Infographs are Ruining the Internet | Hacker News Reader

Infographs are Ruining the Internet

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58 pointslessallan22 comments

I don't get it. Is a collection of made-up facts supposed to constitute satire or something?

> Infographs are usually very pretty, but it's really a gimmick, they're not useful content, it's link bait to get traffic to a blog.

Why so cynical? God forbid somebody represent data in an aesthetically pleasing manner. If infographics are a gimmick, then so is anything anybody ever does to make their creations interesting to read/view/use.

> Why so cynical?

Well, infographics are often drummed up for SEO reasons. You simply take advantage of the fact that people hotlink 99% of the time, and all it takes is one controversial or popular infographic to get approximately 1MM backlinks.

But wouldn't there be some detriment to the content being a graphic? ALT attr won't convey, either.

This image is nearly definition satire. So yes, it does constitute satire.

It should be clear that the complaint here is about the explosion of "infographics" that are at best a shallow aesthetic improvement, at worst a migration of text into an senselessly organized image.

The problem is not that infographics are aesthetically pleasing. The term "infographic" has come to be represented with low-content, high-flashiness presentations of data. (There are many good graphics that also convey information. "Infographics" generally do a bad job of the latter.)

Since they're pretty and usually not completely content-less (bad infographics are a great way to spread very few facts over a very large area), they often get a lot of hits on social news sites like Reddit, Digg, and even, sometimes, HN. Because of this, they've become a favorite tool of people trying to do SEO to take advantage of that traffic.

My opinion is a bit more dire. Infographics are on a strange side of the line between statistic and art. While they're clearly meant to be flashy and emotive, they also tend to quite numbers and display data in a way evocative of authority. It feels a lot to me like being a brand parasite, or displaying a police seal in a not-completely-obviously-satirical way and then trying to cover your steps when the police arrest you for impersonation.

I think overall it's a good thing, really, though. I'm not sure there exists a strong brand for "sensational but detailed information that you probably shouldn't trust but instead just think about" but infographics (both the bad and the good, which are still often very pale demonstrations of interesting data) are filling that hole. What I hope is that they eventually teach people to be more skeptical and questioning of information presented to them, regardless of how statistical it seems.

The unfortunate transitory period is a flock of the confidently misled, I suppose.

I agree, it's sad to see posts like this because the medium itself could be used to such great effect, but this effect is blunted by the prevalence of poorly-designed, idiot-driven infographics. As a counter-point to the infographic trend, I think we could all do without the ubiquitous Wall-Of-Text type posts as well. As a happy medium, I would love to see a movement toward the data-rich, visually pleasing style exalted by Edward Tufte (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/).

If infographics are wrong, then I don't want to be right!

Meh. It's satire, and it does have somewhat of a point, but I feel like it's even more shallow than what it's parodying. It captures the feel of a bad infographic post well, but it does it to the point where I feel like it undermines their own purpose.

With apologies to Bill Hicks: Ahh, I see what they're doing there. They're going for the shallow infographic satirizing shallow infographics market. Big market there.

Previously ruined: USA Today

I wonder for how long derri_hasmi pondered if he should take the $150 at the risk of getting less work in the future.

I don't think our little blog will stop anyone from making infographs.

Poor spelling doesn't help much either.

I will never understand how someone can spend hours on a piece like this without reading it once to check for basic grammatical errors.

The point of the piece doesn't seem to be to add anything of value to a debate, rather than to grab some easy traffic and make a joke. Whether it succeeds at the latter is up for debate, of course, but given the aims, who cares about the grammar?

We should certainly proof the article better, but it was an experiment. We paid $150 for the graphic, it was done and an overseas fellow in a couple of weeks. I sent him three emails so the overall work was about 15 minutes and cost 150 dollars.

Fair enough - I clearly missed the point. :)

That's why it's so funny: that's exactly what infographics do.

This post is textbook satire.

EDIT: see my sibling for proof.

I'm pretty sure that was intentional (or, at least, part of the joke), since there's this text right above it:

    Also you can get your own infograph done for about $150 bucks from
    "derri_hasmi at yahoo.co.id", although proof reading the infograph before
    you publish is recommended.

They are also ruining our youth! Infographs encourage our lazy society to become even more dependent on graphical stimulation and less competent in reading the printed word. I believe the first infographic was developed in Nazi Germany and illustrated SS soldiers goose stepping.

A bad (IMHO) example of infographic:

http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/Typefaces-of-the-world_...

Stylish, but hardly readable and not very informative.

WOW! I found only one error. How many were there?

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