of terrorism which is what they did. Crazy people sometimes kills high level politicians, there are many cases like that in history, doesn't mean it was a coup or it was even near succeeding.

fspeech 6y ago

I don't get how this hurts the elites or whoever else apathetic to the WSB crowds. Margin loans are collateralized. Wall street firms are making record trade profits (or at least much better than main street banks). Like lottery this can only hurt those who actually play the game.

whoknew1122 6y ago

Language like WSB uses is meant to amuse edgelords and (hopefully) upset 'normies'. When normies are offended by cavalier use of slurs and labels (and if you're offended, you're by definition a normie), the edgelords point and laugh at the normie who doesn't share their same nihilistic worldview. WSB is what happens when immature, nihilistic, overly online middle class boys grow up into immature, nihilistic, overly online men-children. The only thing that changed as they aged is now they have to hide their power level while in normie society.

volkk 6y ago
i think that's reductive and while it feels true, it probably isn't. it's the same logic with which i can say HN is a bunch of mostly male programmers who take themselves too seriously, think they are much smarter than everyone and probably mostly all share the same personality traits it's not quite true, and reducing a whole lot of people into one easy bucket dumbs all of the conversations down. IMO wsb is pretty riveting, and i would love to hear more nuanced takes on the sociology/mindset behind these types of communities, especially the legality when it comes to the market and what the future holds. at what point will WSB become illegal in the way that it moves stocks around? etc.
buryat 6y ago
WSB is more about laughing at themselves rather than trying to amuse or offend someone. WSB doesn’t care much about so called “normies”, they have never attacked anyone outside of wsb and labels don’t spread outside of wsb either. WSB never had nihilistic worldview, there’s plenty of people supporting each other, there’s regular donations to charities, and etc. WSB is just a tongue-in-cheek ridicule of the finance world, that’s it. Attempts to see some specific class of people lurking there is just not true at all and mostly people project their views on the finance world onto WSB as well while it’s a completely different thing.
- bathtub365 6y ago
  They’re engaging in blatant market manipulation. I’d say that harms people outside their group.

dkarl 6y ago

There are a lot of statements in these subcultures that can't be definitively pinned down as ironic or not ironic. For example, calling software "broken" started as a gross oversimplification that drew attention to itself as a gross oversimplification. It could be used when you wanted to gloss over complex questions of what the software is good for and what you need it to do, while at the same time, to avoid lying by omission, drawing attention to what you were omitting. But then people started calling software "broken" to express, "My gut feeling is that this software sucks, and I think it would be a waste of time for me to question or attempt to substantiate this feeling," and they felt validated in that attitude because there was a perfect means for expressing it in the programming lexicon. Now when I hear someone say "broken," it doesn't have the reassuring subtext of "I know this is a gross oversimplification, and I'm open to providing more detail about my reasoning." It might mean the opposite. (Or it might mean, "I'm making outrageous statements because I know I'm right, and I would relish the opportunity to bully anyone who questions me.") Similarly, one person might say "everybody hates me, and I can't blame them because I'm worthless" in a deliberately ironic way, to express an emotion and at the same time signal their awareness that what they believe under the influence of that emotion is not true (since their mom is bringing them tendies in the basement.) The next person might say the same thing with no intended irony.

PascLeRasc 6y ago

The Bogleheads forum uses its own form of language to gatekeep too. I’ve found it so much more smug and closed-minded than WSB.

ACow_Adonis 6y ago

if anything, I think WSB shows off the hacker humour pattern: "haha, only serious". that's also an element of internet troll evil clown: "oh, you didn't really think that I meant that!"