A parody Twitter account hits a nerve with Silicon Valley VCs | Hacker News Reader

A parody Twitter account hits a nerve with Silicon Valley VCs

protocol.com

119 pointsrwc27 comments

Considering how many VCs are there here in HN and the nature of Y Combinator itself, I expect quite a handful of bruised egos and it's a small miracle this hasn't been flagged yet.

Do I think it's HN-worthy? Yes, I'd think some healthy criticism is definitively "mentally stimulating."

EDIT: Anyone who points out there are better parody accounts is missing the point somewhat: the tweets talk by themselves without the need for witty remarks.

If they're making fun of braggadocious tweets which turned out to be wrong in the long run I sort of get it, but just VCs being vocally proud of their successful investments is not exactly anything to mock. They put their money where their mouth is, and came out ahead. It's good to hear stories of success and failure both.

A famous trope is that the jester is the only one who can mock the monarch, and monarchs ignore them at their own peril. They are the only ones who can criticise them frankly, and provide a view closer to the common people in a way the rest of the court can't. Doing it by holding up a mirror is just classic, really.

While perhaps not worthy of a post on Hacker News, I do see the humor in this account, highlighting the humble brags of the VC world. I think what’s important or funny is that normally these people simply humble brag and then have their flock immediately praise them for all of their good deeds and fortune. An account suddenly calls them out, and they immediately find the “block” button.

Eh, I think a lot of people have internalized a toxic strain of thought in our current culture that says that it's a bad thing to be proud of your achievements. There's a theoretical version of this account that skewers an overinflated sense of self-importance[1], but from scrolling through this account, it just seems to be coming from a place of self-hatred that sees anyone enjoying their achievement as doing something wrong. Most of these tweets are just "congrats to XYZ! So proud to be part of this success as one of the early funders!". What exactly is the issue with celebrating a victory you had a part in, and congratulating those who were more central to the victory?

I can actually relate to this on a personal level: After a medical issue wreaked havoc on pretty much every facet of my life over the course of a couple years, I got better and started putting the pieces of my life back together. One of the first things I did was start working again, and for the first time in years, had a job where I felt like I was being challenged and succeeding (my work performance was one of the things that suffered pretty terribly while sick, including having to take a ~year off). As you can imagine, I was really excited about this one thing going well in my life after years of being sick enough to be bad at everything, and I'd be straightforward when talking to friends about how well I was doing. Apparently, I have a few friends that have internalized the toxicity I'm describing: they're insecure enough about their careers that they couldn't even stand hearing someone speak positively about doing well at work, regardless of the context.

The VC case may be seen as okay because it's "punching up" in a way that wasn't true in my case. But "punching upwards" often just means defining your desired targets as "upwards", and using the phrase as an excuse to wallow in envy and toxicity, as if this is somehow salutary for either your mental health or for society.

This Twitter account isn't quite a big deal, and it's a very mild expression of this tendency. But seeing it as "calling out" something bad is entirely missing the point IMO.

[1] Here's the only example I found in the first dozen tweets which is actually mockable: https://twitter.com/VCBrags/status/1232396401763667970

>Most of these tweets are just "congrats to XYZ! So proud to be part of this success as one of the early funders!".

This is a matter of taste, but I find this to be vastly superior:

"Contragts to XYZ!", and someone from XYZ may or may not thank the funders with a follow up. That is, there is no implicit association or expectation of getting something in return when you congratulate someone.

>I'd be straightforward when talking to friends about how well I was doing.

If you are talking to people in person, that has a different context from broadcasting to the world.

> If you are talking to people in person, that has a different context from broadcasting to the world.

If anything, I'd expect mild self-promotion to be _more_ acceptable on the latter, since it serves as both a vehicle for personal and professional communication. Ie, "so proud to have been nominated for the [some award] for [book that I wrote]" is a pretty normal tweet on Twitter, and there's nothing especially wrong with it or mockable about it.

It's a matter of taste and ultimately subjective. The camp that disagrees with this approach lumps these sorts of behaviours as seeking validation or neediness, particularly in the broadcast mode. Show, don't tell and all that. In the 1-1 mode, it's passable as long as there is some relationship and context where this exchange would make sense.

> The camp that disagrees with this approach lumps these sorts of behaviours as seeking validation or neediness, particularly in the broadcast mode. Show, don't tell and all that. In the 1-1 mode, it's passable as long as there is some relationship and context where this exchange would make sense.

Sure, I guess my point was that this matter of taste (seeing the expression of pride in one's achievements as "seeking validation or neediness" in a bad way) is precisely the toxic cultural current that I was describing. In my anecdotal experience, it's usually driven by a heaping dose of self-hatred being externalized onto others by dragging them down.

A twitter account RT with emoji, people block it because it has no value, and it's called news?

Don't get me wrong, I find it funny. The current trend of humble brag is a good topic to laugh about.

But do you want an entire article about this? Do you want that to be on HN front page?

There are thousands of such joke accounts. Are we going to post about them all?

Yes, we're going to post about them all.

Did... This hit a nerve?

[clap emoji] [clap emoji] [clap emoji]

> There are thousands of such joke accounts. Are we going to post about them all?

How about we deal with them on a case by case basis? Why this rush to post about them all or flag them all?

A HN comment that adds nothing to the discussion, people post it because they need to pat themselves on the back, and it's upvoted?

Don't get me wrong, I find your comment OK. The current trend of garbage comments with no content on HN is a good topic to laugh about.

But do you want an entire comment about this? Do you want that to be in an HN thread?

There are thousands of such joke accounts. Are you going to comment about them all?

This account made me realize how much of tweeting is bragging. I don't think people are like that in real life conversation but on Twitter we're all trying to sell something, be it ourselves, our products, or, in this case, our money.

Hold on, what? These people, who get paid millions in management fees by schoolteachers and police officers’ retirement funds, among others, are BLOCKING people over a bit of light-hearted rubbing?

I would LOVE to see the block list on this account. That’s actually worth printing on its own, and has a lot of utility for both entrepreneurs and LPs to understand VCs who lack the basic capability to handle public criticism. This isn’t even commentary that’s actually negative!

I always imagine how much it must suck to be a kid of one of these sorts of people. Mom/Dad goes on and on about how great they are, but will go nuclear when you point out what’s wrong... I knew a lot of kids growing up who ended up in therapy/rehab because of these sorts of parents.

VCs represent everything wrong about technology. You need them like you need the Mafia.

I think currently one of the nicer distractions on Twitter is interactive fiction, like this interactive Star Trek adventure [0] run by @JoeSondow. If you like Star Trek, he's also running other Star Trek themed accounts like Picard Management Tips at @PicardTips for example.

[0] https://twitter.com/search?q=%23StarshipWonder&f=live

The is great!!

I'll have to pay attention to this, to create a list of VCs to personally avoid.

Mostly it’s boring. I love watching pie in the face accounts, but this one isn’t interesting unless you really know the VC world well.

Making fun of big brags is funny, but I prefer ones that have a narrative and maybe a lesson, like with Our Incredible Journey or the story of this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065

Parody is ok, blocking parody noise is ok too, sensational articles like this are ok too.

Complaining about them being useless and bringing down the signal/noise ratio is ok too, then, I guess.

But jokes aside, this is why we have sites like HN. To avoid the noise.

I can't bring myself to read those tweets till the end. I'm not a native English speaker though, is it me or them?

I think it is them - everyone manages to come across as vapid even by Twitter standards.

I may be in the minority but I include the person running it as well as stereotypical "kid who mocks everything without wit and thinks it makes them cool". They really lost me when they flagged one that was pointing out the obvious that the people evaluating companies have more specialized education than journalists. The denial that experts in their fields might know better than recalls real ugly anti-intellectualism.

Personally I think it is more "bad tactics" that bother me. VCs often deserve criticism for a variety of things anf may be oversensitive but this isn't it. It seems more like bullying than calling out. Especially with it so denuded of context (a fundamental problem with Twitter) it seems like twisting of words and context.

Anyway rambling aside I wonder how alone I am in this view and if I missed anything.

There is still a market for a twitter account that focuses on bragging HN comments. Someone create it please

Reply on news.ycombinator.com