How to Achieve Instant Success as a Lifestyle Designer (Satire) | Hacker News Reader

How to Achieve Instant Success as a Lifestyle Designer (Satire)

beyondgrowth.net

23 pointsInfinityX09 comments

A very odd post. It's weird for someone to actively post real pictures of other people in order to denigrate them. It comes off as a strange hybrid of jealousy, anger and confused thought. The post would be better served by attacking stereotypes rather than real people, and observing the phenomen of people buying books/reading blogs about lifestyle - because it's the public appetite for this type of escapism that fuels it.

I'm no Tim Ferriss fanboy, but he appears to live the life he wants on his own terms. We might not choose that life for ourself, or admire his methods, but to deliberately look through videos of him until you find one with a strange thumbnail comes across as vindictive and enemy-centred. It's as though, by pulling down Ferris, the author can feel better about themselves. And that's not a good way to go about things, long term.

I wrote the post, and I assure you there was no jealousy, anger, or confused thought involved. This particular community lacks critical discourse in any way, and this post was an attempt at creatively attacking that problem. If you read through our backlogs you will find a great deal of well thought out and comprehensive discourse on personal development and lifestyle design.

While using a few images of "real people" in this community may have been a bad move, this is the only criticism that I've seen of it yet.

And no, I did not go out of my way to find a specific video type of Ferriss, that was actually the first one I looked at.

It's an ugly post – there's no way around it. I'm not impressed by the people it describes but I'm even less impressed by the author.

I'm reminded of an HN discussion a few weeks ago, referencing Eleanor Roosevelt's timeless advice:

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

After reading your post I think you will find yourself guilty of this too.

Lifestyle design is an ugly industry, and this is satire. Satire can be ugly. Get over it.

Reading other people's bullshit can be really inspiring.

Serious question: Are there no well-known female "lifestyle designers"?

There are a few women doing the lifestyle design thing: http://www.escapingthe9to5.com/ http://www.themiddlefingerproject.org/ http://epicself.com/

Oprah, Martha Stewart

Interesting, it didn't occur to me to look into that realm.

I'll narrow the question: All the people mentioned in the article are popular bloggers who capitalize on "I'm awesome, you can be too." Are there any female bloggers doing the same thing?

Smells like an opportunity in the market!

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