14 ms·
It's not what the world needs right now
- hamburglar1 2y agoThis is one of the best, funniest pieces of writing I have read in months - The utter detachment and cynicism displayed around this borderline Hunter S Thompson acid trip is breath of fresh air.
- scotty79 2y agoThe world needs room temperature superconductors, yet here we are.
- noobermin 2y agoWhat are you blaming him for? How is this one starving artist holding the world back from room temperature superconductors?
- antfarm 2y agoThe world needs less. Of everything.
- lukan 2y agoLess comments?
- geerlingguy 2y agoFewer.
- gabesullice 2y agoIndeed.
- antfarm 2y agoFewer snarky comments like yours maybe. I believe we won’t solve humanty’s pressing problems with more of the same. We need more love and understanding for sure.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lukan 2y agoWell, your comment literally said, "less of everything" " more love and understanding" Was not mentioned. So I am not sure how your first comment could help, to make the world a better place. "we won’t solve humanty’s pressinge problems with more of the same." And generic statements like these maybe neither. Because when people are hungry(many are), yes they need more food. More of the same. But your comment implies there are also maybe too many people anyway? So rather less food and then eventually less people? But still more of love and understanding? Or maybe it all just ain't that simple?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- antfarm 2y agoThe world needs room temperature superconductors, yet here we are. May I ask how room temperature superconductors make the world a better place or help fighting hunger? And what do room temperature superconductors have to do with art?
- scotty79 2y agoIf you include 100% less resistance in our conductors I might be in favor.
- bingbingbing777 2y agoWhat if some scientist has a breakthrough thought while reading this?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago[flagged]
- pkkim 2y agoI don't know, Caravaggio killed a guy. I wouldn't want to be friends with this guy but it seems like he's a typical artist. Better than having him where he can really hurt someone, anyway.
- Waterluvian 2y agoI was thinking that too. Better treading water in the art world than running amok as some tech CEO. (narcissists, that is)
- Zetobal 2y agoYikes.
- jack_riminton 2y agoI don’t think there’s a direct correlation between commercial and artistic value. But there has to come a point where people who create this kind of stuff realise they’re not Van Gogh. Top points for edginess though, I guess
- thorum 2y agoSomeone probably said the same thing to Van Gogh during his life.
- adamtaylor_13 2y agoJust because he beat the odds, doesn’t mean their advice was wrong.
- dclowd9901 2y agoTheir advice wasn’t wrong. He never enjoyed any of the success or fame he has now. Not even a fraction of it. The world was lucky to have Van Gogh, but Van Gogh was very unlucky to have this world.
- dentemple 2y agoNearly everyone said the same thing to Van Gogh during his life. He was only recognized for his artwork after his death.
- animal_spirits 2y agoThat’s not quite true. Yes people cared less about his art while he was alive, but that was because of his erratic behavior. There was no doubt that the people surrounding him found his art beautiful, especially In his later years when he was staying at the clinics
- jack_riminton 2y agoWell that was entirely my point, Van Gogh took a completely new approach to colour, use of light, painting en plein air etc. People never appreciated him but at least Van Gogh could say he’s doing something groundbreaking and new. Whereas the artist in question here, I can’t imagine they’ve ever legitimately thought that of their own art, it’s just not that groundbreaking or good. Maybe they just realise that they’re unemployable elsewhere so they may as well carry on
- simmerup 2y agoAn essay of ‘you don’t ask, you don’t get’
- CPLX 2y agoThis is excellent, worth reading all the way through. The fact that his character is completely insufferable is, of course, the point.
- codingdave 2y agoThe question I have not yet seen in the comments here is whether or not this post is real or fiction. Is it the journal of a questionable character, or a deliberate attempt to push people's buttons? And honestly, that is why I like it. I really hope it cannot be taken at face value - that would be disappointment.
- karaterobot 2y agoI don't see anything about a movie called Interlaken being developed. On IMDB, I do see an Andrew Norman Wilson as the director of the short films he mentions in the article. Who knows about the individual details in it. I'm sure it's sort of directionally true. It's believable at any rate.
- netsharc 2y agoInterlaken is a town in Switzerland, and he says the movie will be set there, not that it'll be the title.
- rightbyte 2y agoIt seems like some art student guy's journey leveling up from food coupon couch surfing to movie director. Dunno if real or not or what the point is. Feels like trolling to piss people off?
- api 2y agoIt was posted. It got attention. Someone may remember his name. Mission accomplished.
- NoboruWataya 2y agoKinda gives me Bukowski vibes, like if Hank Chinaski had gone to art school.
- tomcam 2y agoWhen I think Bukowski, I think a Pasadena residence punctuated by visits to the Queen Mary
- subjectsigma 2y ago> A gallerist who wants to work with me says she can’t add a white man to her roster. Pretty fucking disgusting that someone would openly say that to him.
- SoftTalker 2y agoI know a man who manages a theatre and he is pretty honest about how difficult it is to work in that market as a straight white man these days.
- always2slow 2y agoLOL - people have said shit like this to my face my whole life, including some CS admissions guy at CMU but he had the nerve to throw in a derogatory remark about ADD too. Just normal shit that happened in the 90's I guess.
- underlipton 2y agoAs a black man, I'd appreciate the lawsuit-opener over my reality, which is just people seeing my alma mater and name and pretending I don't exist.
- selimthegrim 2y agoIs it that they don’t think you’re qualified to have gotten in there or it’s an HBCU so they denigrate it?
- underlipton 2y agoHBCU. I don't think I've ever heard of an application being binned because a recruiter didn't think someone was qualified to get into the school they listed. (But, for the record, I WAS qualified; the HBCU gave me more money.)
- subjectsigma 2y agoThat would make me pretty mad as well. I'm sorry if that happens to you.
- crawfordcomeaux 2y agoImagine writing something with such honesty & the people reading don't stop to reflect on how this is just one facet of how the systems they prop up push people into operating to survive. They just judge the person, as though they live in a vacuum.
- badpun 2y agoDid the system somehow forced this man to avoid working for a living?
- sandspar 2y agoHe lives this way intentionally. He could get a job as a UX designer at Staples.com whenever he wants.
- pavlov 2y agoThere’s currently a surplus of designers with software industry experience, résumés full of business objectives achieved, and a finely honed ability to speak the soothing jargon of absolution that managers really want from UX. (“Yes, we can make users love this pop-up that you want to add. It’s just a matter of applying design.”) Why would a corporation deliberately hire a video artist and music video director instead?
- underlipton 2y agoTBF corporations don't know what's good for them. When XR was all the rage, it was current (2D) UX designers getting jobs, instead of the 3D artists, sculptors, game designers, animators, and industrial designers who actually had the skills to make compelling spatial interactions, smart objects, and experiences (which there was not a surplus of). Then, the hype collapsed, and they fired everyone who couldn't program, thereby making the issue incalculably worse.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- swatcoder 2y ago
- kouru225 2y ago“I ask a model what they would get paid for a shoot and propose $2,000 to Barney’s. They reject my proposal and offer a $1,000 gift card.” Probably asked a woman model not a male model. Women get double what men get for modeling.
- adwi 2y agoNot necessarily. Depends on the woman, depends on the man, and often on their reps. More likely because it was an advertorial, both for the brand and the “models”. Fun read.
- sandspar 2y agoIt's not a lifestyle I'd want to emulate. The author/character does seem to have some kind of moral code, at least. From my reading, it seems like he's OK with harming the "haves" but I didn't notice him harming any "have nots". I'd guess he's Chaotic Neutral alignment. From easydamus.com: "People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships... Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it."
- underlipton 2y agoThat's just... most people.
- xorvoid 2y agoYou don’t have to like the protagonist to enjoy the story. Who said the protagonist had to be the “good guy”. And he makes no claims to be.
- asdf6969 2y agoIf tech had people like this I might actually enjoy my job
- alecco 2y agoTech had people kinda like this in the 90s. Some of them hackers. Couch surfing, partying, lan parties, skating/hiking/whatever.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jessenaser 2y agoIs this what it feels like to have a life without a purpose? Or is it a plot to a romcom movie about to be released? Either way, interesting.
- jyunwai 2y agoMost other comments so far have viewed this artist's lifestyle negatively, as he wrote that he got by via abusing various policies and tax fraud (via "[hallucinating] a DJ software skin" to claim as a business expense). But he's an interesting person for sticking to his craft for close to a decade now: he has persisted in working hard to produce artwork and submit it for exhibition. However, to what extent is this lifestyle necessary as an artist? A common piece of advice for many artists is to consider developing a steady career independent of one's art, which lets them afford their lifestyle as an artist (such as by writing, creating artwork, or performing during the evenings and weekends). But the effectiveness of this advice must vary for the individual: it's also common for many people to drop their artwork or stop taking it seriously in favour of their paying career. For this artist in particular, I wonder if a steady job would have been a positive or negative to his art. In this case, the income would have reduced his suffering especially as he's dealing with medical debt. It could have even granted him additional artistic freedom, as he writes about the pressures to "defect" and his acceptance of more commercial work for money. Yet at the same time, it's possible that part of the desperation is behind his drive as an artist—though it's also risky to romanticize this desperation.
- cess11 2y agoWhy would that be risky?
- atoav 2y agoAs someone teaching at an art school/university I can assure you that unhealthy drives for art often (but not nearly always!) have hard psychological causes. That brings all kins of hardships with itself, many of those artists live unhealthy, often impoverished, rarely stable lives. And while the romatic view of the impoverished artist is a popular one, these people are rarely as free as they like they would be and I have seen suicides happen. Most artists I know would love to have stability, yet in society there is rarely space and funding for the things they are doing. I know people who had to move their ateliers 4 times in 10 years, just because the landlords use them to make the rental/area more attractive to a better pating clientel and then kick them out.
- mlsu 2y agoIt's a clever bit. It is intellectually amusing to read, and I'm sure to write, a character that the reader hates. But the detachment becomes exhausting quick. It's a dead end; you spent all of this effort being clever, with what to show for it? After reading it, I find myself questioning which side of the joke is real and which is false, and whether I'm in the real part of the joke or the false part. Which is ultimately a fruitless exercise, since the whole thing is intentionally set up to be pointless. Got me, I guess? I do like the visuals though.
- seoulmetro 2y agoIt just sounds like an artist who is trying really hard to be an artist and forgetting that real artists don't try, they just do what they like and someone else loves it. But also the compulsive lying, the drugs, the weird lack of self awareness is cringe inducing here.
- robador 2y agoThis was a great read and reminiscent of Kerouac (to me). It also makes me think of a life a consciously decided I didn't want after I finished art academy. I've seen others who did and got out after decades of trying and failing. I was lucky to figure out that going to art school to become an artist is a pipe dream.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pavlov 2y agoThe essence and moral of this quite wonderful piece: “No one wants to listen to an artist describe their work, but everyone wants to be told my rib story.”
- bee_rider 2y agoThat’s interesting, I checked out around the rib story.
- ChainOfFools 2y agoartist fixes rib story = a how-to guide (expressed in the reciprocal "how-did" form) discussing the narrator's passage through a niche and mildly exotic experience. It answers a question the reader never asked, but potentially might have. whereas artist recounting his struggles = a series of open-ended "why-did" vignettes with none offering escape from a cycle of precarity, except for the obvious solution to discontinue throwing oneself on the sword of Art. a solution which is intentionally and elaborately avoided by a narrator who does not supply a relatable (never mind satisfying) motivation or justification. I may be giving him too much credit, but there's a decent chance the vague sense of being stifled by this brief immersion in a world fundamentally unsuited to your own nature is an intended effect.
- cess11 2y agoCould have been worse, could have had a second wife and gone William Tell. The story about Hollywood was fun.
- reactus 2y agoSeveral commenters here hate the writer, calling him "completely insufferable", "a character that the reader hates", or "a selfish, narcissistic jerk". But I didn't find him that bad? His worst crime was stealing a $4000 suit from Barneys New York.
- platz 2y agoso stealing is ok if it's from the wealthy and corporations..
- krapp 2y agoYes.
- spdif899 2y agogenerally yea there's also a big difference between "one guy supposedly stealing one thing as a part of a story" and "let's all go steal"
- platz 2y agowhen you consider morality, do you think your rule only ever applies to one person or categorically?
- noobermin 2y agoNo one other than Kant (and really, kant's own delusions about himself) are deontological ethicists. Everyone has exceptions where they think the right thing is context dependent
- int_19h 2y agoIt applies categorically. But the category isn't "all people", it's "all people whose wealth was obtained through fair means". Economic parasites - which describes all ultra-wealthy people ipso facto - do not qualify.
- dgfitz 2y ago
- dj_mc_merlin 2y agoThe fact that so many people on HN dislike this proves hacker culture died in programming..
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- grzeshru 2y agoI don’t even understand what there is to dislike. This person lives in misery
- badpun 2y agoHe stole a $4k suit out of a store, for one thing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- logicprog 2y agoThe store will be fine.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- badpun 2y agoHow about he steals your suit next, you'll likely be fine as well.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoBarney's new york is now closed, it was not fine.
- smackeyacky 2y agoThere is a great deal to dislike. Primarily he is clearly from an affluent family and all his misery could be solved with a phone call.
- underlipton 2y agoThe more I read this, the more I dislike the writer. Probably some mixture of disgust and jealousy, as a failed artist who can't bring myself to do/am incapable of doing the things he's done to see some measure of success. Is this what it takes (for an extroverted white dude)?
- labrador 2y agoI used to be similarly lost in the drama of my own life, hanging on to things that I felt made me special. It's an ego trap in my opinion, as there are millions of people around us who have extrodinary lives that we never hear about. The word "sonder" applies: Sonder is defined as the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing by on the street, has a life as complex and vivid as your own. They experience hopes, dreams, friendships, routines, worries and an inner life, all of which you'll likely never know about or fully understand. The term was coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a compendium of newly invented words for powerful feelings that don't have a descriptive term in the English language. I had a sponser do me a favor once and tell me "you're a special case of the same old thing." It helped me get over myself.
- p3rls 2y agoThere's something gross about people trying to force this sonder neologism through but I can't put my finger on it I'm hardly a prescriptivist either
- labrador 2y agoI think of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows as an art project. I never got the impression that we were supposed to start using these words. It's interesting and entertaining, like when I learned the Czech word "litost" from "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera. "Litost is a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery." Part five of this book is about Litost, a kind of misery-induced torment only known to the Czech people. You could see it is a Slavic thing. https://fictionbeast.com/milan-kundera-the-unbearable-ligthness-of-existence https://fictionbeast.com/milan-kundera-the-unbearable-ligthn... Something akin to how I felt trapped in my own drama
- p3rls 2y agoListen, if Robert Burton didn't see fit to include it in the Anatomy of Melancholy it doesn't exist. Same goes for all this DSM stuff. Doesn't exist.
- aberzun 2y agoAside from the essay, can somebody please explain to me the appeal of "art works" like the ones that Andrew produces? It's gotta be some kind of joke that I missed the memo on, right!?
- noobermin 2y agoThey're pretty and or provacative. What else are you looking for? Beauty is subjective and all that. I liked some of them and disliked others.
- noobermin 2y agoThis man has lived a life many fantasise about, although perhaps not a very comfortable one. I think sometimes I lived a colourful, varied life but what a story for this piece. I can't believe I have to do the reddit edit postscriptum but really, does everyone dislike the author? I certainly could never be this sort of person, but what a story, living life on the edge and making it up as they go along. Do commenters never daydream, like just imagine how life would be if things had turned out differently?
- dnissley 2y agoI didn't read it super closely but it doesn't seem like he's blaming anyone but himself (and chance) for his various problems. For that, I can respect it. Even if I have a very hard time imagining what it would take for me to choose it.
- int_19h 2y agoThe reason why so many people dislike the author is because he's incessantly creating problems for other people. If he only did it for himself, the outlook would probably be more sympathetic.
- MuffinFlavored 2y agoSome highlights reading through: > I fly Spirit to Chicago, where all my friends are too busy buying property or accepting professorships to try the ketamine a guy gave me for letting him suck my dick. > At the end of the shoot, I’m $40k in debt and severely constipated. > There’s the explanation: Blaze broke Hollywood’s dick off, and now he’s dead. > My therapist suggests I take a trip to see friends because I keep calling myself an incel. I have a feeling she’s sick of watching a grown man cry about how hard it is to poop and wants new material. > I tell them God will use the bone to create a third gender. > Even if it doesn’t work out between this new being and me, I’m able to autofellate. I now have half an hourglass figure and, naturally, am starting an OnlyFans. I feel like I know so many people with 1/10th the spunk/pizzazz/personality/attitude of this author. How did one person luck out and get such a "concentration" of unique-ness?
- int_19h 2y agoMost people dial down this kind of "uniqueness" as they grow up because they don't want to be a constant source of headache for everyone surrounding them.
- Ericson2314 2y agoI'm impressed with the shear amount of cat-sitting