Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

It's more economics than psychology though right?

Everyone is in search of an audience, or in economic terms, each producer is in search of consumers.

Once you find a market you can tailor your fit to suit that market. I might start out making leisurewear, but when I discover most of my sales is sweat-pants, I'm likely to focus my attention there, creating more designs in a narrower niche.

"influencer" is a recent career option, so it seems like it's full of unknowns, but clearly it's the same processes. First find an audience, then do whatever it takes to enlarge that audience and make them "buy more tickets".

Music, movies and TV are the same - you might think Jean Claude van Dam movies are formulaic, but clearly he has found an audience that likes that formula. He can't make a romcom because his non-fans won't give it a chance, and his fans won't pay for a romcom.

If you find a sudden audience by going viral, then clearly you're going to try and hold that audience by repeating the formula. And wacko theories always attract good repeat customers, for reasons which are pretty obvious.

One person has perfected this to the point where his audience gives him $250 million when he loses a race, as long as he claims it won. Hmm, maybe influencer isn't such a new job after all (just a new job description).

Your comment has a ton of great insight about the people it applies to, but to circle back to its opening couple lines:

> It's more economics than psychology though right? … Everyone is in search of an audience

This is not nearly so universal. The word used to describe creators/influencers/artists/politicians/etc that don’t succumb to this pressure is integrity.

If you want to be critical instead of laudatory, you could call it rigidity, but it’s a real thing and some of us value it.

It wouldn't surprise me if, within 15 years, the pendulum goes the other way and anonymity is prized again, with the former "influencers" deeply regretting their public exposure. I was briefly (barely) famous in the tech world and it sucked.

There are a lot of evil governments in the world, and nearly all private companies are functionally evil. You don't want them knowing who you are. That information will only be used against you. The government is not always your friend and your employer almost never is.

It seems to be rooted fairly deep in us to believe that if we just told our stories and had our true selves known to the world--if our reputations portrayed us fully and fairly--we would be not only accepted but embraced by the world. This isn't the case, and it's not for a lack of personal value, but because the human world is not always a benevolent place. It's full of conflict, and it has a lot of terrible people in high places.

As I get older, I'm increasingly convinced that, while I have no patience whatsoever for the intolerant, self-righteous, and right-wing strains of US Christianity, we do need something like religion, at least enough of it to convince people and society (a) that cultural integrity is important and worth fighting for, and (b) that playing a decent role within one's culture, rather than trying to dominate or "influence" it as much as possible, is enough. Sadly, the most effective strategy for preserving a culture seems to be convince people that terrible supernatural consequences will occur if the culture is violated--the most dangerous individuals won't necessarily believe in these consequences, but their potential followers will, and so one could (in theory, anyway) proactively deprive these would-be warlords and CEOs of the supporters they would need in order to seize power. Worse yet, it seems in practice that this doesn't help, because nothing prevents horrible people from using religion to their benefit (in fact, it is historically very common). So... I don't know. All I know is that mukbang is fucking disgusting and anyone who watches it should feel bad about themselves.

> As I get older, I'm increasingly convinced that, while I have no patience whatsoever for the intolerant, self-righteous

I (also getting older) would have ended the sentence right there. I live in NYC, and so I guess in general I don't come across the 'right-wing strains of US Christianity' that frequently.

> we do need something like religion, at least enough of it to convince people and society (a) that cultural integrity is important and worth fighting for, and (b) that playing a decent role within one's culture, rather than trying to dominate or "influence" it as much as possible, is enough.

I think the fundamental problem your trying to address here is that after decades of telling people there isn't any transcendant meaning to life, they've begun to believe it and are ordering their lives thusly.

Or you could go the other way, and be stupid and courageous and do and say what you think is right, sign your name, and damn the consequences. Chances are, you'll get crushed in the various ways you mention. However, there is an outside chance that you might ignite a change in others, that they will see in you what they want for themselves, you will inspire them to overcome the fear of being revealed, and their voices join you in a chorus! This sort of effect has worked well for the gay community. But it applies to any behavior that is currently despised but widely practiced.

So, yes the smart money is on silence, or at most, limited speech through an anonymous account, or in person. The stupid, brave money is on speaking truth no matter what. Here's to a stupid, brave future for us all!

I've been stupid, brave, heroic, et al... and have suffered the consequences. I see the merit in both sides. If you don't know exactly what you're fighting for, and how to fight for it, there's safety in blending in. I don't intend to excuse cowardice, but one needs to pick and time one's battles.

What makes our current war different from others is that our enemy controls nearly every aspect the society we live in. They decide whether we have an income. They can destroy our reputations. The end of the world has started (i.e., we are in a state of active war, it is a violent one even if most people don't know it yet, and it will likely escalate to totality although it may take 100 more years) but everyone still has to go to work. That's the problem. If you're facing a foreign invasion, either you kill them or they kill you and either way it ceases to be your problem. If you're at war with an enemy that has the power (by law) to withhold resources and coerce you to work for them, it's completely different, and in general it is more trying on courage, because there are now three possibilities instead of two: (1) you win, (2) you die, or (3) they keep you alive in a degraded state in which, even if you think you're working in opposition, you actually serve a strategic purpose from their perspective (i.e., they can make an example out of you). The indignities and tactical failures associated with the third possibility are what makes humanity's final war, the war against capitalism, so different and so much harder to prosecute.

Oh, your enemy is capitalism. But who is your friend? Well, ideally we could find a friend, could run experiments, big and small, and gather data about alternative ways to organize society. What works? What doesn't? And also, of course, we need to pay attention to the outcomes, both good and bad (something Americans in particular are very bad at).

Insofar as capitalism tends to squash such experiments, because it feels threatened, yes, that is evil. But the good news is that few people would do that for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that they (we?) believe that capitalism is pretty damn good at organizing society, all things being equal, and it's hard to feel threatened by such an experiment. However, given the revolution in technology, particularly with smartphones, all kinds of possibilities open up which have not been explored. Such experiments tend to need champions, capitalists with a magnanimous (or curious) bent that can carve out a space to run, fund, and protect these experiments from predators. Such experiments would be like startups, but with a different success criteria (not just "eventual profitability") and a more comprehensive set of behaviors for the participants (not just "find product/market fit").

It may be time for another round of utopian experiments, but this time supercharged with knowledge of those failures, and adding ~50 years of new knowledge about psychology, society and science. What sorts of minds could arise in these unusual places? Optimistically, in the worst case you'd raise a generation of unique minds that, with any luck, would be highly sought after in the wider society, such that even in the event of failure the participants would be okay. And if they succeed, they can spread and grow, and gradually replace components of capitalist society. (Success is when the real danger starts, of course, because it goes from curiosity to threat.)

I just hope you don't give up on your dreams. If undermining capitalism is what you want, you have to play the cards you're dealt. Capitalism is ascendant, although it is showing tremendous weakness WRT wealth concentration. The world is the way it is, so pick a path that uses what you have. Good luck!

You have a good point but the economics and the psychological aspects are very intertwined. The more you can understand what people want, the better the opportunity adjust to meet their needs.

A major concern from this (at least for me) is to be aware of what you are doing for yourself and for others.

In this case, what is the persona or brand you are creating and deciding whether you want to incorporate that into your personal life or keep it separate.

I feel that a lot of folks who become famous run into the effect that their fans have on them or what they perceive that their fans want from them.

Heck, it really is just an amplified version of probably everyone. We all alter our behavior to some degree based off variabilities in different situations.

Well, the article argues, and I agree, that a lot of it is due to psychology.

There is both a conscious and an unconscious mechanism at play here. The unconscious one is probably the more dangerous, because it's harder to control.

When someone becomes morbidly obese and risks dying because of trying to please an internet audience, it's hard to convince me there isn't a strong psychological factor at play.

I think it is certainly a psychological phenomenon as well.

I read twitter accounts sometimes and note that sometimes the person writing is mentally ill, but has so many followers encouraging them, that I dont think they will ever escape from their delusions.

Prior to the internet, they may not have attracted such a large audience, and their life would have been very different.

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