6 ms·

Reddit is visited by tens of millions of people of virtually every demographic. Corralling them as "internet nerds" seems a bit like you're trying for some bull

by jmduke 13y ago

Reddit is visited by tens of millions of people of virtually every demographic. Corralling them as "internet nerds" seems a bit like you're trying for some bullying yourself. The post to which you're replying didn't even mention Reddit. Reddit is by no means the only place where a nerdy demographic (and I'll define 'nerdy demographic' as 18-25 that skew towards STEM education and exhibit above-average internet usage) tends to engage in destructive behavior, but they're certainly guilty of it. A bunch of people said silly things, largely under the assumption that it was no consequence (that no one was hurt, etc) The whole point of the article is the inherent falsity of the assumption that what you do online has diminished/no consequences. People who are on the Internet tend to forget that literally everybody else is on the Internet too. Being a jackass isn't somehow excusable just because you don't know who you're being a jackass to (in fact, some would argue that it makes it worse.)

jlgreco 13y ago
> The post to which you're replying didn't even mention Reddit. Didn't this all kick off with a mean-spirited reaction to a photo on Reddit? The ancestor post hardly needs to mention Reddit explicitly...
stonemetal 13y ago
He did in fact mention it. It's also interesting to see how many times Reddit (and other communities) fly into a rage-fest because of lack of context,
xvolter 13y ago
The article mentions Reddit being the place where C.D. Hermelin was textually abused for being a hipster; or more accurately, accused of being a hipster solely because he was using a typewriter. Reddit is the only place where the internet nerds in discussion come from. Reddit however is not made up of internet nerds. Reddit is made up of average joes who know enough about computers to register at facebook and reddit. The average reddit user is no more advanced than the average 13-year-old nowadays - can browse the internet, turn of a computer and install some games on their smartphone and tablet. They were never made fun of for being internet nerds, because they're not nerds nor geeks. They're just average joes; because as you say, everybody is on the internet nowadays, and those who are the truly advanced users who MAY have been made fun of more because of it generally do not spend their time raging about a hipster. I say may because honestly, geeks are not the object of ridicule as they once were.
- brianpgordon 13y ago
  Reddit is a heterogeneous collection of wildly different subreddits. Some subreddits (/r/pics, /r/funny, /r/WTF) are "average" as you described, but others have different demographics.
  - bashinator 13y ago
    For example, I would hardly call the typical user of /r/TalesFromYourServer to be a 20-25 year old male STEM-educated nerd.
    - petsos 13y ago
      I'm going to guess that this was not posted in /r/TalesFromYourServer. The mere fact that it attracted so many comments means that it was posted on one of the "average" reddits.
      - 013 13y ago
        It was posted on /r/nyc. Which isn't a default sub-reddit, but would probably still be subscribed by "average" users.
    - zenocon 13y ago
      Until I checked the subreddit, I assumed "server" meant a beat up old PC running some obscure Linux distro in a corner of some basement, and I was about to call you out... :)
- HNLogInShit 13y ago
  Reddit is as rife with "hipsters" as any venue. The idea that its community would lash out against a perceived hipster is pathetic self-loathing and projection. After Digg sold out and became a spam site, many of us migrated to Reddit. And then we abandoned it, after a couple hundred "this little guy followed me home" posts about puppies and whatever other attention-whoring crap dominated the front page. Reddit is the last community that should be condemning "hipsters." Talk about hypocrisy. Or should I say hipocracy.
phaus 13y ago
It may have been edited after you posted, but the comment he replied to did mention reddit.
tomphoolery 13y ago
> Being a jackass isn't somehow excusable just because you don't know who you're being a jackass to (in fact, some would argue that it makes it worse.) This. "We didn't know we were hurting anybody" is no excuse for hurting somebody. Man up, accept the blame, apologize, and move on. It's not the end of the world if you hurt somebody's feelings, but you're a piece of shit if you knowingly hurt somebody's feelings, or they make it publicly known, and you DON'T apologize.
hef19898 13y ago
Having a STEM backgound myself, that is something that saddens me with others with a similar education. Some, not all or even the majority of STEM educated people, show an arrogance towards people with different backgrounds that I just see as arrogant and ignorant at the same time. Nothing against the friendly exchange of not at all serious stereotypes with, say, economics majors. But some people just can't stop there. For me, having a somehow technical or scientific background means to look at things as they really are instead of believing stereotypes yourself. The internet only makes it easier to voice these oppinions. At the very least it says more about the commenters than anything else by ahowing just how ignorant they are. But than, maybe that's just human and we are were like that at a certain pint in our lives.
HNLogInShit 13y ago
Whatever a "STEM education" is.
gioele 13y ago
> above-average internet usage I doubt that internet usage is any longer a measure of how "nerdy" a person is. There are teenagers, especially girls, constantly using internet-based services from their cell phones to communicate with other people for most of the time they spend awake [1,2,3]. Would you call them "nerdy"? I doubt. [1] http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/teens-and-mobile-phones http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/... [2] Madden, Mary; Lenhart, Amanda; Duggan, Maeve; Cortesi, Sandra; Gasser, Urs. "Teens and Technology 2013," Pew Internet & American Life Project and Harvard's Berkman Society for Internet & Society, March 13, 2013. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_TeensandTechnology2013.pdf http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_T... [3] Reidulf G. Watten, Jo Kleiven, Knut Inge Fostervold, Halvor Fauskeand Frode Volden. "Gender Profiles of Internet and Mobile Phone Use among Norwegian Adolescents" http://seminar.net/images/stories/vol4-issue3/watten_et_al-gender_profiles.pdf http://seminar.net/images/stories/vol4-issue3/watten_et_al-g...
- chronic25 13y ago
  owned
- jmduke 13y ago
  Your point is well-taken, but female teenagers who spend their entire day on the internet only fulfill one of the three qualifiers I had for "nerdy" (the other two being 18-25 and STEM-educated.)
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    18-25 is a really silly criterion.
corresation 13y ago
The post to which you're replying didn't even mention Reddit. The post I replied to specifically mentioned Reddit. Although that was later edited out, it is hardly necessary given that the entire story is about a post and discussion on Reddit. Being a jackass isn't somehow excusable just because you don't know who you're being a jackass to While no one said it was excusable (at best I implied that it was ignorable), at times people want to take ownership of offense and leverage if not exaggerate it to prolong exposure, which is exactly what is happening in this case. Naturally played out, Internet memes have a half life of about a day, after which they would naturally be forgotten. Secondly, while this seems counter-intuitive, the discussions on Reddit aren't about the subject (in this case guy on typewriter in NY city) -- they're about a contrived representation that is essentially a created fiction (the fiction in this case was "guys who try to be different by bringing a manual typewriter to parks -- hipsters!", which has absolutely nothing to do with "performance artist making a living". The guy being discussed on Reddit is not the actual guy in the picture, and few confuse the two). I called the discussion itself performance art because it really is -- people aren't trying to insult the guy literally, but instead are engaging in the banter of Reddit, which is something that exists unto itself. There is another post in here by a guy whose wedding picture got appropriated for a meme, and while he took it in stride and seemed good natured about it, and while it sucks when the internet machine appropriates one's stuff, that meme has literally nothing whatsoever to do with him or his wife or anything at all to do with their life. In that case, again, it was simply representative for people to discuss, essentially, marriage. Just as typewriter man is simply a stand in for the purported hipsterism. People needn't over-personalize this stuff.
- 001sky 13y ago
  Good point, and here is your citation: [1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_(art) ‎ Appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. The use of appropriation has played a significant ... Appropriation art (spoiler alert) is as Hipster as it gets. "T\ypewriter guy" appears innocent of the Appropriation he Approriating (un-wittingly). Which is something that happens...similar to other sub-cultural trends that get sent into the mainstream. So this is entirely hall-of-mirrors mockery, than anything pernicious...it seems.

by jmduke 13y ago

jlgreco 13y ago

> The post to which you're replying didn't even mention Reddit. Didn't this all kick off with a mean-spirited reaction to a photo on Reddit? The ancestor post hardly needs to mention Reddit explicitly...

stonemetal 13y ago

He did in fact mention it. It's also interesting to see how many times Reddit (and other communities) fly into a rage-fest because of lack of context,

xvolter 13y ago

The article mentions Reddit being the place where C.D. Hermelin was textually abused for being a hipster; or more accurately, accused of being a hipster solely because he was using a typewriter. Reddit is the only place where the internet nerds in discussion come from. Reddit however is not made up of internet nerds. Reddit is made up of average joes who know enough about computers to register at facebook and reddit. The average reddit user is no more advanced than the average 13-year-old nowadays - can browse the internet, turn of a computer and install some games on their smartphone and tablet. They were never made fun of for being internet nerds, because they're not nerds nor geeks. They're just average joes; because as you say, everybody is on the internet nowadays, and those who are the truly advanced users who MAY have been made fun of more because of it generally do not spend their time raging about a hipster. I say may because honestly, geeks are not the object of ridicule as they once were.

brianpgordon 13y ago
Reddit is a heterogeneous collection of wildly different subreddits. Some subreddits (/r/pics, /r/funny, /r/WTF) are "average" as you described, but others have different demographics.
- bashinator 13y ago
  For example, I would hardly call the typical user of /r/TalesFromYourServer to be a 20-25 year old male STEM-educated nerd.
  - petsos 13y ago
    I'm going to guess that this was not posted in /r/TalesFromYourServer. The mere fact that it attracted so many comments means that it was posted on one of the "average" reddits.
    - 013 13y ago
      It was posted on /r/nyc. Which isn't a default sub-reddit, but would probably still be subscribed by "average" users.
  - zenocon 13y ago
    Until I checked the subreddit, I assumed "server" meant a beat up old PC running some obscure Linux distro in a corner of some basement, and I was about to call you out... :)
HNLogInShit 13y ago
Reddit is as rife with "hipsters" as any venue. The idea that its community would lash out against a perceived hipster is pathetic self-loathing and projection. After Digg sold out and became a spam site, many of us migrated to Reddit. And then we abandoned it, after a couple hundred "this little guy followed me home" posts about puppies and whatever other attention-whoring crap dominated the front page. Reddit is the last community that should be condemning "hipsters." Talk about hypocrisy. Or should I say hipocracy.

phaus 13y ago

It may have been edited after you posted, but the comment he replied to did mention reddit.

tomphoolery 13y ago

> Being a jackass isn't somehow excusable just because you don't know who you're being a jackass to (in fact, some would argue that it makes it worse.) This. "We didn't know we were hurting anybody" is no excuse for hurting somebody. Man up, accept the blame, apologize, and move on. It's not the end of the world if you hurt somebody's feelings, but you're a piece of shit if you knowingly hurt somebody's feelings, or they make it publicly known, and you DON'T apologize.

hef19898 13y ago

Having a STEM backgound myself, that is something that saddens me with others with a similar education. Some, not all or even the majority of STEM educated people, show an arrogance towards people with different backgrounds that I just see as arrogant and ignorant at the same time. Nothing against the friendly exchange of not at all serious stereotypes with, say, economics majors. But some people just can't stop there. For me, having a somehow technical or scientific background means to look at things as they really are instead of believing stereotypes yourself. The internet only makes it easier to voice these oppinions. At the very least it says more about the commenters than anything else by ahowing just how ignorant they are. But than, maybe that's just human and we are were like that at a certain pint in our lives.

HNLogInShit 13y ago

Whatever a "STEM education" is.

gioele 13y ago

> above-average internet usage I doubt that internet usage is any longer a measure of how "nerdy" a person is. There are teenagers, especially girls, constantly using internet-based services from their cell phones to communicate with other people for most of the time they spend awake [1,2,3]. Would you call them "nerdy"? I doubt. [1] http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/teens-and-mobile-phones http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/social-media/... [2] Madden, Mary; Lenhart, Amanda; Duggan, Maeve; Cortesi, Sandra; Gasser, Urs. "Teens and Technology 2013," Pew Internet & American Life Project and Harvard's Berkman Society for Internet & Society, March 13, 2013. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_TeensandTechnology2013.pdf http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2013/PIP_T... [3] Reidulf G. Watten, Jo Kleiven, Knut Inge Fostervold, Halvor Fauskeand Frode Volden. "Gender Profiles of Internet and Mobile Phone Use among Norwegian Adolescents" http://seminar.net/images/stories/vol4-issue3/watten_et_al-gender_profiles.pdf http://seminar.net/images/stories/vol4-issue3/watten_et_al-g...

chronic25 13y ago
owned
jmduke 13y ago
Your point is well-taken, but female teenagers who spend their entire day on the internet only fulfill one of the three qualifiers I had for "nerdy" (the other two being 18-25 and STEM-educated.)
- Tloewald 13y ago
  18-25 is a really silly criterion.

corresation 13y ago

The post to which you're replying didn't even mention Reddit. The post I replied to specifically mentioned Reddit. Although that was later edited out, it is hardly necessary given that the entire story is about a post and discussion on Reddit. Being a jackass isn't somehow excusable just because you don't know who you're being a jackass to While no one said it was excusable (at best I implied that it was ignorable), at times people want to take ownership of offense and leverage if not exaggerate it to prolong exposure, which is exactly what is happening in this case. Naturally played out, Internet memes have a half life of about a day, after which they would naturally be forgotten. Secondly, while this seems counter-intuitive, the discussions on Reddit aren't about the subject (in this case guy on typewriter in NY city) -- they're about a contrived representation that is essentially a created fiction (the fiction in this case was "guys who try to be different by bringing a manual typewriter to parks -- hipsters!", which has absolutely nothing to do with "performance artist making a living". The guy being discussed on Reddit is not the actual guy in the picture, and few confuse the two). I called the discussion itself performance art because it really is -- people aren't trying to insult the guy literally, but instead are engaging in the banter of Reddit, which is something that exists unto itself. There is another post in here by a guy whose wedding picture got appropriated for a meme, and while he took it in stride and seemed good natured about it, and while it sucks when the internet machine appropriates one's stuff, that meme has literally nothing whatsoever to do with him or his wife or anything at all to do with their life. In that case, again, it was simply representative for people to discuss, essentially, marriage. Just as typewriter man is simply a stand in for the purported hipsterism. People needn't over-personalize this stuff.

001sky 13y ago
Good point, and here is your citation: [1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_(art) ‎ Appropriation in art is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. The use of appropriation has played a significant ... Appropriation art (spoiler alert) is as Hipster as it gets. "T\ypewriter guy" appears innocent of the Appropriation he Approriating (un-wittingly). Which is something that happens...similar to other sub-cultural trends that get sent into the mainstream. So this is entirely hall-of-mirrors mockery, than anything pernicious...it seems.