For me personally (sharing the sentiment), it's the fact that I'd never before heard of the guy, yet used to (it's gotten a lot better) see HN get bombarded wit

For me personally (sharing the sentiment), it's the fact that I'd never before heard of the guy, yet used to (it's gotten a lot better) see HN get bombarded with stories that mention his name in the title (much more often than any other name). Normally, I'd think that he personally had all those stories posted for vanity, but most of them were not exactly flattering. My next best explanation is that it was intended to build brand recognition for his name. Well, it worked: I recognized the name when I recently saw him on in TV playing Poker...