I think things really took off with the people who were making "gold-digger" videos, where a guy tries to talk to a girl and she rejects him, only to come back when he walks up to a (most likely rented) exotic car. In many of these cases, all of the people involved in the video are not authentic, but there's never disclaimer that the video is staged or a skit. Even car accidents, sad stories of addiction and mental illness, and stunts can all be staged to gain views as well.
I'm skeptical of everything I see online, been that way for a long time... Worst part is there is no real way to avoid that type of content, and that phony content often gets plastered across all the sites, and reposted for years too come, and even written about when it's exposed as fake, so there's no real way to avoid it, and there's no incentive for people to stop doing it because of the (negative) popularity it breeds for the people and companies that sponsor and create it.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90287323/people-are-falling-off-...
I don't think the GP was referring to social Darwinism, just plain old Darwinism, of the "Darwin Award" variety.
It's not related to the science of evolution, it's using the principles of natural selection for social commentary.
Yes, it is, at least to the extent that intelligence and common sense are selected for, and their opposites are selected against, in our current selective environment.
They should definitely be warned, and perhaps be put into therapy with a professional, but self harm isn't social darwinism. It's just a mental health issue.
I agree that self-harm isn't social Darwinism. People sharing amusing stories of self-harm and chuckling about "cleaning the gene pool" absolutely is.
Natural selection is not the right tool to downplay and excuse harm to others, and has nothing to do with the scientific theory of evolution.
Not everyone is cut out to be an entertainer, influencer, or celebrity. The problem in our current world is that social platforms are encouraging everyone to quit their job to be those types of entertainers (while not paying the very same people), and it's not a realistic model for success, and quite possibly very harmful to the world's future and to mental health.
It has happened in the past, Evel Knievel was one of the most popular incidents of someone sacrificing themselves to entertain others well prior to the "like and follow" era.
"God, make me famous. If you can't, just make it painless"
Wow.
gaining influence with videos like these (widespread, "easy content") will probably earn you some advertisement deals
They're unionizing Starbucks, but it might be wiser/better to unionize social media creators before it's too late.
A friend of a friend is an influencer doing 50K a month. He has a network of influencers he knows. It is overwhelmingly referral schemes for apps or pumping shitcoins.
I hate when a real car accident is attributed to a drunk driver when it was not. There are plenty of wrecked cars from actual drunk driving, you don't need to lie to get an example. Some people think their intentions justify their actions, even when their actions can accurately be described as "lie" or "cheat" or "for profit" or some other dishonest thing. This may be effective in many cases, but in others it discredits your efforts and perhaps even your cause.
Random acts of kindness DO happen, but are usually not captured on video.
Indeed. In fact, when the act is intentionally captured on video by its performer, not only is it already very debatable that it is an act of "kindness"... but it is also obviously NOT "random"!
(For the colloquial meaning of "random" of course)
Before I left, plans changed, so now I was in the mall parking lot, and had (to me) useless flowers. In the parking lot, I saw an older woman sitting in her car.
I walked up to her, proclaimed "surprise, flowers!", which she took, and I walked away.
It is sad to think that these days, it almost makes more sense to just throw them away, instead of giving a bit of unexpected joy to someone.
(the woman seemed surprised, and happy)
Or give it, for fear of a negative response... the well is being poisoned.
Also giving someone flowers is quite a cheap kindness. Help somebody in need out. Or just go clean the streets. No good content clickbait video to be made of you picking up the trash ?
That phrase, to 'remove yourself from the equation' applies here too. That leads to a better 'test' and metric.
The real definition of compassion.
I was about to propose to my girlfriend and was setting up my DSLR on a tripod to take photos via IR remote (she thought we were just going to take photos of us at sunset).
Then a guy came walking by and offered to take the photos for us. I demurred, but he said he had the exact same camera and knew how to use it. So I quietly told him what was about to go down, and he took a bunch of great photos of our engagement.
For at least a year after, my wife didn't believe that he wasn't a plant!
Only if you're going into the whole "every act is selfish" kind of thing.
> but it is also obviously NOT "random"! (For the colloquial meaning of "random" of course)
Why not? It only takes a few seconds to start filming.
If you mean having a camera person, that starts to get into the weeds, but it depends on how much planning there was and how it was done.
There are selfless acts of kindness, but this isn't one of them. There's no conflict there. He did it to make a video he could monetize on TikTok. It's his job. It's a really simple distinction.
> If you mean having a camera person, that starts to get into the weeds, but it depends on how much planning there was and how it was done.
If he went to that mall and bought flowers and picked a sympathetic-looking subject, with the intention of filming a video of himself doing it to upload to TikTok, it's not random. It's premeditated. I don't mean that in the legal sense, though it probably applies. I mean he thought about it in advance, so it's not "random".
Okay but that goes way beyond the general-case statement I was responding to.
--Jesus
We don't do social media, we don't even tell anybody, except for this one time, right now to support your point, so I think it's appropriate in this case.
We've told each other because we talk about our finances and it's reasonably to discuss why the grocery bill was double triple, etc what it would have been for what was brought home.
But I think it's a good thing to do if you "hit" the correct "target".
It's feels good to genuinely do something nice for another person and I wouldn't want to take that from them. It's also nice just knowing that not everyone in your community is only looking out for themselves. Might as well take the opportunity to do something for someone else
I've wanted to pay sometimes for people - but didn't have the courage... shame.
I tend to just try help out those who are having trouble paying, regardless who they are, on the condition that if we're in a supermarket, their shop is a grocery shop on the whole; if they're buying £70 worth of spirits and nothing else, I'm probably not going to offer.
I work in central London, so sometimes a tourist will come into my local cash-only coffee shop just in front of me and not have cash, so I'll just offer to buy their coffees or whatever, though there are no cash-only coffee shops now since returning to the office after the pandemic, so it doesn't happen as often.
You might also just pass 5 to 10 x 20 USD cash (or local equivalent) to the cashier and have that applied to the next person in line, and let them work out how to split any leftovers on their own.
I've never done either of those things myself, but I did feel horrid enough about our government during an extended shutdown over budget stuff to directly support the food bank with some 'staples' from Costco as well as a just outright cash donation back when that BS happened last.
Directly supporting the food bank is also an option that can help the even more needy.
If they're struggling, card declined etc, they're probably already frustrated, they might turn to me to apologise, that's my cue; I'll just say, "hey, can I get that for you?“. I remember the first time, a guy about my age just buying food, his card was declined, he had a little bit of cash so the cashier was having him figure out what to leave behind so he had enough to cover it. I just asked if I could get it all for him and he just asked, "why?", looking puzzled, I just said "why not?", and something along the lines of "you can pass on the favour one day", he accepted.
Other times its that the place doesn't take cards and they need to get cash, I'll just say, they can add it to my bill and I'll get it, if they don't mind.
Sometimes people decline, but usually I'm pretty good at judging when people would appreciate it so it's rarely awkward.
Which I have done on a couple occasions, including the note, so they understood my motivation. I am hoping that when they get old, they'll pass it on.
With staged content the only victim is the duped audience who can always just not watch TikTok.
If you want to do a skit, make a skit.
These apps don't allow for people to choose the content they see. Even the front page of CNN.Com is regularly now citing TikTok clips that went "viral". In the next few years there will be no way to avoid this staged and shilled content anywhere. Especially as monopoly platforms begin to collaborate with each other to create marketing campaigns.
Suggestive/manipulative marketing has a stranglehold on the Internet without most people knowing. Things displayed on site front pages are there for a reason, and it's not usually because it naturally went viral, it's there because it makes companies a lot of money.... The real content, made by authentic people is buried by algorithms and under a sea of staged and copycat content. (Just my opinion though)
Not even close. There are plenty of places on the Internet that are not infected with this trash. (This site is one of them: nobody has to wade through videos and ads just to post here.) It is unfortunate that so-called "mainstream news" sites like CNN are not among them, but that's CNN's problem.
News sources previously reporting on and praising crypto companies and coins that have now been exposed as scams (now gone bankrupt) is a troubling sign that even journalism is relying on likes for reputation more than properly checking sources.
Many influencers pushed crypto heavily in the past years, leading to huge money losses for people who follow them. There has still never been proper public account for how this social media content cycle mentally manipulates people regularly.
I already gave you one: this very site.
> a troubling sign that even journalism is relying on likes for reputation more than properly checking sources.
So-called journalism has been in that mode for decades, if not centuries. If anything, the Internet makes it harder for them to keep it up, because there are so many more ways for their practices to actually be exposed so people can see them. That might make it seem like journalists do more of that kind of thing than they used to, but it doesn't; it just means that they get caught at it a lot more than they used to.
> There has still never been proper public account for how this social media content cycle mentally manipulates people regularly.
Social media can only mentally manipulate you if you're naive enough to (a) use it, and (b) believe what you see on it. No amount of "public account" is going to fix that problem.
Hacker News is almost entirely influencer marketing, and has been from the very beginning. The whole point is to push Y Combinator the angel investment company.
Really? That's what this discussion is? Or, for that matter, every discussion I have participated in in the 10 years or so I have been posting on HN? Are we both posting on the same site?
I get that the existence of HN gives publicity to YC, and that every so often pg or sama posts a new essay and those always make it to the front page. But to call the site itself "almost entirely influencer marketing" seems to me to be, to say the least, highly inaccurate.
It doesn't work
I forgo something when I opt out, but I absolutely am in control of that choice whereas a bullied child is not.
Fake cooking videos en masse. I think it's time to give people the option of opting out of filming, carry a small rfid/chip or s-t and then you can't be filmed - built in AI blur :)
This is where working in the entertainment industry has jaded me a bit. By default, I assume that if it captured on camera, it has been planned/staged/etc for the explicit purpose of being shown to people. With social media, I think it has been turned up to an 11 as everyone is trying to become social media famous. It takes a bit of convincing for me to believe that something is truly real at this point.
Due to the "inside baseball" knowledge of how fake everything is on film/TV, I find it sad that so so many people fall for thinking something is real and actually needs this kind of disclaimer.
"To the Capital building...this should be fun!!" Hahaha....
(Technically your initial claim is almost tautological, but I assume you meant "shown for purposes other to genuinely convey information about the real world")
There's a whole industry of this shit.
And you can be kind to people that aren't in dire straights or in need.
Because it is really, really hard to be empathetic with the homeless folks here, based on how they behave.
Maybe you shouldn't put these people in the same category. Not everyone living in the street is the same. Some are just poor. Some need medical and/or psychiatrical help. Some may be on the street by choice (see: Hobos (meant in the 'going from town to town, often by freight train or hitchhiking' sense)).
A couple of weeks ago I had to avoid an altercation with a woman who talking to herself on the subway, she didn't like the way I "looked" at her as I was doing my best to mind my own business. She starts mad-dogging me and then darts off the train.
Every so often a transient blocks the stoplight at a large, 6-lane intersection near my house, because he decided to ignore the crossing signal, and sometimes even the crosswalks.
My young sister doesn't feel safe walking home on certain routes as there are groups of disheveled men hanging out doing nothing in particular. I've counted over a dozen of them, blocking the sidewalk and sometimes a lane or two on the street.
The strip mall near my house has had to fence off certain areas open spaces because they had a habit of hosting impromptu bike chop shops.
A woman who owns a local tasting room at said strip-mall has told me multiple stories of shenanigans with the local transients, as they like to get into trouble in their outdoor bathrooms, and her business has the closest key.
Last week a man was sucker-punched because he asked a transient, who was sleeping in his car, to leave. (The man who got punched needed to drive to work.)
Last year a woman was stabbed with a needle by a transient while waiting in line at a drive-thru.
My city's local subreddits are rife with complaints and specific altercations. Most city parks are or have homeless encampments, and you can find them pretty much anywhere that there is unattended open space. My city even opened a safe zone for unhoused to camp, with police supervision and outreach resources available, and had to shut it down due to lack of use.
City police generally do nothing; they are underfunded, understaffed, and still butthurt from the BLM protests and imposed COVID policies. Some of the videos that have been posted online have been downright childish.
I know that not everybody is the same, and there are a handful of locals that I see repeatedly and know to be decent folk, but it is extremely difficult to be charitable with a narrative like this. And I am aware of other cities around here that have it much worse.
There are areas of town that I used to enjoy walking through, but now they smell of a shit and piss. People are not quite as destitute as some of the South American cities I've walked around, but it feels like we are getting closer to that.
If the homeless, as a group, would control/behave themselves people might have a different attitude. But they don't, and it takes a long time to recognize whether a specific individual is worth helping or not.
[1] https://www.drugs.com/sfx/methamphetamine-side-effects.html
This isn't Minnesota or New York City. Our winters are mild; you don't need meth to stay warm at night, and the transients here tend to have more than enough clothing to stay warm when it gets into the low 50s/40s.
In fact this mild weather is probably why we have so many of them literally dumped on us. (Dumped, as in, given a one-way ticket to a sunny, seaside city of their choice)
Community policing programs work, just look at the success that Urban Alchemy has had in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The community is more than capable of policing itself, but it doesn't.
With respect, do you believe people choose to become addicts?
I'm not talking about opoids which were sold to folks as non-habit-forming for a long time. Or other cases of addiction without consent. But I don't think that is the case here, for the majority of people.
But for that, you'd need a functioning healthcare system.
You can then argue that it's caused by mental illness and we should be empathetic, but I've talked to multiple people who actually worked in psych wards, my mother being one of them. They know they need to take care of them and be empathetic, but boy don't they all have stories to tell that has caused them to dehumanize them to some extent, or suffer burnout as the alternative.
Don't just empathize with the mentally ill, but also the others you so easily burden with doing the actual work.
The person I replied to posted a laundry list of complaints about when those damn homeless jerks made them uncomfortable after saying they are so hard to empathize with. It's so whiny and disconnected from the actual hardships that caused these people to behave this way. Why can't they just be clean and polite and normal?
I've seen too many literal dicks just getting off the BART.
But I don't even mean those or have that much of an issue with them (there aren't many of those here.)
What I mainly had in mind is a phenomenon that may not be very common outside my country (idk). I live in a country with social healthcare and government welfare for those who have no work. The people who are running from person to person in the streets begging for money aren't really needy. They most likely already collect welfare from the government, and they additionally beg as they don't want to work, and the welfare office can't deduct that money from what they get, since it isn't documented.
These are healthy looking young guys in their mid-20s or so, who are completely able-bodied, well dressed, and they're begging as if it is their fulltime job. It's apparently pretty lucrative, else there wouldn't so many of them be doing it.
They've recently become a lot more brazen in their tactics and will verbally assault and sometimes even follow you around for not giving them anything. They ask for money for food as they claim to be hungry, but when you offer to buy them some food they get angry with you as well.
These people aren't needy, and there are so many of them now that I've grown so tired of it that I first started completely avoiding downtown, and ultimately also moved somewhere else (there were other reasons of course.)
I don't have any problem helping someone who's really down on their luck (and you can usually see it pretty easily), but I'd never give money, always offer to buy them food instead. I also point them towards various places they can go to get food/shelter/help.
I'm angry at those who abuse the goodwill of people because they've turned that city I loved so much into a place where everybody always tries to quickly get-in-and-out, never look someone into their eyes, because that might prompt them to try to manipulate you into giving them money, and just generally turned downtown into a place where everyone constantly wants to rush through and avoid any contact with others.
I'm not just blaming those beggars, I also blame the people who give them money. People need to stop falling for this, it turns cities into shit.
Anyways, enough ranting for tonight...
Luckily my girlfriend told the guy to put his roses some place I may not mention here.
Your best policy in public in a major city is to internalize Tony Stark's strong aversion to being handed things.