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Comment by credo | Hacker News Reader

I know nothing about "Wheremyfriends.be, a simple webapp " and it is interesting to see how a brand is being built around one of its three developers. However, I hope we see less of these hero-worship posts on the front page (or at least limit the number of hero-worship posts until something more substantial has been accomplished)

Btw self-seeking flattery of powerful, influential people is generally considered as sycophantic.

Is there a good term for flattering people like the guy described in this post :)

[edit] for chc and anyone else who didn't get the sarcasm, yes, the intern wasn't powerful. That is precisely why the smiley-question asked for a new term

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I thought we were talking about a college sophomore who wrote something cool and gained recognition for his skills. Who's the powerful, influential person that Mr. Farmer is flattering?

I believe the term for flattering people like Dan Shipper is "paying a compliment."

EDIT: You're right, I didn't get the sarcasm. In the context of a comment that described the OP as "hero-worship," it doesn't come across as sarcasm. If we acknowledge that the guy is neither powerful nor influential, it seems pretty obvious that the OP's "flattery" is merely paying a compliment to somebody he respects. I think we could use more of that and less "So-and-so is full of shit" articles.

Turns out if you trace the etymology of sycophant, you end up with "fig-shower" (sykon = fig in Greek), where "showing the fig" meant something along the lines of "flipping the bird" today.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=sycophant

The opposing hand gesture to bird-flipping might be peace-sign-showing. So how about "pacophantic".

(And FWIW, I thought the sarcasm in your question was immediately clear, not sure how other people misunderstood it).

This isn't a powerful, influential person. From what it sounds like, this is a programmer who is engrained in the startup ecosystem, being blogged about by the founder of a startup because he was acquired by another, more noteworthy startup.

The term you're looking for is self-seeking.

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