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Comment by pazrul | Hacker News Reader

This guy is a terrible hypocrite; he creates art bemoaning new people in his neighborhood, while being a recent transplant from New York himself. He's cashing in on the worst kind of 'us vs them' mentality.

Some people make excuses that he's only rallying against the stereotypical brogrammer, but I don't think that's true. He's really against anyone being in his neighborhood he didn't personally approve of. He's the same as the neighborhood watch keeping the 'undesirables' out of the cul-de-sac.

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Agreed. For more info, looks at the video here: http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/08/26/22761976/at...

an engineer confronts him in a Q&A session about his bias towards engineers. John just blows up. He accuses techies of being quiet &boring, while at the same time accusing them of being the people who are bashing trans people. He's very inconsistent and is just good at being loud.

Oh, and he's also a transplant from NYC, so if we're supposed to buy into his transplant-hate, we should hate him too.

In my high school they didn't know the word "techie" so they had a different word for kids they considered quite and boring. Ironically it was the same word they used to describe people like John.

As a trans techie (and a lesbian at that), I already can't stand John.

This guy is nuts. Tech is the single most friendly industry for trans people; there's a reason why working in tech is a transfeminine stereotype.

Turn the tables with the old guard being straight white guy blue collar workers, and the newcomers as gay artists, how do John's rants sound now? To me, sounds pretty much like the old white bigot bitching about how much better it was before "those people" moved in. Just as cranky, just as bigoted, just as cringe-worthy when a gay "artist" says it.

And the worst part is that Capitol Hill is one of the most open-minded and welcoming neighborhoods in Seattle.

MM and in the old days it would have been "No Irish No Dogs No ..."

this is the same guy that did the 'bellevue wives matter' huh? I didn't realize he was a recent transplant.

I love going dancing in Capitol Hill (Swing, Salsa, Ballroom) but I don't find the neighborhood as welcoming and I was told it would be. University District seems like the place to go if you're young.

I think "terrible hypocrite" is a major overstatement. The guy is a gay artist who moved to an area built and populated largely by the gay and creative community, only to find it in the process of being colonized by moneyed interests and neighborhood tourists. He identified with the original neighborhood profile strongly and strongly rejects the new one, as I do — though unlike me, he's making his distaste known. I for one salute him, and I love his posters. And by the way, he's not getting rich off selling a couple handmade prints he makes in his own shop.

Just because he's gay doesn't excuse his behavior. Just change the labels on your post and many would be horrified.

That's really, really not what I said.

It's not, and you're completely right and I agree with you, but the schtick of ignoring all context that doesn't help out privileged folks is alive and well and highly encouraged on HN. Please try to keep up.

That seems both unfair and uncharitable.

I'll agree that that's certainly uncharitable; I could have phrased it better but I don't regret that I didn't. I don't think the tech community, or the people who would attempt to elide the vast power differential between it and the people they displace, deserves charity.

If the marginalized had other tools to fight for themselves, I might very well agree with you that it's unfair. As-is, I'm pretty okay with the notion that the rules of the road change when you have all of the money and all of the power and saying not-nice things about you because you are economically destroying them is simply one's tragic burden to bear.

I understand the political argument, but it doesn't help your cause when you prosecute it on HN in way that addresses others disrespectfully. Unfortunately you do that often, and as you know it breaks the rules here.

The HN guidelines don't have an exemption for being right. On the contrary, it's when you're right and the other person is wrong that they apply most.

The "original neighborhood profile" wasn't gay creatives. That didn't happen until the 70s/80s. It was blue collar mechanics and auto-shop workers before then.

Oh yes definitely. I don't mean a bunch of gay artists came and built it in the 30's or postwar period. But the reinvention of the place, in the 70s and 80s as you say, was what helped make it distinct culturally. That's now coming to an end and a new era is starting - but lots of people would rather it didn't, myself included. Not much we can do though.

I'm thinking those blue collar folks didn't want it to change either, but it did.

The only thing constant is change.

Only my subculture has value and deserves to be preserved.

You mean a place once known as "Catholic Hill" was built and populated by gays and the creative community? Or do you mean that the current moment in time, which through the ongoing process of migration, renovation and economic activity just happens to have a particular demographic that this guy found appealing.

For every buyer, there is a seller and if he doesn't want the neighborhood to change, he should be speaking with the sellers rather than the buyers.

Quintessential hipster bullshit. His community doesn't have any special rights to dictate the culture of the region and if he doesn't like the newcomers he can leave. It's also absurd to presume that just because someone has a high paying job they cannot qualify as a legitimate part of the community. Your petty and insular mindset is gross.

We might have to fuck off because the rent is too high, but it doesn't mean we have to do it quietly. The people coming in should know how much they are resented by the people they are displacing.

The mechanics terraformed capitol hill, the current community colonized it, and now the next wave is buying it.

No one here is dictating culture - they are asserting their preference to a community that was built over decades over another that is superseding it, and which they find distasteful.

Absolutely! It's disgusting how those people are flooding our neighborhoods and changing our culture. Donald Trump 2016!

II reject the idea that you can judge someone as a cultural reject based on the salary they take home.

Us too. We also reject the wealth-forward culture helping itself to the neighborhood, not necessarily the people who take part in it. But very often we find the representatives of that culture to be intolerable as well. Ye shall know them by their fruits, and so forth.

Guy from Tulalip tribe on line 2. He sounds miffed.

> And by the way, he's not getting rich off selling a couple handmade prints he makes in his own shop.

If he was, would that make him "one of them"? Making good money suddenly bars you from being a valued member of the community?

> only to find it in the process of being colonized by moneyed interests and neighborhood tourists

Can you explain what you mean by this?

Not sure why the downvotes - you're being articulate about your position, and folks are allowed to prefer what came before to what is coming... I get the sense that folks are threatened by the labels Criscitello throws around because they resemble them and are challenging his right to them in reaction. Thanks for providing cultural context to the anti-tech backlash in Cap Hill.

What he's expressing is the worst kind of conservatism. Ask any African-American family that dared to move into a white neighborhood in the 1960s.

No, it's not OK "when we do it."

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