Hacker News Reader

A sort of a filter, getting rid of the viewers who are only interested in the currently popular visual gimmicks instead of the actual content.

The animation led to me leaving the site without taking the time to look at the actual content.

I guess the filter worked then

If the filter is to keep out readers annoyed by animations, then yes, I suppose it worked perfectly!

Perhaps you'd be more comfortable if it loaded a few megs of JavaScript.

The animation says "I hate Animations!".