Instagram Killed the Tabloid Star | Hacker News Reader

Instagram Killed the Tabloid Star

nytimes.com

63 pointsraleighm78 comments

The writer says "we" this and "we" that, as if everyone is enraptured by . . . I don't know who the Kardashians are beyond their name. I can't name a song by Justin Bieber.

I can't be the only one who doesn't pay attention or care about this world. I posted about six pictures to Instagram a few years ago and can't be bothered to do more.

It looks like a world of craving and dissatisfaction. I see people scrolling endlessly on the subway and don't see how it improves their lives. Maybe I'll get it one day and get sucked in.

It looks like all "want more" and no "tastes good," as I described in this old post: http://joshuaspodek.com/noticed-distinction-flavors

This is a big problem with the culture section of the Times. They really don't think/write for the average consumer. Last week a saw them use the word "Staning" in an article, it's really baffling editorial decisions. (Staning refers to the song the character Stan, from a 20 year old Eminem song, whose an obsessed fan)

Here's a fun thought - what if you (or the readership you defend) are no longer the average consumer?

Newspapers don't tend to target the average consumer though. They carve out a readership, because people want to read what they want to read.

Sure, and when you get down to it, there is no single prototypical average consumer that it's profitable to market to. Publications create their own average consumer. Fair to say though that the Times's own 'average' has definitely shifted over the last decade.

No I just think the average consumer is defined by the (mathematical) mode of consumer tastes. Like mainstream TV, it is designed for the most common individual which is a pretty bland person with terrible taste... but it’s a shrinking population.

In past generations the mode was likely also the majority

You could also see this as a chance to see how others see the world.

From my perspective (mid 20's), 'stanning' is a pretty ubiquitous word/idea. Many people use it pretty casually and those who don't are likely familiar with what it means in general (even without the context of the Eminem song). Those in touch with culture would be even more likely to recognize it.

From my perspective, someone who bought the Marshall Mathers MP when it came and loved the song Stan (I'm mid 30s). I would say "Stanning" isn't ubiquitous at all, in fact, I've never heard of it until today.

Just did a quick check around my office (Fintech company)(mostly 25-35) and no one had heard of it.

So yeah, I don't think it's that commonly used.

Mid 30s here as well, I see this used on the internet all the time - especially in rap circles

Same demographic, and I too just heard this word for the first time.

I'm well familiar with stanning (fintech, 26). It's ubituitous in certain circles and certain subscultural values, so if you don't hold them and don't participate in it you probably don't know it.

Also, I don't think fintech is anywhere remotely close to "an average consumer" population to judge whether or not tabloid/instagram relationship applies to large swaths of people.

When you have teenagers, your cultural consciousness will be reset to the much, much faster flow of that age. And you will return to the era of non-stop slang and hipness.

Stan-ing is very much a common term for Gen-z. And they have stan accounts. And I sort of get it. :)

This happens gradually, but started in full force at my house around age 15.

I have 3 boys, 13-18. It's an incredible amount of fun.

I wouldn't expect having a large sample size determines if anyone knows it. Having a diverse sample is what would determine that.

Definitely would not be surprised if a disproportionately large number of HN readers in Fintech have never heard of it lol

Is it a problem? I don't think so. The business section of the Times doesn't write for the "average consumer" (whatever that is). They write for people who are especially interested in business. The sports section writes for people who are interested in sports. Likewise the culture section write for people who are especially interested in celebrities. It's ok for people to have different interests.

For those wondering, "Stanning" is a portmanteau of the words "Stalker" and "Fan", meaning overly obessed fandom of some celebrity.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stanning

That actually sounds much more logical of an explanation than the link to the Eminem song. I discovered the term back in the Tumblr days of 2013 or so and was surprised to hear it was related to a then 13-year old song.

There is whole world of people who don't care about Kardashians or similar pop persons, we are just not so loud about it and don't need to. Ie I don't have an Instagram, never will, even though I produce thousands of pretty cool pictures from travels and adventures that my inner circle often considers beyond their imagination.

People having this 'sheepish' mentality and having little of their opinion (or will to form their own opinion through fact-checking), instead taking opinions of others is nothing new - look at folks following fashion. People literally telling you how to dress, what is cool, what you should think and feel - yes its really that dumb, there is no nice way around that. Its also a bit of membership signaling - you are part of desired group, 'better' than rest. I guess you see what I mean.

In ignorance of this crowd mentality lies one's strength of one's mature personality. It could have played a great deal during evolution of human species as social one, but these days, it mostly leads to rather boring, unsatisfied lives.

> In ignorance of this crowd mentality lies one's strength of one's mature personality.

Now who's signaling that they're better than the rest?

scrolling through the news on different subreddits is quite fun and informative. Quick and easy way to get caught up on local and world news, sports, politics, etc. So all scrolling isn't bad

The foil in this article were tabloids and paparazzi. I imagine you were not the one rifling through People magazine before Instagram, much in the same way you don’t follow these people now. Yet, these tabloids had cultural cachet among many, and no longer hold the same spot. Why is that? The answer appears to be Instagram, an app. Quite interesting, indeed.

They participate in social media for the same reason you blog, speak, write books and ... participate in social media.

No, I don't think "participation in social media" is the goal.

For me blogging etc. is about either showing off (my work etc.), helping others with similar issues, self-expression etc.

Following "stars" on social media is about being close to ones idols, to see some life one can aspire to (oh they are so great!) or to help onselfs ego (oh that star isn't better than me as well ..) Same old voyeuristic reasons as all the magazines.

For the "stars" and "influencers" it is a way to build their brand under more control than with traditional media.

Social media is just the medium. Just as one isn't reading magazines to read magazines, but one reads a specific magazine to have some form of satisfaction.

Well, this is Hacker News, so it's probably unlikely that anyone here is particularly a fan of the Kardashians or Justin Bieber. Having said that, I think this is a good example of the fact that "there are opportunities in markets I'm not personally familiar with" - a problem quite common among programmers and technical people.

Kim Kardashian has 150 million Instagram followers. Justin Bieber has 122 million. Both monetize their followings for ungodly sums of money. You don't need to like them (and I certainly don't), but there are definitely startup lessons here worth learning.

I think there’s a moral concern about this particular market. That’s reasonable, some markets may very well have moral issues because of hidden costs or externalities or because of the unreasonable power it gives certain groups of people (CFCs, fentanyl, targeted advertising, killing for hire etc.)

These people would probably do better to spend that time improving themselves or looking at the amazing things and people near them that they could actually interact with, or if they have to idolize someone at least doing it to someone worth idolizing like an accomplished artist or philosopher. There’s a concern that I think I share with GP: these things are designed to put the viewer into a kind of consuming unsatisfied state that makes it easier to sell them things, and that’s probably a bad thing.

I’m not sure celebrities are so bad, often good ones have good things to say. It’s not like we don’t have our own either: every time FB or RMS sneezes it gets posted on hackernews a dozen times.

>These people would probably do better to spend that time improving themselves or looking at the amazing things and people near them that they could actually interact with, or if they have to idolize someone at least doing it to someone worth idolizing like an accomplished artist or philosopher.

How can you get this message to the unwashed masses with a horse that tall?

I mean, where do you get off telling people who is worth idolizing? People have idolized less accomplished, less personable, less accessible people than those two since before media was a thing.

To me Stallman is a toe-jam eating crackpot with no social skills and an embarrassment to all those who support him and does little to nothing worth idolizing, yet I'm in a forum where I'd probably find no shortage of people who idolize him.

I'm not a fan of Justin Beiber... but are you really going to tell me he's not an accomplished artist?

Man does the tone of this comment just rub me the wrong way.

If following your advice means getting into a headspace where you don't cringe at the thought of telling people who's "worth idolizing"... maybe those fans are on to something...

Yeah you’re right about the Bieber thing. I realized that after posting.

I don’t know, it’s definitely wrong to decide who people should idolize but part of me feels like that’s what’s going on with the most popular idols, that’s why I feel the need to warn them.

There’s a good chance I’m just full of myself though.

> These people would probably do better to spend that time...

We need to have a robust theory of human agency. That I play videogames with no moral worth or depth does not mean I don't also go to the gym, mealprep my lunches, or read philosophy in my free time.

Likewise, just because someone enjoys zoning out and scrolling on instagram or watching celebrities doesn't invalidate their other time that they may spend in beneficial activities.

Everyone has leisure activities that have no value - that's the point of leisure. When we start preaching to others, we've lost sight of what it means to be human.

I'm a fan of Kim Kardashian. She somehow managed to build a an empire based just on her name. Then, she used that empire to fight to release people from prison and spread awareness for the Armenian genocide. I'm normally not one for "spreading awareness", but there are a lot of people who don't know about the Armenian genocide, and the US government won't acknowledge it happened in a unified and official fashion. She doesn't do anything particularly scandalous other than maybe being too materialistic. Her show mostly revolves around being there for your family. Overall, she's a net positive.

> I'm a fan of Kim Kardashian. She somehow managed to build a an empire based just on her name.

It's not like she did not come from a very wealthy family… That porn footage wouldn't have been news worthy if she was a rando…

One can still acknowledge her financial accomplishments yet, I wonder about her negative influence on young girls who will believe that a sextape or nudes are going to get them rich quickly like the Kardashian…

Sometimes I read people's comments on her sex-tape and almost start to wonder if it's a form of subtle sexism.

I mean, she had already been on reality TV before, her family already had the idea for a reality TV show, Ryan Seacrest had already expressed interest in producing the show (there was even a precedence for the show, "The Osbornes"), she already had a fairly successful career with extremely marketable skills.

The 2nd movie Sylvester Stallone ever did, which he credits for saving him in the pits of desperation, was softcore porn, but I've never heard anyone say "I wonder if he's a negative influence on poor people who believe that softcore porn is going to get them rich quickly like Sylvester"

It turns out having useful skills and a vision is what made them successful in both cases.

There are plenty of people with famous, rich parents who never end up building billion dollar brands, do you really think a sex tape built a billion dollar brand?

Isn't it a bit much to reduce all her accomplishments to that and think that will be the takeaway of her success?

Over the past decade, companies spun off from her brand have been more profitable than several major startups, so her success is indisputable.

But her connections and surroundings most likely helped get her that initial momentum. She wasn't just a rich lawyer's daughter, she grew up in Hollywood circles and was close friends with Paris Hilton, who set the template for this kind of success. She took those lessons and scaled her brand far beyond what the former accomplished.

That might not have happened if she was a regular person who moved to Hollywood at age 18 without any inside knowledge of how things work there.

It's not significantly different than Bill Gates' mom introducing him to an an IBM exec who she knew because they were both on the board of United Way. While the homebrew hobby club was giving everything away for free, Gates no doubt understood how enterprise software was sold, and made his fortune by getting into that market early.

I agree that her environment was a huge part of her success, and don't separate her success from the environment she was in and what it afforded her, but there's also definitely an unusual fixation on her sex-tape and trying to reduce her accomplishments to a simple result of it.

I mean the comment I replied to is trying to imply, out of all the factors involved, the sex-tape is what young adults would take out of it.

Meanwhile I don't see people saying all they expect young adults to get out of Bill Gates' success is you should drop out of school...

True, she will be judged on the basis of that tape by some people. I did too, at least back when Ray J was the more famous person on it. Long-term, I see it differently. She owned her sexuality and leveraged the notoriety to sell an image of an aspirational, fun, no consequences lifestyle that average people could never afford, but are happy to gawp at. Hence the long-running success of their reality show.

> Meanwhile I don't see people saying all they expect young adults to get out of Bill Gates' success is you should drop out of school...

I've seen my fair share of bad IG "motivation" and "hustle" posts that push this exact message, although they use Zuck as the dropout in question. This will become more common as college costs keep rising while post-graduation incomes remain stagnant. Lifetime earnings compared to people with HS only are of course better but when you see a sticker price of $60k on 1 year of college, lifetime earnings differential isn't what you'll be thinking about.

There is no sexism going on here, I would have said the exact same thing if Kim Kardashian was a male. But it's easy to "drown the fish" and accuse people of sexism to shut down any discussion.

I'm starting to wonder if it's a form of subtle ad hominem and internalized logical fallacy /s

a) "drown the fish" does not mean what you think it does, and if anything means the opposite of what you think it does

b) Don't flatter your "discussion", you're claiming a person who: was successful before a sex-tape and had their most well known success already in motion before a sex-tape, I'd venture has had more success after said sex-tape than anyone else who's ever had one... should be known for a sex-tape.

There's no positive interpretation of that, I just chose the most common one I've encountered. Maybe you're just an avid enjoyer of her tape and can't see her for more than that?

> a) "drown the fish" does not mean what you think it does, and if anything means the opposite of what you think it does

You're right, I should have called you a freaking troll straight out because this is obviously what you are, I was too polite, my bad /s

> There's no positive interpretation of that, I just chose the most common one I've encountered. Maybe you're just an avid enjoyer of her tape and can't see her for more than that?

No argument whatsoever, resorts to personal attacks, continue suggesting I'm a sexist and I watch pornographic material while you literally keep promoting the career of a pornstar yourself? because that's exactly what it is called.

But that's the only thing you can do after all. You're are effectively a troll. Get on with your sad life.

If it does get them rich, I don't see a problem. Additionally, I think her sex tape incident was far enough back that it's no longer really relevant for young girls, it's mostly people in their 20s that were the age where they could be influenced by it. I think her influence now is generally positive.

Yes- my impression of their list of things that characterized the past decade had a very young/city/liberal focus. I probably understood about half the list. Sometimes the NYT can be very local.

I'm sure you have personal interests which would make others roll their eyes at you just as you're rolling your eyes at them. We all have our things, big and trivial, that get us through the day and through life. I think part of growing up is learning not to be smug and belittle the interests of others when those interests diverge from your own. It was for me.

The person scrolling away is probably dealing with some sort of grief & stress like most of us are. The fact she takes a few minutes out of her day to look at something fun and meaningless doesn't make her a lesser person.

To clarify, I'm not rolling my eyes at them.

I don't know them or think about them. The article spoke as if I did.

I don't like the idea of everything now being centralised under the control of Instagram/Facebook/Zuckerberg, but the concept of giving the control away from the paparazzi and their invasive up skirt photography and back to the people they harass is a pretty nice switch.

There's something to be said about the desire for celebrity news being better satiated with a direct line to the person rather than a third party tabloid. I guess fake news and outrage based clickbate is now the modern incarnation of the tabloid trying to shift copies with celeb photos and gossip.

I'd imagine the switch will be temporary at best. It won't take long for powerbrokers to put up shop yet again in another decade or two once they find a USP.

> It won't take long for powerbrokers to put up shop yet again in another decade or two once they find a USP.

just like the radio power players of the 20century?

if we're talking about talk-radio then that's somewhat similar. But I'd imagine some of the pioneers of insta-celeb today will translate into gatekeepers of tomorrow.

I have to assume that the "invasiveness" of paparazzi is greatly overstated - a game that some tabloid stars and celebrities are willingly signing up for, in exchange for free publicity of sorts. Because if that weren't the case, you'd see people being sued for harassment, invasion of privacy etc. all over the place, and that just doesn't seem to happen.

Laws in most countries allow for "public interest", more or less precisely defined, so even people who want to opt-out of the game are typically unable to do so. Even the UK royal family, who do often sue, are not always able to stop the paparazzi. The UK phone-hacking story resulted in a massive trial but didn't really stop anyone from hammering the likes of Emma Watson.

It does happen a lot however it's usually from celebrities who can afford to have a separation of a personal and private life. ie people who's career might be in the public eye but they're career isn't solely based on the fact they're famous (eg sports personalities, actors, musicians, businessmen of household brands).

Where as celebrities who's day job is being a celebrity (eg appearing on "reality" or celebrity game shows) need the publicity because their fame is their product. So for all but the most extreme cases, suing paparazzi would be a bit of a footgun move considering they're often dependant on that free advertising to remain in the public conciousness.

Really you know what "monstering " is some celebs think the tabs will hack your pc and upload CP.

And the tabloids killed Diana, an they're going after Her son and Meghan at the moment

Free speech and public interest laws prevent those lawsuits. Paparazzi do know where enforced legal line is exactly.

"Fake news" and outrage based headlines have existed long before Instagram was a thing.

TikTok is exploding worldwide and already claims 1.5B users. We may yet find ourselves pining for the benevolent dictatorship of Zuck if its successor is controlled by the Chinese state...

Which would be just another one of his own character failures if, due to not taking criticism seriously, he let that happen.

I don't think much of the criticism directed at Facebook has been about them not putting in enough effort to expand their market share. Am I wrong?

Comment I was replying to mentioned that we'd be swapping Lord Zuck for the CCP as our unaccountable overlords, was replying to that.

https://outline.com/CYg43t

I don't consider this plausible. Although I don't have anyone who would consume celebrity gossip or tabloids among my acquaintances (or at least they pretend no to), I doubt that the kind of people who does consume it will be satisfied with meticulously constructed self-presentation of celebrities when they can have the "raw reality" brought to them by paparazzis. Tabloids are here to stay.

> Instagram is often accused of producing artificial images, but there’s something very honest about its commercial system

I think the author has mistaken brazenness for honesty

good.

not good, replaced with something worse.

How is it worse? I mean, personally I find it better, the real news isn't filled with Paparrazi/Celeb incidents, there are fewer creepy upskirt pictures and stalker photos plastered on tabloids, it's all moved to a nice bunch of communities I can ignore.

It is shallow as it always was - but at least it is not mean.

I think Instagram is harmful in different ways

Selling yourself is much more ethical than others selling you. This is progress

Is it better? At least I didn’t need to actively isolate tabloid magazines from other parts of my life.

Why do you need to actively isolate Instagram from your life? Can't you just, you know, not use Instagram?

Not OP, but thanks to IG and similar sites I hear about celebrity things and other pop-culture stuff way more than before. Case in point: This post.

The nightly news and mainstream newspapers used to be full of tabloid spillover; people suing, assaults on paparazzi, paparazzi being charged, updates on court cases. This has all pretty much evaporated. Pop culture itself certainly is "way more than before".

The place I do find more pop-culture stuff like this is in the clickbait ads that are everywhere now, but that's just an entirely new thing.

Didn’t watch and nightly news, read only the economy and political section of newspapers. I don’t see click bait ads because that shit is blocked.

Don't click. I didn't click.

Exactly. "Instagram is full of selfies." "Yes, why are you on Instagram if you hate that kind of thing?"

It spills over into real life now, if you haven't seen "influencers" out doing photoshoots you're lucky. I was at a museum in Boston and couldn't see some things because an influencer would spend 5-10 minutes setting up the perfect shot (I never once saw her actually looking at the stuff in the museum).

wait what? i seldom hear about instagram. to be honest i am surprised every time it gets mentioned (same thing for snapchat). i thinking you have to be doing particular things or be part of certain spheres to occasionally run into instagram stories.

now, not the same about twitter. twitter is in the news, articles and everywhere. if anything instagram isn't as pervasive as twitter or facebook imo.

Yeah, very good point. Seeing mainstream news anchors and sports commentators literally just reading twitter out loud is striking.

I've seen articles where the bulk of the source is twitter "clippings".

That doesn't happen with Facebook or Instagram.

What was your expectation when joining a network known for pretty selfies? Science graphs?

Initially IG was all hipster photos; remember when the arty filters were their primary USP? I remember using it as a kind of second Facebook, where the people I followed were all FB friends and we only posted photos instead of text posts and status updates.

I don't think it was until 2015 or so that it started getting huge in terms of user base size, and that's when the deluge of low-grade comedy, "IG Models", awful memes, spammers etc. descended upon the site, changing its culture to what we see now.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I meant that before IG, the subs I frequent on reddit or other people would not link to articles about celebs. Now thanks to instagram, they do. Like this post did.

Not well enough, everywhere else just became inescapably tabloidal.

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