On the Pleb Filter (2023) | Hacker News Reader

On the Pleb Filter (2023)

fantasticanachronism.com

35 pointsiNic27 comments

> What makes the pleb filter such an entertaining addition to online Discourse is that it's a ready-made kafkatrap, a perfect concept for trolls and shitposters to weaponize

> The pleb filter is not just a fun tool for trolling, it also offers a great opportunity to show off one's smarts.

> It is genuinely challenging to truly appreciate the talent and artistry that goes into bullshit—Armond White (perhaps the greatest bullshitter of our time) is himself a pleb filter, perhaps the ultimate one. Some are liable to react with horror, but I think it's a game worth indulging in.

So I think the author is studying trolling and having bad taste as a game, essentially. I think it is not really very difficult or interesting to come up with winning strategies for a game that everyone else is not interested in or even aware they are playing.

> a recent study finds that "bullshit ability is associated with an individual’s intelligence and individuals capable of producing more satisfying bullshit are judged by second-hand observers to be more intelligent". The pleb filter is not just a fun tool for trolling, it also offers a great opportunity to show off one's smarts.

> It is genuinely challenging to truly appreciate the talent and artistry that goes into bullshit

Makes me think of how a lot of the best coders I've seen online can be found at /r/shittyprogramming and a lot of the worst at /r/programming

My dad actually deeply resents the invention of Google, because now everybody can check and realize he's full of shit. He only appears smart to people who don't know anything about the topic, and now everybody knows he isn't.

I couldn't follow this wandering essay too well but it seems like the author is trying to invent a whole philosophy to justify liking weird things. You can just like weird things. It's okay.

Or, even more revolutionary, you can like things in bad taste and not give a crap what other people think about it!

I think it's good for the soul to practice being genuine, open yourself up to trusting your own judgement. You'll survive even the most mundane abstract dada colorfield art exhibit if you just trust yourself that a blue canvas is not interesting and everyone else is just as bored as you. You'll also be able to watch Freddie Got Fingered and admit that the movie's fun has a 20-minute half-life. Once you get past that hurdle it's easy to talk more, and that's what all these social in-groups and whatever really care about: having people to t̶a̶l̶k̶ bullshit with.

I like the last section, especially the part about reckless ambition that's not contrarianism but a vision beyond old standards.

Great. One more way for snobs to look down on people, and one more thing for trolls to weaponize.

But maybe it can be recursively destroyed. "Naw, only plebs think that's a pleb filter."

Exactly what I was thinking, a pleb filter filter. Which points to what this snobbery actually boils down to. It’s all a big fat ‘no u’.

Not being on the front page of google or app stores is a filter. Having an etiquette guide and having your noobie comments hidden by veteran users is a filter. Having an older style interface that puts off mainstream users is a filter. You come to HN for a reason, don't you? All the topics on HN could be on topic for /r/technology, but we are here instead.

Look up a subreddit that relates to book genres. 95% of it will be identically worded recommendation threads and all of them will have the same books mentioned by responders, in an endless loop, forever. The askers are tourists who will never return or contribute meaningfully. That's what it looks like to have no filter.

Why is the Iliad's catalogue of ships a pleb filter? IIRC it was just a fairly boring instance of a primarily illiterate culture's historical record keeping, not unlike the "X begat Y" in the Hebrew Bible. Is TFA claiming it is excellent literature masquerading as repetitious trivia? If so, a better example imo would have been the chapter from Moby Dick which is solely devoted to the whiteness of the whale.

presumably because its long, and droll. kills any action, and drives out those who are easily bored.

but really it's more like having the cast & credits shown, like the intro to game of thrones

I'm fond of the aside about "self-relferential [sic] meta-commentary" within a blog post that is itself self-referential meta-commentary.

> that are universally agreed to be terrible: the prequels

By whom?

It looks like the author is trying to set up a reverse pleb filter. "Only plebs would like this".

> Every great artwork is a fascist revolt—a form of revolt that, alas, does not fit very well into our æra.

Only pleb writers feel the desperate need to replace "era" with "æra", and such, grasping at every available bootstrap that might pull up their perceived social rank.

I think it is almost impossible to differentiate between liking something as a pleb filter and merely liking something most don’t. When you position your opinions as superior to another's, whether they are opinions on widely liked or disliked things, that is always in bad taste

Is this article a pleb filter?

I think you just won a prize.

> but work best when applied to creations that are universally agreed to be terrible: the prequels, St. Anger, or the oeuvre of 6ix9ine.

I paid for St. Anger, and am still salty about that.

on the plus side 6ix9ine was never good, and is in jail.

"by virtue of its impenetrability, "filters out" people with bad taste."

Is that because they pretend to like it when no sane person would, or just that they don't like it. The former appeals to me greatly.

> Is that because they pretend to like it when no sane person would, or just that they don't like it.

Depends on the filter:

"The most interesting pleb filters are those that lie exactly on the line between being a troll pleb filter and a real pleb filter"

De gustibus non est disputandum.

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