Hacker News Reader

Comment by bigyikes | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t there just something romantic about a cigarette?

Sure, they make you smell worse a dirty vacuum cleaner, and they’ll probably kill you, but think of the aesthetic!

You joke, but I think about this relatively often. There really is something cool about the aesthetic of using cigarettes. I also think about a related but opposite problem of helmets, for instance for bicycling, skateboarding, or snowboarding. Something so essential looks so goofy, and this surely hinders usage. I wonder what it would take to make them switch places, culturally.

A legal mandate that all helmets must stylistically descend from Daft Punk?

I don’t know about helmets, seeing one clip like this [1] instantly makes them look cool and makes anyone not wearing them look like a complete idiot.

Cigarettes get to bypass our monkey brain “you’re an idiot for doing that” because a singular cigarette won’t do severe harm, and the harm from smoking is non-imminent at some nondescript moment in the future.

I think part of the aesthetic appeal of cigarettes is they take situations that are passive and make them seem active. Two people having a conversation? No, two people going for a smoke and coincidentally talking. A girl modeling? She’s not posing, she’s just smoking and someone took a candid picture of her. Beth Harmon reading a book in bed? No, she’s smoking and happens to read a book.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b9yL5usLFgY&pp=ygUOSSBsb3ZlIGh...

From what I've gathered, cigarettes provided a sort of time out... an opportunity for spontaneous interaction... the interaction that open floor plans were supposed to provide.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com