4 ms·

I met Aleksey at Yale a few months after the video had gone viral and found him to be a nice enough guy who was intelligent and interesting to talk to, though i

by _djo_ 14y ago

I met Aleksey at Yale a few months after the video had gone viral and found him to be a nice enough guy who was intelligent and interesting to talk to, though it was clear that he had serious emotional issues as even then after all the ridicule he felt compelled to boast of unlikely achievements almost as a reflex. He was not the arsehole the internet had prepared me for but a decent and troubled person and I felt desperately sorry for him. The communities and networks we have built online have proven to be fantastically capable to creating and organising for good, whether it be raising funds for disaster relief or catapulting some deserving person to stardom, but we've all too often decided to ignore our power to tear down and destroy with frightening speed. Aleksey Vayner's video may have been silly and weird but it did not merit the public humiliation he received. It would be too much to expect that large scale ridicule of an individual like this will never happen again, human nature is what it is and cruelty and anonymity go hand in hand. But as individuals we can at least prevent ourselves from being a part of it by pausing before we forward, retweet or share the next picture, video or meme and considering whether the person being laughed at deserves to be destroyed for our amusement.

Alex3917 14y ago
My friend who went to Yale had a pretty bad back injury, and I heard that Aleksey actually fixed it. No idea if that's accurate, but it kind of adds a little character to the whole mythology of the guy.
haberman 14y ago
I think it's interesting to compare this to Rebecca Black. "Friday" became viral mostly as a mockery, but she seemed to take it all in stride and make the most of it. I was actually really impressed with that. In her case, the shares/retweets/etc. weren't hurtful to her in the end.
- abossy 14y ago
  The girl from the creepy ex-girlfriend meme actively capitalized on her stardom. It seems that the sociological phenomenon of involuntarily going viral is becoming more well-understood.
  - haberman 14y ago
    Yes totally. Though didn't that girl intentionally create the creepy ex-girlfriend persona? It's a little bit different than Rebecca Black who created something in earnest but then made the best of having it taken as a mockery.
  - newman314 14y ago
    I disagree. It's hard to predict the path a particular meme will take once it has gone viral. Compare say "creepy girlfriend" to "scumbag Steve". If you can predict with good to absolute confidence where a particular meme would go, then you have something extremely valuable that any marketing dept would go for. Remember, most of these things happened unexpectedly to the people involved. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone that a) knew in advance what would happen and b) wanted it to do so deliberately. Making the best of a bad situation is not understanding this sociological phenomenon.
  - charlieok 14y ago
    If you mean Overly Attached Girlfriend [1], she framed the joke intentionally, in terms of its visual look and its connotations, in exactly the form that took hold as a meme. Contrast this with memes where a picture caught the eye of a photoshopper who then decided what joke to write on top. It was her own sense of humor from the start. Good on her :) [1] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-attached-girlfriend http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-attached-girlfriend
    - charlieok 14y ago
      p.s. http://youtu.be/y9zOeLRmGVA?t=8m http://youtu.be/y9zOeLRmGVA?t=8m
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  I always thought Friday was a fantastic deconstruction of the genre, whether intentional or not. The banality of the lyrics are in truth not significantly worse than the lyrics of the average pop song. How many song lyrics boil down to the same lame refrain "we went to a club, got so drunk, danced so much, and had so much fun, yeah, partying! whoo!"? Most, but not all, songs of that genre dress up their banality in slightly more interesting turns of phrase but ultimately it's the same thing. Compare "Friday" to "Like a G6", for example.
  - rooshdi 14y ago
    Yea, it's the same shit, just wrapped with the money of major label marketing. Funny thing is, some of these "artists" actually take their music seriously.
  - transitionality 14y ago
    I've been hearing about the video, but I'd never seen it. I just looked it up. It's not bad at all. It's entirely pedestrian. I don't see any difference between this and, say, a Bieber track, except production values.
chimeracoder 14y ago
I agree with your entire post except for this one clause > cruelty and anonymity go hand in hand Anonymity and cruelty are orthogonal concepts - there is nothing about anonymity that implies or requires cruelty, and the connection runs the other way just as often, but as human beings, we find it easier to focus on and remember the negative more so than the positive.
- cantankerous 14y ago
  Unrelated concepts, maybe, but by definition they are not orthogonal in the real world, unfortunately. Statistically, I'd be willing to wager people act worse when they think nobody is looking. Anonymity just extends this effect elsewhere. People are much less likely to be cruel when people they appreciate could be made aware of it.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    Relevant: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 This has actually been studied academically (the "online disinhibition effect"). Anonymity definitely seems to correlate with poor behavior, even if it's not a causal relationship.
    - hayksaakian 14y ago
      Counterpoint: forced real names did not improve quality of comments. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-...
      - mpyne 14y ago
        Good point, but I'm not sure that forced real name is really the same as "not anonymous" (despite Randi Zuckerberg's comments on the article). I.e. there's more you get from online anonymity than simply not having your name known. I could know someone is named John Smith for example, and that still wouldn't help me pierce his anonymity unless there were other distinguishing features (picture, phone number, etc.).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by _djo_ 14y ago

Alex3917 14y ago

My friend who went to Yale had a pretty bad back injury, and I heard that Aleksey actually fixed it. No idea if that's accurate, but it kind of adds a little character to the whole mythology of the guy.

haberman 14y ago

I think it's interesting to compare this to Rebecca Black. "Friday" became viral mostly as a mockery, but she seemed to take it all in stride and make the most of it. I was actually really impressed with that. In her case, the shares/retweets/etc. weren't hurtful to her in the end.

abossy 14y ago
The girl from the creepy ex-girlfriend meme actively capitalized on her stardom. It seems that the sociological phenomenon of involuntarily going viral is becoming more well-understood.
- haberman 14y ago
  Yes totally. Though didn't that girl intentionally create the creepy ex-girlfriend persona? It's a little bit different than Rebecca Black who created something in earnest but then made the best of having it taken as a mockery.
- newman314 14y ago
  I disagree. It's hard to predict the path a particular meme will take once it has gone viral. Compare say "creepy girlfriend" to "scumbag Steve". If you can predict with good to absolute confidence where a particular meme would go, then you have something extremely valuable that any marketing dept would go for. Remember, most of these things happened unexpectedly to the people involved. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone that a) knew in advance what would happen and b) wanted it to do so deliberately. Making the best of a bad situation is not understanding this sociological phenomenon.
- charlieok 14y ago
  If you mean Overly Attached Girlfriend [1], she framed the joke intentionally, in terms of its visual look and its connotations, in exactly the form that took hold as a meme. Contrast this with memes where a picture caught the eye of a photoshopper who then decided what joke to write on top. It was her own sense of humor from the start. Good on her :) [1] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-attached-girlfriend http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-attached-girlfriend
  - charlieok 14y ago
    p.s. http://youtu.be/y9zOeLRmGVA?t=8m http://youtu.be/y9zOeLRmGVA?t=8m
InclinedPlane 14y ago
I always thought Friday was a fantastic deconstruction of the genre, whether intentional or not. The banality of the lyrics are in truth not significantly worse than the lyrics of the average pop song. How many song lyrics boil down to the same lame refrain "we went to a club, got so drunk, danced so much, and had so much fun, yeah, partying! whoo!"? Most, but not all, songs of that genre dress up their banality in slightly more interesting turns of phrase but ultimately it's the same thing. Compare "Friday" to "Like a G6", for example.
- rooshdi 14y ago
  Yea, it's the same shit, just wrapped with the money of major label marketing. Funny thing is, some of these "artists" actually take their music seriously.
- transitionality 14y ago
  I've been hearing about the video, but I'd never seen it. I just looked it up. It's not bad at all. It's entirely pedestrian. I don't see any difference between this and, say, a Bieber track, except production values.

chimeracoder 14y ago

I agree with your entire post except for this one clause > cruelty and anonymity go hand in hand Anonymity and cruelty are orthogonal concepts - there is nothing about anonymity that implies or requires cruelty, and the connection runs the other way just as often, but as human beings, we find it easier to focus on and remember the negative more so than the positive.

cantankerous 14y ago
Unrelated concepts, maybe, but by definition they are not orthogonal in the real world, unfortunately. Statistically, I'd be willing to wager people act worse when they think nobody is looking. Anonymity just extends this effect elsewhere. People are much less likely to be cruel when people they appreciate could be made aware of it.
- mpyne 14y ago
  Relevant: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 This has actually been studied academically (the "online disinhibition effect"). Anonymity definitely seems to correlate with poor behavior, even if it's not a causal relationship.
  - hayksaakian 14y ago
    Counterpoint: forced real names did not improve quality of comments. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-...
    - mpyne 14y ago
      Good point, but I'm not sure that forced real name is really the same as "not anonymous" (despite Randi Zuckerberg's comments on the article). I.e. there's more you get from online anonymity than simply not having your name known. I could know someone is named John Smith for example, and that still wouldn't help me pierce his anonymity unless there were other distinguishing features (picture, phone number, etc.).

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]