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Open question, why do people keep caring about socials that much? Especially educated people should stay away from that toxicity. Boards like HN and occasional

Open question, why do people keep caring about socials that much? Especially educated people should stay away from that toxicity. Boards like HN and occasionally Reddit, where it's mostly about discussing and being anonymous are the only places worth contributing on the internet other than personal blogs.

simplyluke 2y ago
There’s a broadly believed myth that it produces meaningful professional opportunities among certain folks in the industry. In my observations this is very rarely true, and in many more cases it’s a professional liability.
- dom96 2y ago
  It's not a myth. I got 2 amazing offers (one of which is now my job) via Twitter. I hope Bluesky can eventually offer the same.
  - epolanski 2y ago
    I don't think Twitter was required for someone with a rather good track record/cv like yours to get good jobs.
    - madeofpalk 2y ago
      Not required, but it could present opportunities.
    - dom96 2y ago
      Thank you for the kind words, but even good CVs get lost in the great recruitment filter all the time. It's great to have a platform where you can interact directly with real engineers at various companies.
- michaelbuckbee 2y ago
  This is highly dependent on what particular professional niche you're in. Hollywood actors are now routinely cast (in part) based on how many social media followers they have, leading to a lot of weirdness around their agents and agencies buying followers, accusing other competing actors of buying followers, etc. A bit closer to the HN crowd, there is definitely a correlation between speaking at conferences and having an "audience" and being a well-known figure online. Similarly, the "build-in-public" indie folks are active on social trying to break the build it and they will come cycle. There are ways to participate and filter through the noise that are positive, but certainly a lot of negative as well.
aswanson 2y ago
Humans have a need to be heard, hear, argue, and cheer. Human nature.
dartos 2y ago
Some people think it’s fun.
khafra 2y ago
On Twitter I get to see interactions between the people that built games I played as a kid, famous actors, Nobel prize winners, heads of state, and authors I had assumed died decades ago. If I write something insightful and relevant enough, I might get a gesture of appreciation from a FAANG research director, a prominent philosopher, or just someone who writes the funniest aphorisms I've ever seen. It's toxic in some ways; sure--but it's easy to care about.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  sounds like an interactive tabloid. who gives a shit about famous people? authors I assumed died decades ago? Literally I do not give a single shit what Stephen King or JK Rowling thinks have fun with that, but you just explained why it never appealed to me. Weird idolatry. Reddit has the same problem. Interesting people talk about ideas, not other people > something insightful enough you mean if you play the game and are sufficiently blessed by the algorithm your demigod may offer you a blessing. The algorithm doesn't reward insight, lol.
  - madeofpalk 2y ago
    No one is making you care what Stephen King has to say. You don't need to idolise someone just to be interested in things they might say You're here in the comments of Hacker News so you clearly are interested in social networks. You reguarly check in here to see popular links others have shared, and occasionally participate in conversations. It's seems pretty easy to understand that others might be interested in a slightly different UI on top of this.
  - khafra 2y ago
    > who gives a shit about famous people? authors I assumed died decades ago? Literally I do not give a single shit what Stephen King or JK Rowling thinks I meant, like, Joyce Carol Oates; who I had mentally placed in the same "historic personage" category as Sylvia Plath and Angela Carter before learning she had a twitter account. And, yeah, it's somewhat toxic to engage in idolatry; yeah, I would more profitably spend my time trying to become a research director or founder myself. Having John Carmack like my Arxiv recommendation isn't an achievement, the way inventing the fast inverse square root algorithm is. But it sure does feel nice!
Stevvo 2y ago
The author references gaming in his post. If your game is not on social media nobody knows it exists and you have no customers. You are right about the toxicity and gamers are some of the most toxic. But they live almost entirely online, and you have to reach them where they are.
bondarchuk 2y ago
All social media is bad, except for the ones you personally use? If it's about discussing pseudo/anonymously, you can do that on other plaforms too, right?
- epolanski 2y ago
  You can't possibly miss the huge difference between a discussion board and doom scrolling machines.
  - bigpoppa804 2y ago
    Hackernews is just as much of an echo chamber as any other social media, dinner mistake it matching you're biases as it not having any
  - samcat116 2y ago
    I consider HN a doom scrolling machine as well
madeofpalk 2y ago
> Open question, why do people keep caring about socials that much? > Especially educated people should stay away from that toxicity I believe commerical, closed social networks are the ones that specifically breed this 'toxicity' people talk about. They're incentivised to promote engagement bait to drive DAU, page views and ad revenue. Granted, it's audience is significantly smaller, but I think Mastodon immediately showed what a social network that had incentives aligned with users could look like. Bluesky has neat features putting users in control, like user-built custom moderation settings to hide things you don't want to see (like engagement-bait accounts, politics, spoilers, gaming etc). I think these are all user-centric features that Twitter or Facebook would never add people they conflict with their other business goals of promoting ads or other partner content.
1oooqooq 2y ago
fair question. it's the only social interaction for most people. i know one guy that chats with their alexa device to pass time
brodouevencode 2y ago
> Reddit Reddit is the center of toxicity. One dissenting opinion and mods banish you.
rchaud 2y ago
Because there is money to be made on whichever platform manages to trap the largest number of active users.
jrflowers 2y ago
Going to guess that they get some sort of enjoyment or value out of them, their definition of “worth contributing to” is different from yours, or they do not share your standard of what “educated people” should do with themselves on the internet

simplyluke 2y ago

There’s a broadly believed myth that it produces meaningful professional opportunities among certain folks in the industry. In my observations this is very rarely true, and in many more cases it’s a professional liability.

dom96 2y ago
It's not a myth. I got 2 amazing offers (one of which is now my job) via Twitter. I hope Bluesky can eventually offer the same.
- epolanski 2y ago
  I don't think Twitter was required for someone with a rather good track record/cv like yours to get good jobs.
  - madeofpalk 2y ago
    Not required, but it could present opportunities.
  - dom96 2y ago
    Thank you for the kind words, but even good CVs get lost in the great recruitment filter all the time. It's great to have a platform where you can interact directly with real engineers at various companies.
michaelbuckbee 2y ago
This is highly dependent on what particular professional niche you're in. Hollywood actors are now routinely cast (in part) based on how many social media followers they have, leading to a lot of weirdness around their agents and agencies buying followers, accusing other competing actors of buying followers, etc. A bit closer to the HN crowd, there is definitely a correlation between speaking at conferences and having an "audience" and being a well-known figure online. Similarly, the "build-in-public" indie folks are active on social trying to break the build it and they will come cycle. There are ways to participate and filter through the noise that are positive, but certainly a lot of negative as well.

aswanson 2y ago

Humans have a need to be heard, hear, argue, and cheer. Human nature.

dartos 2y ago

Some people think it’s fun.

khafra 2y ago

On Twitter I get to see interactions between the people that built games I played as a kid, famous actors, Nobel prize winners, heads of state, and authors I had assumed died decades ago. If I write something insightful and relevant enough, I might get a gesture of appreciation from a FAANG research director, a prominent philosopher, or just someone who writes the funniest aphorisms I've ever seen. It's toxic in some ways; sure--but it's easy to care about.

dingnuts 2y ago
sounds like an interactive tabloid. who gives a shit about famous people? authors I assumed died decades ago? Literally I do not give a single shit what Stephen King or JK Rowling thinks have fun with that, but you just explained why it never appealed to me. Weird idolatry. Reddit has the same problem. Interesting people talk about ideas, not other people > something insightful enough you mean if you play the game and are sufficiently blessed by the algorithm your demigod may offer you a blessing. The algorithm doesn't reward insight, lol.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  No one is making you care what Stephen King has to say. You don't need to idolise someone just to be interested in things they might say You're here in the comments of Hacker News so you clearly are interested in social networks. You reguarly check in here to see popular links others have shared, and occasionally participate in conversations. It's seems pretty easy to understand that others might be interested in a slightly different UI on top of this.
- khafra 2y ago
  > who gives a shit about famous people? authors I assumed died decades ago? Literally I do not give a single shit what Stephen King or JK Rowling thinks I meant, like, Joyce Carol Oates; who I had mentally placed in the same "historic personage" category as Sylvia Plath and Angela Carter before learning she had a twitter account. And, yeah, it's somewhat toxic to engage in idolatry; yeah, I would more profitably spend my time trying to become a research director or founder myself. Having John Carmack like my Arxiv recommendation isn't an achievement, the way inventing the fast inverse square root algorithm is. But it sure does feel nice!

Stevvo 2y ago

The author references gaming in his post. If your game is not on social media nobody knows it exists and you have no customers. You are right about the toxicity and gamers are some of the most toxic. But they live almost entirely online, and you have to reach them where they are.

bondarchuk 2y ago

All social media is bad, except for the ones you personally use? If it's about discussing pseudo/anonymously, you can do that on other plaforms too, right?

epolanski 2y ago
You can't possibly miss the huge difference between a discussion board and doom scrolling machines.
- bigpoppa804 2y ago
  Hackernews is just as much of an echo chamber as any other social media, dinner mistake it matching you're biases as it not having any
- samcat116 2y ago
  I consider HN a doom scrolling machine as well

madeofpalk 2y ago

> Open question, why do people keep caring about socials that much? > Especially educated people should stay away from that toxicity I believe commerical, closed social networks are the ones that specifically breed this 'toxicity' people talk about. They're incentivised to promote engagement bait to drive DAU, page views and ad revenue. Granted, it's audience is significantly smaller, but I think Mastodon immediately showed what a social network that had incentives aligned with users could look like. Bluesky has neat features putting users in control, like user-built custom moderation settings to hide things you don't want to see (like engagement-bait accounts, politics, spoilers, gaming etc). I think these are all user-centric features that Twitter or Facebook would never add people they conflict with their other business goals of promoting ads or other partner content.

1oooqooq 2y ago

fair question. it's the only social interaction for most people. i know one guy that chats with their alexa device to pass time

brodouevencode 2y ago

> Reddit Reddit is the center of toxicity. One dissenting opinion and mods banish you.

rchaud 2y ago

Because there is money to be made on whichever platform manages to trap the largest number of active users.

jrflowers 2y ago

Going to guess that they get some sort of enjoyment or value out of them, their definition of “worth contributing to” is different from yours, or they do not share your standard of what “educated people” should do with themselves on the internet