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Comment by dos1 | Hacker News Reader

Zach: You get lots of people reacting to your talks because you're inflammatory. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck get lots of reaction because they're inflammatory too. I'm not offended in any way by profanity in a presentation. But I know for a fact that your essay "Don't give you users shit work" did not benefit a single bit from the expletive in the title. In fact, my immediate reaction was "what 19 year old wrote this?"

You may cultivate an "edgy" persona, but it's not endearing. It may be a wise idea to take Scott Hanselman's criticism and learn from it. He's one of the best tech presenters in the world.

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This is exactly what he has proven in the article.

He would rather be that much more powerful in communicating his ideas to a smaller group of people and alienating people like you. By you, I mean someone who thinks "what 19 year old wrote this?" or similar.

He outlined this in the article. He gains a deeper engagement with some people at the expense of losing others.

He isn't concerned about losing you, dear reader.

Is he, really, a much more powerful communicator thanks to his use of obscenities? Would he, really, connect less with the same smaller group if he didn't? Is the price of the loss, really, lower than the value of the gain?

(ETA: Interesting, HN won't let me reply to a downvoted reply to my post.) Verbose defenders & detractors of the practice aside, methinks many who murmur support do so from social pressures, and in fact dislike the practice but won't or can't articulate their opposition.

Is the price of the loss, really, lower than the value of the gain?

That is a really interesting question.

I agreed completely with Zach's post, and I've agreed with all of @gks's comments in this thread. Zach's use of swearing increases my emotional connection to what he's saying. If Zach didn't swear, he would connect less with me.

But the plural of anecdote is not data. What proportion of people are like you, and find swearing in a talk trite and cheap? What proportion of people are comfortable with Zach's slides?

We should do science.

That's...a shame. And jarringly arrogant and naive. What a weird sentiment for you/him to have. Ye aren't political activists or anything...

You're quite right, I'm not his audience. But here's the thing, I don't believe him. It's clear to me he loves a big audience (and the attention that goes with it). He's arrogant and also rubs me as a narcissist. I feel like he's just not willing to say he made a mistake, or admit that there were better ways to make his point. I don't believe for one second he actually feels that strongly about reaching a smaller more intellectually aligned group of people. I believe he doesn't want to admit that someone else might be right.

The "shit work" essay was picked up by another writer I deeply respect, John Gruber, who quoted it and put it in the slug:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/03/shit-work

So I'd say it did benefit.

"Shit work" is an evocative image that is more than just swearing.

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