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This may be very cool but I'm here to rant What is it with "I made a _______" posts? Those seem new to me and very braggy. I see them on youtube as well. I fee

This may be very cool but I'm here to rant What is it with "I made a _______" posts? Those seem new to me and very braggy. I see them on youtube as well. I feel like if I could check all the posts to HN I'd find a trend of instead of just "Show HN: A tool/app/site to do X" there's a tread of adding "I made" in front. Is that a result of social media conditioning, that you must brag that "I" made?

saghm 2y ago
I can't speak for youtube given that I don't really actively browse it, but I'm not sure how it's "braggy" when the entire purpose of "Show HN" is to demo things that were made by the person posting it (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html): > Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. At most, it's redundant, but not in a way that hurts anyone.
fragmede 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1381172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1381172 is the oldest one I could find via the algolia search at the bottom of the page, from 2010, so it's not that recent a phenomenon. A different reading is less that the emphasis is on I made a thing, and more about being a complete sentence with an explicit subject vs implicit.
- rantymcrant 2y ago
  Checking the years those types of post have increased several X over a few years ago (the year starting april 1st) 2023 416 2022 307 2021 232 2020 252 2019 158 2018 87 2017 42 2016 45 2015 39 2014 42 2013 68 2012 40 2011 28 2010 10 That's just "Show HN: I made" and doesn't include all the similar "I built ..." and similar braggy titles.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    I don't have a problem with people bragging about a thing they made. I think if someone spent a bunch of time on a thing, I'll give them time to be proud of the work they did and give them space to show off. if it's something I'm interested in. The difference between "ShowHN: I built a thing", and "ShowHN: thing" seems inconsequential to me. But you know that one about how naming things is an unsolved problem in computer science? Looking at random search results, I think it's more about it being a more natural way to describe something. "Show HN: I built a thing that does blah", rather than "Show HN: Foobar, a thing that does blah". If I do "Show hn: George", what's George? vs "Show HN: I made a thing that does foo called George" Interestingly enough, there are only 805 results for "Show HN: We" vs 5,060 results for "Show HN: I", What a bunch of loners we are.
    - rantymcrant 2y ago
      I see "I made X that does Y" as self promotion. You're not prmmoting X, your prmoting the fact that "I" made it. You're smart. People should take you seriously. They should offer you jobs and/or praise. Of course you're secondarily promoting X but only in the cause of promoting yourself I see "X, an app that does Y" as promoting X and sayuhg "reader, you might find X useful if you want to do Y" The purpose of the posts are entirely different. Your observation on "We" is interesting though I suspect that teams are more likely to write "X, and app that does Y" because "We made X" doesn't achieve the self promotion goals in the same way as "I made X"
      - fragmede 2y ago
        Another question is, why do you have such a problem with people promoting themselves? On the Internet, no one knows who your sockpuppet is. So if you come across a post that says look at this cool thing I found on the Internet, and you feel one way about it, vs someone says look at this cool thing I made, vs I'm cool, look at this thing I made, and then you feel a third way about the exact same thing. Human psychology is fascinating.

saghm 2y ago

I can't speak for youtube given that I don't really actively browse it, but I'm not sure how it's "braggy" when the entire purpose of "Show HN" is to demo things that were made by the person posting it (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html): > Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. At most, it's redundant, but not in a way that hurts anyone.

fragmede 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1381172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1381172 is the oldest one I could find via the algolia search at the bottom of the page, from 2010, so it's not that recent a phenomenon. A different reading is less that the emphasis is on I made a thing, and more about being a complete sentence with an explicit subject vs implicit.

rantymcrant 2y ago
Checking the years those types of post have increased several X over a few years ago (the year starting april 1st) 2023 416 2022 307 2021 232 2020 252 2019 158 2018 87 2017 42 2016 45 2015 39 2014 42 2013 68 2012 40 2011 28 2010 10 That's just "Show HN: I made" and doesn't include all the similar "I built ..." and similar braggy titles.
- fragmede 2y ago
  I don't have a problem with people bragging about a thing they made. I think if someone spent a bunch of time on a thing, I'll give them time to be proud of the work they did and give them space to show off. if it's something I'm interested in. The difference between "ShowHN: I built a thing", and "ShowHN: thing" seems inconsequential to me. But you know that one about how naming things is an unsolved problem in computer science? Looking at random search results, I think it's more about it being a more natural way to describe something. "Show HN: I built a thing that does blah", rather than "Show HN: Foobar, a thing that does blah". If I do "Show hn: George", what's George? vs "Show HN: I made a thing that does foo called George" Interestingly enough, there are only 805 results for "Show HN: We" vs 5,060 results for "Show HN: I", What a bunch of loners we are.
  - rantymcrant 2y ago
    I see "I made X that does Y" as self promotion. You're not prmmoting X, your prmoting the fact that "I" made it. You're smart. People should take you seriously. They should offer you jobs and/or praise. Of course you're secondarily promoting X but only in the cause of promoting yourself I see "X, an app that does Y" as promoting X and sayuhg "reader, you might find X useful if you want to do Y" The purpose of the posts are entirely different. Your observation on "We" is interesting though I suspect that teams are more likely to write "X, and app that does Y" because "We made X" doesn't achieve the self promotion goals in the same way as "I made X"
    - fragmede 2y ago
      Another question is, why do you have such a problem with people promoting themselves? On the Internet, no one knows who your sockpuppet is. So if you come across a post that says look at this cool thing I found on the Internet, and you feel one way about it, vs someone says look at this cool thing I made, vs I'm cool, look at this thing I made, and then you feel a third way about the exact same thing. Human psychology is fascinating.