3 ms·

If you want to see mean, try writing essays.

by pg 18y ago

kirubakaran 18y ago
I never understood why people were doing that. Many Reddit comments about your essays were extremely vicious.
- rokhayakebe 18y ago
  Human nature. They will love you first. Hate you second. And when you are gone, they will love you again, claiming that all those things you wrote/said were prophecies, visions.
- pg 18y ago
  I think the fundamental problem is that writing essays seems presumptuous to a lot of people. They're used to the old print media model in which the only people who got to publish essays were credentialled experts in whatever they were about. That restriction is now gone. Online anyone can publish whatever they want. But I think it still seems to a lot of people that anyone using the essay form is implicitly claiming some kind of authority. The right approach, obviously, is to judge an essay by what it says instead of who wrote it. I think things will tend to move in that direction. But not too far, because it's more work.
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    Yes, you mentioned that in http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html That explains the dismissive comments. The angry and really mean ones can be explained perhaps as people feeling threatened for whatever reason?
    - SwellJoe 18y ago
      When in doubt, Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad theory probably applies: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
      - kirubakaran 18y ago
        I agree, but why do they do that?
        SwellJoe 18y ago
        I dunno. I figured I'd done my job in providing a link to a funny picture on the Internet. If you ask me any more hard questions, you're gonna get a picture of a cat fixing a computer. I don't think either of us really wants that to happen.
  - trapper 18y ago
    You should try publishing under a different name next time and see what the response is. It would be an interesting experiment.
    - kirubakaran 18y ago
      If he doesn't put a lot of effort into hiding his writing style, it should be pretty easy to tell.
      - trapper 18y ago
        I'd like to think I could tell as well, but only a trial would let us test your hypothesis.
  - marcell 18y ago
    Sometimes, an article is boring enough and the writer is interesting enough that the only logical thing to comment on is the writer.
bprater 18y ago
It brings up a good question -- is an essayist obligated to read people's responses? Or do you hire someone to filter out negative responses? (Not necessarily opposing viewpoints, just reddit level commentary.) I can understand how demoralizing it can be -- short of re-evolving the human race, what is a good way to deal with this so you can stay positive and energized?
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  I would say there's no obligation, but what is the point of writing otherwise? I've had a couple of times where the resulting dialogue has changed my mind at least partially. For me personally, writing is more an exercise in clarifying and detailing my thought process, so I consider the dialogue one of the most valuable aspects of writing publicly, and well worth deleting a few "you're a douchebag" posts every week. I think that's why Disqus has seen such success, it significantly improves the resulting dialogue. I probably have thicker skin than most though. A lot of writers have low self-esteem, so might actually be damaged by the insults. I just feel bad for the person who writes a 500 word essay about why I'm an asshole in my comment section, partially because I know he (and it's always a he) must be an extremely unhappy person for that to seem like a valid use of his time, and partially because he spent a half hour writing something that I deleted with one click.
- pg 18y ago
  As a first approximation, you can discriminate by site. I never read comments on Reddit and always read them on News.YC.
mattmaroon 18y ago
This has truly baffled me over the 4-5 years I've been blogging. I just can't determine the thought process that leads to someone becoming personally offended over a blog post they didn't agree with. And oddly, it happens more on the innocuous posts than ones I'd expect. For instance, I once called XKCD "about as funny as a partial birth abortion" and got a pretty good dialogue going with Randall Munroe. (Maybe I shouldn't be surprised a comic strip author took it in good humor.) Shortly after I wrote an article about why I think Android has a good shot at ending up on more smart phones than OSX and got death threats.
Eliezer 18y ago
If you really want to see mean, try saving the world. That really offends people. I'm not joking. I've got a whole collection of choice comments saved up in my quotesfile, but my all-time favorite is this one, from a bona-fide hater who actually meant it: "I don't see how the US government could be so lax in its responsibility for providing for the national defense as to leave you at large." -- Alan Grimes

If you want to see mean, try writing essays.

by pg 18y ago

If you want to see mean, try writing essays.

kirubakaran 18y ago

I never understood why people were doing that. Many Reddit comments about your essays were extremely vicious.

rokhayakebe 18y ago
Human nature. They will love you first. Hate you second. And when you are gone, they will love you again, claiming that all those things you wrote/said were prophecies, visions.
pg 18y ago
I think the fundamental problem is that writing essays seems presumptuous to a lot of people. They're used to the old print media model in which the only people who got to publish essays were credentialled experts in whatever they were about. That restriction is now gone. Online anyone can publish whatever they want. But I think it still seems to a lot of people that anyone using the essay form is implicitly claiming some kind of authority. The right approach, obviously, is to judge an essay by what it says instead of who wrote it. I think things will tend to move in that direction. But not too far, because it's more work.
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  Yes, you mentioned that in http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html That explains the dismissive comments. The angry and really mean ones can be explained perhaps as people feeling threatened for whatever reason?
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    When in doubt, Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad theory probably applies: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
    - kirubakaran 18y ago
      I agree, but why do they do that?
      - SwellJoe 18y ago
        I dunno. I figured I'd done my job in providing a link to a funny picture on the Internet. If you ask me any more hard questions, you're gonna get a picture of a cat fixing a computer. I don't think either of us really wants that to happen.
- trapper 18y ago
  You should try publishing under a different name next time and see what the response is. It would be an interesting experiment.
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    If he doesn't put a lot of effort into hiding his writing style, it should be pretty easy to tell.
    - trapper 18y ago
      I'd like to think I could tell as well, but only a trial would let us test your hypothesis.
- marcell 18y ago
  Sometimes, an article is boring enough and the writer is interesting enough that the only logical thing to comment on is the writer.

bprater 18y ago

It brings up a good question -- is an essayist obligated to read people's responses? Or do you hire someone to filter out negative responses? (Not necessarily opposing viewpoints, just reddit level commentary.) I can understand how demoralizing it can be -- short of re-evolving the human race, what is a good way to deal with this so you can stay positive and energized?

mattmaroon 18y ago
I would say there's no obligation, but what is the point of writing otherwise? I've had a couple of times where the resulting dialogue has changed my mind at least partially. For me personally, writing is more an exercise in clarifying and detailing my thought process, so I consider the dialogue one of the most valuable aspects of writing publicly, and well worth deleting a few "you're a douchebag" posts every week. I think that's why Disqus has seen such success, it significantly improves the resulting dialogue. I probably have thicker skin than most though. A lot of writers have low self-esteem, so might actually be damaged by the insults. I just feel bad for the person who writes a 500 word essay about why I'm an asshole in my comment section, partially because I know he (and it's always a he) must be an extremely unhappy person for that to seem like a valid use of his time, and partially because he spent a half hour writing something that I deleted with one click.
pg 18y ago
As a first approximation, you can discriminate by site. I never read comments on Reddit and always read them on News.YC.

mattmaroon 18y ago

This has truly baffled me over the 4-5 years I've been blogging. I just can't determine the thought process that leads to someone becoming personally offended over a blog post they didn't agree with. And oddly, it happens more on the innocuous posts than ones I'd expect. For instance, I once called XKCD "about as funny as a partial birth abortion" and got a pretty good dialogue going with Randall Munroe. (Maybe I shouldn't be surprised a comic strip author took it in good humor.) Shortly after I wrote an article about why I think Android has a good shot at ending up on more smart phones than OSX and got death threats.

Eliezer 18y ago

If you really want to see mean, try saving the world. That really offends people. I'm not joking. I've got a whole collection of choice comments saved up in my quotesfile, but my all-time favorite is this one, from a bona-fide hater who actually meant it: "I don't see how the US government could be so lax in its responsibility for providing for the national defense as to leave you at large." -- Alan Grimes