8 ms·

Weddings Used To Be Sacred And Other Lessons About Internet Journalism

136 points by crapshoot101 13y ago

breadbox 13y ago
"I have known the media to be irresponsible at times, but this represents a new low." Actually, I doubt that. I'm willing to concede that it has become more prevalent recently, but it seems more likely that this level of irresponsibility has always been present in the media to some degree.
mrtriangle 13y ago
TL:DR The media is a bunch of haters, our wedding wasn't as ecologically devastating as it was played out to be. Why'd you people use so many expletives about us?
- marze 13y ago
  Try: the wedding had essentially no ecological impact.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  The wedding wasn't where the stories said it was (private land not a public park), there were no endangered species that were put at risk, and only one reporter out of 100 stories that ran bothered to call them for comment, so it's a bit more than that. But, as one comment said, if that story were printed on paper it would have needed a redwood to make the sheets. Probably longer than it needed to be.
- mcherm 13y ago
  Also, "almost none of the journalists bothered to ask us for comment". That was the one part that surprised me; I would have expected better.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    I'm sure that if they had all called for comment he would have been outraged that people couldn't leave him alone on his honeymoon.
    - darkarmani 13y ago
      That's a typical smear tactic. Raise a hypothetical as a certainty that is impossible to disprove, but makes the person look terrible. The proof lies with the people making the extraordinary claims. Reporters could have easily waited to get all of the facts and if that means waiting to their are back from their honeymoon, so be it. Why give a pass to incompetent reporters?
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rdouble 13y ago
This dude needs something to do!
j_s 13y ago
See HN reaction to the Atlantic story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5824276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5824276 and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5820590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5820590
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anigbrowl 13y ago
That's quite interesting and enlightening; although the lesson this case seems to be 'beware of the company you keep' since he ended up getting the blame for the poor ecological stewardship and greed of the inn on whose land the event took place. I'm struck by this quote: Economically speaking, I profited handsomely from the destruction of the media as we knew it. The rest of the world did not make out so well, and society certainly got the worse end of the bargain. The decentralization of media got off to a promising start, but like so many other half-baked revolutions, it never fulfilled its early promise. In its present form, social media may be doing more harm than good. I think this is rather true. Although there was stupid tabloid media long before social media came along, it's increasingly become the norm on the internet. I know a little of how he feels as I spent years trumpeting the idea f public comments on newspaper articles and so on....and now I use Stylebot to hide them from me, because 99% of what's written in news article comments is hideously stupid. Rather than elevating society, the internet and social media has basically digitized the mob and given everyone a megaphone.
- tsotha 13y ago
  I don't think it's true at all. The media made just as many mistakes before the internet. The difference is there wasn't anybody to call them on it. Recall CBS tried to throw a presidential election with obviously forged documents, something they would have gotten away with a few decades earlier.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    The media is not a monolith. Go read some history, and figure that a) people have been pulling stunts like that since the US was founded and b) they were typically exposed by competitors in the media. Back in 1798, no less a person than George Washington was griping that the Democrats (under Thomas Jefferson - not to be confused with today's Democratic party) were a bunch of malcontents whose primary object was to overturn the government: http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/collection/post_pres_1798sep30.html http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/collection/post_pres_179...
    - 13y ago
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parfe 13y ago
While HN isn't responsible for the content of the articles it linked to, the community here sure took the opportunity to write, and upvote, some awful things. I wish there was a sort of pinned story feature to offer a community retraction that stays on the front page for a substantial amount of time. Sort of a group apology for promoting comments like "I disagree. To me, this is the story of a single a-hole." and "Fuck you Sean Parker."
- corresation 13y ago
  Why? Naval gazing? Proving someone wrong? If the NY Times wrote an article claiming that Sergey Brin dumped raw sewage from his yacht, the responses would be based upon the assumption of accuracy of that story. If the story isn't accurate, it will quickly be corrected (and legal avenues should be exercised, such as libel lawsuits), which has to some degree happened in this case. But what are people really supposed to do? For every story everyone must stay quiet? Let claims bake for a period? Put a disclaimer "If this story is accurate..." before every statement? That should be presumed. In the end, though, while I had no comment on the original story (it seemed like a classic "they're rich...get 'em!" kind of story), I certainly don't find Parker a more reasonable chap after this 10,000 word outing. His argument is essentially- a) Steelhead trout are stupid anyways. I'm humorously paraphrasing, but they are an endangered/threatened species, and you can't simply lump them in with Rainbow trout and pretend it's all good regardless. b) Ignorance of the law is no defense. Saying that a group was formed before you were born makes one sound a bit like a jackass (maybe that's what the NSA is claiming? The various rights were written before they were born, so...) c) He's good because he leveraged someone else's significant mismanagement of the forest, therefore he has no culpability. This is a bit of a tragedy of the commons thing, but his argument seems to be that all of this development happened in a vacuum and he just happened to be a sad passerby who might as well make use of it. I don't think he needs to apologize to anyone, and it sounds like the land was horrendously mismanaged by the company that owns it, however this doesn't get sympathy.
  - philh 13y ago
    To paraphrase you... what was Parker really supposed to do? Every time he wants to have an event on private property, he has to check that the owner isn't violating any of a myriad regulations imposed by countless regulatory bodies? That doesn't seem feasible.
crapshoot101 13y ago
All in all, I was surprised/impressed that he was willing to acknowledge that he's been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the media disintermediation he helped to bring about, in many ways - and now he's finally seeing a backlash from it. The standard point about clickbait and the Buzzfeedication of media is a reasonable one, but until stories / media can earn online by maximizing for something other than CPM, this will continue. I don't have any solution, just acknowledging the problem.
resu_nimda 13y ago
For the most part, I agree with him, he was essentially violated by a sensationalist online media that spews cut-and-paste drama with absolutely no due diligence ("viral" is particularly evocative here). That said, it does sound like a pretty extravagant over-the-top wedding, if a more tasteful one than your typical Kardashian affair. I suspect people latched onto that bit and just ran with it. I can't reconcile his talk of nature and sanctuary with the extremely manufactured and "faked" nature of the event. Why not have a low-key ceremony in an actual beautiful natural area?
- brendanobrien 13y ago
  I;d say, it's his wedding. The answer to "Why not do it this way?" is that as a couple, that's not what they wanted. This only looks "faked" is because we have no personal connection with the couple. I'm with you on the sensationalist bit, and would take it the additional step of assuming we have no right to barge in & opine over someone else's wedding... so long as they're not hurting anyone (or any trees). I'm guessing that last bit is the sticking point :)
  - resu_nimda 13y ago
    Yeah, I tried not to be overly judgmental, it is his wedding and his money, but it's pretty common for people to react poorly to opulent displays of personal wealth. I said "faked" because they literally trucked in a fake castle and forest, among other things to the tune of a few million dollars. It just seems inconsistent with a professed love of nature, and hardly "the antithesis of the technology-infested world we live in."
    - brendanobrien 13y ago
      Sounds like solid logic to me. Glad to have that one explicitly worked out :)
- aasarava 13y ago
  So why does it matter that his wedding sounds like an extravagant affair to you? There are plenty of people who want to spend a lot of money on their weddings or other events and have a vision of it that pleases them. I think we should all expect the right to spend our money the way we choose (within legal and ethical boundaries) without being second guessed and attacked by a public mob. Now, if you had wanted to, you could have penned an editorial exploring whether there's hypocrisy in his decision to "manufacture" the scenery. But the real issue is why so many people who call themselves members of "the media" get to publish scathing blog posts that they pass off as news articles without doing any actual journalistic research.
Zimahl 13y ago
I have to wonder how much of a backlash would've been created for someone other than Sean Parker. I don't think this would've been much of a story if not for 'The Social Network' portraying him as an egotistical, asshole, pseudo-con man (which he very well might be, I don't know). But then comes along a story of him doing what seems like egotistical, asshole stuff and it's too much to resist for the media. The narrative is already there so it writes itself.
scelerat 13y ago
I sense that the backlash, well-informed or not, was fueled more by the extravagance of the event than its environmental impact.
uptown 13y ago
I'm not going to read his article - but why is he still fanning this fire? People get worked up over things, then they move on. This is likely to just extend the time-period over which this will fade.
- crapshoot101 13y ago
  You don't think that if that you were subject to a torrent of abuse you'd want to fight back about it, especially when additional evidence suggests that the abuse was based on bullshit / a desire for linkbait?
  - uptown 13y ago
    Maybe so, but to what end? He knows what he believes. Who really cares what "a mob of Internet trolls, eco-zealots, and other angry folk from every corner of the Internet" think? I wouldn't.
gojomo 13y ago
9600 words! The very rich are different from you and me... no one dare edit them for length. That said, I am sympathetic to Parker's point that social media/journalism has, with all its benefits, also introduced certain pathologies for which we haven't yet evolved countermeasures.
- engtech 13y ago
  57kb of raw text without the images -- text is cheap. :)
- cududa 13y ago
  I'd happily read 9600 words written by anyone with thoughtful, interesting and captivating opinions.
incongruity 13y ago
Wait, wait, one of the guys who was behind facebook and the creator of napster (both of which use the internet to profit from other people's information or creative efforts) wants us to feel bad that something he held sacred was violated on the internet? Um, what?
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  Did you read the article? In the end, the lesson learned from my wedding was something much less obvious than the “parable of excess” that was claimed. Rather, the democratization of the media that I idealized in my youth when it was just a distant, blurry dream, suddenly seems much less worthy of idolatry now that it’s become a stark reality. The lesson for me, felt acutely over the past two weeks, ended up being a familiar moral to a familiar story: “Be careful what you wish for — you might just get it.” and In particular, we need to consider stronger privacy laws here in the U.S., a basic right to privacy along the lines of the laws enjoyed by the citizens of most Western European nations. We are all at risk of becoming “public figures” in a world where the media has expanded to include nearly everyone. In such a world, our defamation laws need to be updated to provide individuals with the protection from public persecution that they deserve. We also need to reinforce our personal privacy by beefing up the intellectual property laws that govern the personal content that we generate and share via services like Facebook. EDIT: and Economically speaking, I profited handsomely from the destruction of the media as we knew it. The rest of the world did not make out so well, and society certainly got the worse end of the bargain. The decentralization of media got off to a promising start, but like so many other half-baked revolutions, it never fulfilled its early promise. In its present form, social media may be doing more harm than good. Perhaps we should have expected this — technology always leads the way, society and government inevitably play catch-up.
  - incongruity 13y ago
    Yes. I did read it – and I stand by what I said. I find it hugely disingenuous and/or self-absorbed that only now that the shoe is on the other foot, Mr. Parker changes his tune... only after getting rich by exploiting things not so distant from that which he wants to curtail now. Edit: The additional quote does nothing to change my point. He doesn't dispute what I said about him profiting from his actions – but he still wants personal sympathy. I agree with his larger point, privacy matters, but I find this messenger to be distinctly self-serving in all of his actions.
Avshalom 13y ago
Wait when were weddings ever sacred? How willfully ignorant of humanity do you have to be to think that a wedding like that was going to just go without comment?
- joyeuse6701 13y ago
  >Wait when were weddings ever sacred? As for Catholicism, since it's a sacrament, I'd say since the inception of that religion which was some time ago. >How willfully ignorant of humanity do you have to be to think that a wedding like that was going to just go without comment? Victim blaming, but to answer your question at face value, somewhat ignorant.
Malloc_Leake 13y ago
The remarkable thing is, everyone had already forgotten about how much they hate Whoever Parker until he wrote this. If he really wanted to be left alone he would have just shut up about it. This is just attention grabbing and trying to re-write history, painting himself as a sympathetic figure that shouldn't be picked on for living an extravagant life while the majority of his countrymen are getting kicked out of the middle class.
thret 13y ago
"I was backed into a corner and had no choice but to give in to any demands made of me by the hotel or the commission." The California Coastal Commission waited until 20 days before the wedding to blackmail him for one million dollars, simply because he could afford it. How on earth do they get away with this abuse of power?
- crapshoot101 13y ago
  California's multitude of agencies are ... litigious and looking to justify their keep, all the time. We've discussed this before at Hacker News, (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567206), but CA is regulator heavy.
- pyoung 13y ago
  It sounds like they were not aware of the wedding until late in the game. If you follow the arc of culpability throughout the post, Parker assumed that the Hotel was adequately permitted for such activities. When it turned out that they were not, the Hotel forced Parker into a indemnification agreement (presumably by threatening to cancel the wedding), which means he can't sue the Hotel. Then the Hotel refused to pay the CCC fine, preferring to cancel the wedding instead. So his only option at the point was to pay for the fines himself. My take away from this is that the hotel is to blame. They did not have the required permits (despite an assumption on Parker's part that they did), and they refused to rectify the situation when it was discovered that there were issues. Parker seems to go easy on them, my guess is because he has some connections to the owners (in my opinion, his best defense would be to turn around and point fingers at the Hotel owners).
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  By being broke and needing money, and by representing a voter base that doesn't want to pay any more taxes?
timtadh 13y ago
Make sure you read the end, it is the best part of the essay: ''' The more we depend on social networks and other online services to share content with friends and family, the more we risk that our content inadvertently becomes public. The enforceability of intellectual property laws around user-generated content — our photos, videos, and other content — is one of the best protections we have. The media has, in many cases, chosen to broadly construe all content shared via these networks as “public” when in fact much of it is private, and the copyright on that private material belongs to the creator. Sharing photos on Facebook should no more constitute a public license to use those photos than sending them over email. The ubiquitous license agreements and privacy policies that online services force their users to enter into should be scrutinized by the courts around the principle of adhesion, and if the courts are unwilling to reconsider the status quo then congress should intervene with legislation limiting the scope and enforceability of these agreements. We also need to be willing to consider that only Congress can prevent the abuse of governmental power that is used to coerce online services into to turning over data in a wholesale manner. I am certain that social networks, technology companies, and telecommunications companies would prefer not to kowtow to governments around the world, but operating a service on the scale of Facebook or Google puts these companies in the crosshairs of governmental agencies of all kinds. Once a company has reached this scale, only governments pose a meaningful existential threat. It is therefore incumbent upon the legislature to craft appropriate boundaries that strike a balance between the valid needs of governmental authorities and the equally valid privacy demands of Internet users. In the end, the lesson learned from my wedding was something much less obvious than the “parable of excess” that was claimed. Rather, the democratization of the media that I idealized in my youth when it was just a distant, blurry dream, suddenly seems much less worthy of idolatry now that it’s become a stark reality. The lesson for me, felt acutely over the past two weeks, ended up being a familiar moral to a familiar story: “Be careful what you wish for — you might just get it.” '''
- sakura_k 13y ago
  Calling on the government to monitor and regulate private communications is an odd call to action these days.
- bad_user 13y ago
rogerbinns 13y ago
I really hate how the American legal system lets the guilty get away with things. In this case that hotel was very guilty of years of violations, and got away free. Didn't cost them a penny. You see those settlements all the time where the guilty party made a payment but admitted no guilt. And of course the government has unlimited deep legal pockets and can make life hell for people. It is in their interest to overreach which makes it even more expensive and threatening for the innocent or those guilty of only a little bit.
senjmccarthy 13y ago
The irony! He could have stuck with filesharing and useful (albeit controversial) technology, but he had to chase after pure hype companies aimed at internet noobs, like Facebook. As any resectable geek knows, FB offered us nothing we could not do before using the usual communication tools. There's never been any reason we have to pass all our private details and communications through Zuckerberg's website. He called users "dumb fucks" for doing so. That fact has not changed. He still treats users as dumb. Parker relishes his celebrity and all his new high profile friends. Facebook made him something he was not before: able to afford a lavish wedding. And now he's complaining. "Live by the sword die by the sword." As he said, he's profited handsomely. But he's right: there's a purpose behind privacy. And he's learning that the hard way. So, Mr. Parker, put your money where your mouth is: dump some millions into startups that are the antithesis of Facebook. Let's chase privacy instead of celebrity.
mixmastamyk 13y ago
Another example of why you should not trust anything you read or see on TV w/o time and/or corroborating evidence. TL;DR: Summary Points - The wedding site was chosen because it had been previously developed, so there was no environmental impact. The site was not public property, it was a private, for-profit, campground, which was mostly paved in asphalt and or cleared of all foliage. Development only occurred in cleared dirt and asphalt areas. - The natural environment was not harmed, despite widespread claims to the contrary. There was no harm done to redwood trees, other plants, or animals. There were no endangered species on or near the property. - We were conscientious about protecting the environment, locating the site with the help of Save the Redwoods League and soliciting advice about how to avoid harming the redwood habitat. - Hundreds of articles were written in the days following the wedding, yet only one reporter contacted us for comment. Most of the information contained in these articles was erroneous. No original reporting was done, no interviews were conducted, and no fact checking occurred. - We voluntarily agreed to cover $1 million in penalties related to the Ventana’s lack of development permits and past violations. We also volunteered to contribute $1.5 million in charitable contributions serving the coastal region of the Monterey Peninsula.
- waylandsmithers 13y ago
  It's always seemed to me that news stories and features tend to be wildly inaccurate when they happen to be on a topic you know a lot about.
  - afriesh123 13y ago
    Michael Crichton: “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
frogpelt 13y ago
About wedding costs: The median cost of a wedding is somewhere around $18,000 according to TheKnot.com while the median net worth is around $57,000. In other words, the median wedding cost / net worth ratio is around 1/3. Mr. Parker's wedding costs were around 1/168th of his net worth. It wasn't extravagant by that measure.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Agreed, though I suspect that the median net worth of the general population and the median net worth of people when they are married are likely different.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Mr. Parker's wedding costs were around 1/168th of his net worth. It wasn't extravagant by that measure. That's a silly measure, thought, because it would imply that a $1 billion dollar wedding for a $3 billion dollar net worth guy would not be "extravagant". The costs are not tied to the net worth, they are about sitting so many people, feeding them, closing the venue, the flowers, photographer etc. Poorer people make do with less expensive restaurants and venues, and richer people go for more expensive. Still, there's only so much you can spend of a venue, food, wine, etc before it becomes extravagant. Similarly, a guy that makes $100 million per year does not eat meals that are 2500 times more costly than those of a guy that makes $40.000 a year. If he did, that would put those meals in the 25.000-50.000 dollars per meal region. Which would be extravagant by any measure.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    a guy that makes $100 million per year does not eat meals that are 2500 times more costly than those of a guy that makes $40.000 a year According to the receipts posted to rich kids of instagram, many actually do!
    - coldtea 13y ago
      I'd say those are special occasions -- that's why they post the receipts too. Do they eat $30,000 dollar meals daily? I doubt it.
205guy 13y ago
A lot of people are judging the personalities involved, the event itself, and the media behavior, but few objective facts are revealed. More worrisome is that objective facts are seemingly being covered over with weasel words. First off, I am not at all impressed how Mr. Parker shifts the blame onto the property owners and others. I did see some of the inflammatory comments on early stories where people assumed it was public land. But even as private land, its use is still restricted by regulations because it is in the coastal zone. Just because it is private land doesn't mean owners and their renters can do anything they wan with it--thank goodness. California recognizes the fragility and ecological value of the coastal areas and regulates them. I don't care whether he knew about that or not, he, his hired staff, and the owners he worked with are all to blame for not knowing and following regulations. He also tries to dodge blame for the campground issues and the owners' responsibility, then get sympathy for being strong-armed by the owners into paying up or getting cancelled. All I can say is that he could afford the lawyers, and if you want grandiose, you have to deal with ALL of the issues. His failure to do that does not garner my sympathy. I would also take issue with "It was an homage to the natural environment," when he admitted the whole scenery and costumes were fake. In other words, it was quite literally the Hollywoodization of the natural environment, not an homage. What he fails to understand, ultimately, is that a an all-night costume party for 350+ people is not compatible with the natural environment--no matter how much he wants the reader to believe so or how much he has paid to make it so. A lot of HN commenter also seem bowled over by all these words, and just because someone says they didn't harm the redwoods, they believe him. I'm holding out for a scientific assessment of the situation. I do know redwoods (and sequoia) have shallow roots and can be harmed by trampling. So, were the root areas (usually within a 20-30 ft radius) of the trees properly protected during the decoration and the event? One of the first stories I saw about this had pictures of the fake walls right up to a tree. So, in the opinion of an arborist specialized in these trees, is that damaging or not? Same for the trout and other riparian species. Are they present or is this potential habitat? Did the setup or the event or the dissasembly impact the streams or drainages? One original article said they diverted streams; was that accurate or not? Mr. Parkers explanations about different kinds of trout and what's endangered or protected are not very clear--in fact they seem intentionally confusing. He does say that biologists inspected the streams and found no sedimentation. OK, what about immediately before the event (since decorations weren't finished until the last minute) and after the event, and again during the tear-down. I'm totally willing to believe the environmental damage was minimal. The campground had been recently repaved and bulldozed in places. The set-up crew was at least aware of environmental concerns, regulatory agencies were keeping watch, etc. And yes the media reaction was totally overblown, but doesn't that go with the territory of being rich and somewhat famous, especially when pulling off high-profile events? But I'd still like to see the official report about the damage before believing this one-sided argument.
pbreit 13y ago
I like Sean but I think he could have headed off a lot of criticism with way fewer words, probably sooner.
cafard 13y ago
When last were weddings sacred, in the sense of not open to public comment? In Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence the mother of the bride is horrified at the notion that reporters might take a picture of her daughter and put it in the newspapers; and surely they would have. There is the folk tradition of the "shivaree". Second, "Our wedding was the antithesis of the technology-infested world we live in; a world that I have played a role in creating." No, not really, any more than Marie Antoinette was a milkmaid. In a world insufficiently infested with technology, rich people don't get married in the woods. In fact, apart from the men going there to hunt, they don't spend much time in the woods.

136 points by crapshoot101 13y ago

"I have known the media to be irresponsible at times, but this represents a new low." Actually, I doubt that. I'm willing to concede that it has become more prevalent recently, but it seems more likely that this level of irresponsibility has always been present in the media to some degree.

mrtriangle 13y ago

TL:DR The media is a bunch of haters, our wedding wasn't as ecologically devastating as it was played out to be. Why'd you people use so many expletives about us?

marze 13y ago
Try: the wedding had essentially no ecological impact.
cobrausn 13y ago
The wedding wasn't where the stories said it was (private land not a public park), there were no endangered species that were put at risk, and only one reporter out of 100 stories that ran bothered to call them for comment, so it's a bit more than that. But, as one comment said, if that story were printed on paper it would have needed a redwood to make the sheets. Probably longer than it needed to be.
mcherm 13y ago
Also, "almost none of the journalists bothered to ask us for comment". That was the one part that surprised me; I would have expected better.
- jacalata 13y ago
  I'm sure that if they had all called for comment he would have been outraged that people couldn't leave him alone on his honeymoon.
  - darkarmani 13y ago
    That's a typical smear tactic. Raise a hypothetical as a certainty that is impossible to disprove, but makes the person look terrible. The proof lies with the people making the extraordinary claims. Reporters could have easily waited to get all of the facts and if that means waiting to their are back from their honeymoon, so be it. Why give a pass to incompetent reporters?

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rdouble 13y ago

This dude needs something to do!

j_s 13y ago

See HN reaction to the Atlantic story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5824276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5824276 and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5820590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5820590

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anigbrowl 13y ago

That's quite interesting and enlightening; although the lesson this case seems to be 'beware of the company you keep' since he ended up getting the blame for the poor ecological stewardship and greed of the inn on whose land the event took place. I'm struck by this quote: Economically speaking, I profited handsomely from the destruction of the media as we knew it. The rest of the world did not make out so well, and society certainly got the worse end of the bargain. The decentralization of media got off to a promising start, but like so many other half-baked revolutions, it never fulfilled its early promise. In its present form, social media may be doing more harm than good. I think this is rather true. Although there was stupid tabloid media long before social media came along, it's increasingly become the norm on the internet. I know a little of how he feels as I spent years trumpeting the idea f public comments on newspaper articles and so on....and now I use Stylebot to hide them from me, because 99% of what's written in news article comments is hideously stupid. Rather than elevating society, the internet and social media has basically digitized the mob and given everyone a megaphone.

tsotha 13y ago
I don't think it's true at all. The media made just as many mistakes before the internet. The difference is there wasn't anybody to call them on it. Recall CBS tried to throw a presidential election with obviously forged documents, something they would have gotten away with a few decades earlier.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  The media is not a monolith. Go read some history, and figure that a) people have been pulling stunts like that since the US was founded and b) they were typically exposed by competitors in the media. Back in 1798, no less a person than George Washington was griping that the Democrats (under Thomas Jefferson - not to be confused with today's Democratic party) were a bunch of malcontents whose primary object was to overturn the government: http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/collection/post_pres_1798sep30.html http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/collection/post_pres_179...
  - 13y ago

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parfe 13y ago

While HN isn't responsible for the content of the articles it linked to, the community here sure took the opportunity to write, and upvote, some awful things. I wish there was a sort of pinned story feature to offer a community retraction that stays on the front page for a substantial amount of time. Sort of a group apology for promoting comments like "I disagree. To me, this is the story of a single a-hole." and "Fuck you Sean Parker."

corresation 13y ago
Why? Naval gazing? Proving someone wrong? If the NY Times wrote an article claiming that Sergey Brin dumped raw sewage from his yacht, the responses would be based upon the assumption of accuracy of that story. If the story isn't accurate, it will quickly be corrected (and legal avenues should be exercised, such as libel lawsuits), which has to some degree happened in this case. But what are people really supposed to do? For every story everyone must stay quiet? Let claims bake for a period? Put a disclaimer "If this story is accurate..." before every statement? That should be presumed. In the end, though, while I had no comment on the original story (it seemed like a classic "they're rich...get 'em!" kind of story), I certainly don't find Parker a more reasonable chap after this 10,000 word outing. His argument is essentially- a) Steelhead trout are stupid anyways. I'm humorously paraphrasing, but they are an endangered/threatened species, and you can't simply lump them in with Rainbow trout and pretend it's all good regardless. b) Ignorance of the law is no defense. Saying that a group was formed before you were born makes one sound a bit like a jackass (maybe that's what the NSA is claiming? The various rights were written before they were born, so...) c) He's good because he leveraged someone else's significant mismanagement of the forest, therefore he has no culpability. This is a bit of a tragedy of the commons thing, but his argument seems to be that all of this development happened in a vacuum and he just happened to be a sad passerby who might as well make use of it. I don't think he needs to apologize to anyone, and it sounds like the land was horrendously mismanaged by the company that owns it, however this doesn't get sympathy.
- philh 13y ago
  To paraphrase you... what was Parker really supposed to do? Every time he wants to have an event on private property, he has to check that the owner isn't violating any of a myriad regulations imposed by countless regulatory bodies? That doesn't seem feasible.

crapshoot101 13y ago

All in all, I was surprised/impressed that he was willing to acknowledge that he's been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the media disintermediation he helped to bring about, in many ways - and now he's finally seeing a backlash from it. The standard point about clickbait and the Buzzfeedication of media is a reasonable one, but until stories / media can earn online by maximizing for something other than CPM, this will continue. I don't have any solution, just acknowledging the problem.

resu_nimda 13y ago

For the most part, I agree with him, he was essentially violated by a sensationalist online media that spews cut-and-paste drama with absolutely no due diligence ("viral" is particularly evocative here). That said, it does sound like a pretty extravagant over-the-top wedding, if a more tasteful one than your typical Kardashian affair. I suspect people latched onto that bit and just ran with it. I can't reconcile his talk of nature and sanctuary with the extremely manufactured and "faked" nature of the event. Why not have a low-key ceremony in an actual beautiful natural area?

brendanobrien 13y ago
I;d say, it's his wedding. The answer to "Why not do it this way?" is that as a couple, that's not what they wanted. This only looks "faked" is because we have no personal connection with the couple. I'm with you on the sensationalist bit, and would take it the additional step of assuming we have no right to barge in & opine over someone else's wedding... so long as they're not hurting anyone (or any trees). I'm guessing that last bit is the sticking point :)
- resu_nimda 13y ago
  Yeah, I tried not to be overly judgmental, it is his wedding and his money, but it's pretty common for people to react poorly to opulent displays of personal wealth. I said "faked" because they literally trucked in a fake castle and forest, among other things to the tune of a few million dollars. It just seems inconsistent with a professed love of nature, and hardly "the antithesis of the technology-infested world we live in."
  - brendanobrien 13y ago
    Sounds like solid logic to me. Glad to have that one explicitly worked out :)
aasarava 13y ago
So why does it matter that his wedding sounds like an extravagant affair to you? There are plenty of people who want to spend a lot of money on their weddings or other events and have a vision of it that pleases them. I think we should all expect the right to spend our money the way we choose (within legal and ethical boundaries) without being second guessed and attacked by a public mob. Now, if you had wanted to, you could have penned an editorial exploring whether there's hypocrisy in his decision to "manufacture" the scenery. But the real issue is why so many people who call themselves members of "the media" get to publish scathing blog posts that they pass off as news articles without doing any actual journalistic research.

Zimahl 13y ago

I have to wonder how much of a backlash would've been created for someone other than Sean Parker. I don't think this would've been much of a story if not for 'The Social Network' portraying him as an egotistical, asshole, pseudo-con man (which he very well might be, I don't know). But then comes along a story of him doing what seems like egotistical, asshole stuff and it's too much to resist for the media. The narrative is already there so it writes itself.

scelerat 13y ago

I sense that the backlash, well-informed or not, was fueled more by the extravagance of the event than its environmental impact.

uptown 13y ago

I'm not going to read his article - but why is he still fanning this fire? People get worked up over things, then they move on. This is likely to just extend the time-period over which this will fade.

crapshoot101 13y ago
You don't think that if that you were subject to a torrent of abuse you'd want to fight back about it, especially when additional evidence suggests that the abuse was based on bullshit / a desire for linkbait?
- uptown 13y ago
  Maybe so, but to what end? He knows what he believes. Who really cares what "a mob of Internet trolls, eco-zealots, and other angry folk from every corner of the Internet" think? I wouldn't.

gojomo 13y ago

9600 words! The very rich are different from you and me... no one dare edit them for length. That said, I am sympathetic to Parker's point that social media/journalism has, with all its benefits, also introduced certain pathologies for which we haven't yet evolved countermeasures.

engtech 13y ago
57kb of raw text without the images -- text is cheap. :)
cududa 13y ago
I'd happily read 9600 words written by anyone with thoughtful, interesting and captivating opinions.

incongruity 13y ago

Wait, wait, one of the guys who was behind facebook and the creator of napster (both of which use the internet to profit from other people's information or creative efforts) wants us to feel bad that something he held sacred was violated on the internet? Um, what?

tlrobinson 13y ago
Did you read the article? In the end, the lesson learned from my wedding was something much less obvious than the “parable of excess” that was claimed. Rather, the democratization of the media that I idealized in my youth when it was just a distant, blurry dream, suddenly seems much less worthy of idolatry now that it’s become a stark reality. The lesson for me, felt acutely over the past two weeks, ended up being a familiar moral to a familiar story: “Be careful what you wish for — you might just get it.” and In particular, we need to consider stronger privacy laws here in the U.S., a basic right to privacy along the lines of the laws enjoyed by the citizens of most Western European nations. We are all at risk of becoming “public figures” in a world where the media has expanded to include nearly everyone. In such a world, our defamation laws need to be updated to provide individuals with the protection from public persecution that they deserve. We also need to reinforce our personal privacy by beefing up the intellectual property laws that govern the personal content that we generate and share via services like Facebook. EDIT: and Economically speaking, I profited handsomely from the destruction of the media as we knew it. The rest of the world did not make out so well, and society certainly got the worse end of the bargain. The decentralization of media got off to a promising start, but like so many other half-baked revolutions, it never fulfilled its early promise. In its present form, social media may be doing more harm than good. Perhaps we should have expected this — technology always leads the way, society and government inevitably play catch-up.
- incongruity 13y ago
  Yes. I did read it – and I stand by what I said. I find it hugely disingenuous and/or self-absorbed that only now that the shoe is on the other foot, Mr. Parker changes his tune... only after getting rich by exploiting things not so distant from that which he wants to curtail now. Edit: The additional quote does nothing to change my point. He doesn't dispute what I said about him profiting from his actions – but he still wants personal sympathy. I agree with his larger point, privacy matters, but I find this messenger to be distinctly self-serving in all of his actions.

Avshalom 13y ago

Wait when were weddings ever sacred? How willfully ignorant of humanity do you have to be to think that a wedding like that was going to just go without comment?

joyeuse6701 13y ago
>Wait when were weddings ever sacred? As for Catholicism, since it's a sacrament, I'd say since the inception of that religion which was some time ago. >How willfully ignorant of humanity do you have to be to think that a wedding like that was going to just go without comment? Victim blaming, but to answer your question at face value, somewhat ignorant.

Malloc_Leake 13y ago

The remarkable thing is, everyone had already forgotten about how much they hate Whoever Parker until he wrote this. If he really wanted to be left alone he would have just shut up about it. This is just attention grabbing and trying to re-write history, painting himself as a sympathetic figure that shouldn't be picked on for living an extravagant life while the majority of his countrymen are getting kicked out of the middle class.

thret 13y ago

"I was backed into a corner and had no choice but to give in to any demands made of me by the hotel or the commission." The California Coastal Commission waited until 20 days before the wedding to blackmail him for one million dollars, simply because he could afford it. How on earth do they get away with this abuse of power?

crapshoot101 13y ago
California's multitude of agencies are ... litigious and looking to justify their keep, all the time. We've discussed this before at Hacker News, (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567206), but CA is regulator heavy.
pyoung 13y ago
It sounds like they were not aware of the wedding until late in the game. If you follow the arc of culpability throughout the post, Parker assumed that the Hotel was adequately permitted for such activities. When it turned out that they were not, the Hotel forced Parker into a indemnification agreement (presumably by threatening to cancel the wedding), which means he can't sue the Hotel. Then the Hotel refused to pay the CCC fine, preferring to cancel the wedding instead. So his only option at the point was to pay for the fines himself. My take away from this is that the hotel is to blame. They did not have the required permits (despite an assumption on Parker's part that they did), and they refused to rectify the situation when it was discovered that there were issues. Parker seems to go easy on them, my guess is because he has some connections to the owners (in my opinion, his best defense would be to turn around and point fingers at the Hotel owners).
sliverstorm 13y ago
By being broke and needing money, and by representing a voter base that doesn't want to pay any more taxes?

timtadh 13y ago

Make sure you read the end, it is the best part of the essay: ''' The more we depend on social networks and other online services to share content with friends and family, the more we risk that our content inadvertently becomes public. The enforceability of intellectual property laws around user-generated content — our photos, videos, and other content — is one of the best protections we have. The media has, in many cases, chosen to broadly construe all content shared via these networks as “public” when in fact much of it is private, and the copyright on that private material belongs to the creator. Sharing photos on Facebook should no more constitute a public license to use those photos than sending them over email. The ubiquitous license agreements and privacy policies that online services force their users to enter into should be scrutinized by the courts around the principle of adhesion, and if the courts are unwilling to reconsider the status quo then congress should intervene with legislation limiting the scope and enforceability of these agreements. We also need to be willing to consider that only Congress can prevent the abuse of governmental power that is used to coerce online services into to turning over data in a wholesale manner. I am certain that social networks, technology companies, and telecommunications companies would prefer not to kowtow to governments around the world, but operating a service on the scale of Facebook or Google puts these companies in the crosshairs of governmental agencies of all kinds. Once a company has reached this scale, only governments pose a meaningful existential threat. It is therefore incumbent upon the legislature to craft appropriate boundaries that strike a balance between the valid needs of governmental authorities and the equally valid privacy demands of Internet users. In the end, the lesson learned from my wedding was something much less obvious than the “parable of excess” that was claimed. Rather, the democratization of the media that I idealized in my youth when it was just a distant, blurry dream, suddenly seems much less worthy of idolatry now that it’s become a stark reality. The lesson for me, felt acutely over the past two weeks, ended up being a familiar moral to a familiar story: “Be careful what you wish for — you might just get it.” '''

sakura_k 13y ago
Calling on the government to monitor and regulate private communications is an odd call to action these days.
bad_user 13y ago

rogerbinns 13y ago

I really hate how the American legal system lets the guilty get away with things. In this case that hotel was very guilty of years of violations, and got away free. Didn't cost them a penny. You see those settlements all the time where the guilty party made a payment but admitted no guilt. And of course the government has unlimited deep legal pockets and can make life hell for people. It is in their interest to overreach which makes it even more expensive and threatening for the innocent or those guilty of only a little bit.

senjmccarthy 13y ago

The irony! He could have stuck with filesharing and useful (albeit controversial) technology, but he had to chase after pure hype companies aimed at internet noobs, like Facebook. As any resectable geek knows, FB offered us nothing we could not do before using the usual communication tools. There's never been any reason we have to pass all our private details and communications through Zuckerberg's website. He called users "dumb fucks" for doing so. That fact has not changed. He still treats users as dumb. Parker relishes his celebrity and all his new high profile friends. Facebook made him something he was not before: able to afford a lavish wedding. And now he's complaining. "Live by the sword die by the sword." As he said, he's profited handsomely. But he's right: there's a purpose behind privacy. And he's learning that the hard way. So, Mr. Parker, put your money where your mouth is: dump some millions into startups that are the antithesis of Facebook. Let's chase privacy instead of celebrity.

mixmastamyk 13y ago

Another example of why you should not trust anything you read or see on TV w/o time and/or corroborating evidence. TL;DR: Summary Points - The wedding site was chosen because it had been previously developed, so there was no environmental impact. The site was not public property, it was a private, for-profit, campground, which was mostly paved in asphalt and or cleared of all foliage. Development only occurred in cleared dirt and asphalt areas. - The natural environment was not harmed, despite widespread claims to the contrary. There was no harm done to redwood trees, other plants, or animals. There were no endangered species on or near the property. - We were conscientious about protecting the environment, locating the site with the help of Save the Redwoods League and soliciting advice about how to avoid harming the redwood habitat. - Hundreds of articles were written in the days following the wedding, yet only one reporter contacted us for comment. Most of the information contained in these articles was erroneous. No original reporting was done, no interviews were conducted, and no fact checking occurred. - We voluntarily agreed to cover $1 million in penalties related to the Ventana’s lack of development permits and past violations. We also volunteered to contribute $1.5 million in charitable contributions serving the coastal region of the Monterey Peninsula.

waylandsmithers 13y ago
It's always seemed to me that news stories and features tend to be wildly inaccurate when they happen to be on a topic you know a lot about.
- afriesh123 13y ago
  Michael Crichton: “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

frogpelt 13y ago

About wedding costs: The median cost of a wedding is somewhere around $18,000 according to TheKnot.com while the median net worth is around $57,000. In other words, the median wedding cost / net worth ratio is around 1/3. Mr. Parker's wedding costs were around 1/168th of his net worth. It wasn't extravagant by that measure.

jlgreco 13y ago
Agreed, though I suspect that the median net worth of the general population and the median net worth of people when they are married are likely different.
coldtea 13y ago
>Mr. Parker's wedding costs were around 1/168th of his net worth. It wasn't extravagant by that measure. That's a silly measure, thought, because it would imply that a $1 billion dollar wedding for a $3 billion dollar net worth guy would not be "extravagant". The costs are not tied to the net worth, they are about sitting so many people, feeding them, closing the venue, the flowers, photographer etc. Poorer people make do with less expensive restaurants and venues, and richer people go for more expensive. Still, there's only so much you can spend of a venue, food, wine, etc before it becomes extravagant. Similarly, a guy that makes $100 million per year does not eat meals that are 2500 times more costly than those of a guy that makes $40.000 a year. If he did, that would put those meals in the 25.000-50.000 dollars per meal region. Which would be extravagant by any measure.
- rdouble 13y ago
  a guy that makes $100 million per year does not eat meals that are 2500 times more costly than those of a guy that makes $40.000 a year According to the receipts posted to rich kids of instagram, many actually do!
  - coldtea 13y ago
    I'd say those are special occasions -- that's why they post the receipts too. Do they eat $30,000 dollar meals daily? I doubt it.

205guy 13y ago

A lot of people are judging the personalities involved, the event itself, and the media behavior, but few objective facts are revealed. More worrisome is that objective facts are seemingly being covered over with weasel words. First off, I am not at all impressed how Mr. Parker shifts the blame onto the property owners and others. I did see some of the inflammatory comments on early stories where people assumed it was public land. But even as private land, its use is still restricted by regulations because it is in the coastal zone. Just because it is private land doesn't mean owners and their renters can do anything they wan with it--thank goodness. California recognizes the fragility and ecological value of the coastal areas and regulates them. I don't care whether he knew about that or not, he, his hired staff, and the owners he worked with are all to blame for not knowing and following regulations. He also tries to dodge blame for the campground issues and the owners' responsibility, then get sympathy for being strong-armed by the owners into paying up or getting cancelled. All I can say is that he could afford the lawyers, and if you want grandiose, you have to deal with ALL of the issues. His failure to do that does not garner my sympathy. I would also take issue with "It was an homage to the natural environment," when he admitted the whole scenery and costumes were fake. In other words, it was quite literally the Hollywoodization of the natural environment, not an homage. What he fails to understand, ultimately, is that a an all-night costume party for 350+ people is not compatible with the natural environment--no matter how much he wants the reader to believe so or how much he has paid to make it so. A lot of HN commenter also seem bowled over by all these words, and just because someone says they didn't harm the redwoods, they believe him. I'm holding out for a scientific assessment of the situation. I do know redwoods (and sequoia) have shallow roots and can be harmed by trampling. So, were the root areas (usually within a 20-30 ft radius) of the trees properly protected during the decoration and the event? One of the first stories I saw about this had pictures of the fake walls right up to a tree. So, in the opinion of an arborist specialized in these trees, is that damaging or not? Same for the trout and other riparian species. Are they present or is this potential habitat? Did the setup or the event or the dissasembly impact the streams or drainages? One original article said they diverted streams; was that accurate or not? Mr. Parkers explanations about different kinds of trout and what's endangered or protected are not very clear--in fact they seem intentionally confusing. He does say that biologists inspected the streams and found no sedimentation. OK, what about immediately before the event (since decorations weren't finished until the last minute) and after the event, and again during the tear-down. I'm totally willing to believe the environmental damage was minimal. The campground had been recently repaved and bulldozed in places. The set-up crew was at least aware of environmental concerns, regulatory agencies were keeping watch, etc. And yes the media reaction was totally overblown, but doesn't that go with the territory of being rich and somewhat famous, especially when pulling off high-profile events? But I'd still like to see the official report about the damage before believing this one-sided argument.

pbreit 13y ago

I like Sean but I think he could have headed off a lot of criticism with way fewer words, probably sooner.

cafard 13y ago

When last were weddings sacred, in the sense of not open to public comment? In Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence the mother of the bride is horrified at the notion that reporters might take a picture of her daughter and put it in the newspapers; and surely they would have. There is the folk tradition of the "shivaree". Second, "Our wedding was the antithesis of the technology-infested world we live in; a world that I have played a role in creating." No, not really, any more than Marie Antoinette was a milkmaid. In a world insufficiently infested with technology, rich people don't get married in the woods. In fact, apart from the men going there to hunt, they don't spend much time in the woods.