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Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

> Because clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.

I think you should step back and look at it with a bit of distance. Is the content they're paying for really the same as you think is available for free, and do they even get it under the same conditions, in morality and circumstance.

Not knowing your life, it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available.

> commoditised distress [...] often in dire situations

The first step to alleviate these specific situations could be to stop marginalizing this kind of content and give them a regular professional status, instead of systematicly pigeon hole it.

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> it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available.

The analogy holds. Most people don't pay concert tickets for the music itself. It's the experience, the crowd, the physical presence of the artists, etc.

Yeah... if the main goal is to listen to the music - most concerts are a terrible way of doing that.

But the OP is right about the parasocial aspect. OF content and other such platforms is about the personalization aspect. Sure, there's some kinks/fetishes too.. but it is primarily about engagement. In some ways, it's just an explicit, subscription based, social media platform where it feels like you're being treated uniquely... But most times you are not.

How is that particularly different from, say, concerts? The social aspects are what drives value.

It's the feeling of being more personalized. I see what you're saying about concerts, but it is not the same. Nobody is going to the concert thinking the musician is "talking to them" or making content specifically "for them".

I think there's significant overlap in both.

Most OF content is not personalized. It might be consumed solo, but it's produced for a wider distribution. On the concert side, I feel there's a similar situation where you can pay a little to get the same experience as everyone else, or you can pay a lot to get VIP passes and a personalized experience.

Also, both situations are strongly dependent on the size of the fanbase. You're not going to get a personalized show from Taylor Swift or Bella Thorne, but smaller musicians and OF performers target that vibe exclusively.

Tom Petty said we were such a great crowd that we should all get on sail boat and go to Tahiti. Felt pretty personal to me. /s

I'unno every concert I've been to has included the band/singer replacing a placename randomly from the lyrics of one of their songs with the name of whatever town the concert was being held in. shrug

I don't know about you, but I also find concerts very strange and off putting. Like, is "Denver" really a special crowd? I'm pretty sure you are doing a very staged reppeded performance but making us think its specially for us.

I like things without crowd interaction, like musicals/plays, because there is no dystopian parasocial aspect to it. I am only there because the live is different than the recording.

I'm 100% with you. When people say that they go to these types of events and say things like they're "feeling the energy", I just can't understand at all. All I'm feeling is the massive amount of BTUs being emitted by humans packed in close proximity...

However, give me a good piano recital with elevated seating to be able to see the pianist hands, and I'll be there in a flash.

How is a solo classical pianist's concert any less staged, rehearsed or repeated performance than any other concert, other than a (not so) vague sense of elitism?

Unless you're close, you're not catching the nuance of the pianist's hands any more than guitar licks from a guitar frontman. Indeed, many modern pianists are following in the footsteps of rock concerts and having live video camera work to capture these details for people not in the front 10 rows.

All this does is give vibes of "Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television" (https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesn...).

> Like, is "Denver" really a special crowd?

As someone who frequently goes to concerts, I can absolutely testify that the audience can vary a lot between cities. You can usually tell if the band/artist is genuinly enjoying their performance or if they are doing the bare rehearsed minimum.

If you read/watch interviews with touring musicians, all have stories about how "Tokyo was crazy", "London was boring" etc – even though the set list was the exact same every evening.

Concerts can be magical and unique.

https://youtu.be/qtR5L-RGKgw?si=BNdfle2M1cxXlR9A&t=357

I've seen plenty of crowd interaction in musicals and plays too. Ever been to Rocky Horror Picture Show live before?

This comparison is backwards.

Listening to music performed in person by other humans is the natural way of things, like actually having sex with another human.

Recorded music is much more like pornography.

Following that logic:

‘Reading words etched into a stone or inscribed on papyrus by other human hands is the natural way of things, like actually having sex with another human.

Reading words created via machines is much more like pornography.’

Words etched in stone? Bah! Words were created for speach!

> For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.

> - Socrates

https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3439

He's not wrong- the average bookcel doesn't have the same sort of oral recall that storytellers of past had. Not that it's a bad thing.

That's a fascinating perspective. I wonder if there was any pushback when recording was first introduced?

A quick search shows... of course there was!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/06/06/the-record-eff...

https://archive.is/PDR04

Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a couple of places about how recording and mass reproduction destroyed the social (and monetary) value of small-time creative or artistic-expression talent, like knowing how to play the piano OK or being a pretty-good singer or dancing decently well, or being a quite good (but not top 0.1% good) storyteller, or being fairly good at sketching people.

Took social, and perhaps making-a-living value almost totally away from anything but tip-top talent in those areas. Nobody in your family needs you to play music at get-togethers and parties—you’re worse and less-convenient than thousands of artists on Spotify. They don’t wonder with excitement what sort of sketches Uncle Robert will bring to the next holiday, to give to his extended family. At best, that kind of thing’s indulged and tolerated now. The demand is all but entirely gone.

I reckon it was a real belief of his, given he wrote of it more than once, and whose voice it was put in, the one specific case I can call. There’s a chapter in Bluebeard about it for sure (that novel’s kind of a whirlwind tour of most of the major themes and points of Vonnegut’s work—dunno if it was intended that way, but that’s how it turned out) and I know I saw it other places, can’t recall which books.

Really thoughtful comment. (An upvote was not enough :-)

Haha, the thoughtful parts are Vonnegut’s.

I found an abbreviated quote from the bit I’m thinking of in Bluebeard. Loses some of it, but gets his point across:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/277466-simply-moderate-gift...

But I am quite sure I saw similar sentiments at least one other place in his work, and I think a couple places—years and years ago I read most of his novels, plus most of the collected short fiction and short stories, but it’s all pretty fuzzy now.

His first novel, Player Piano, is about a different, but related theme.

It's about machines replacing human work, but it's not at all about the machines. It's about the people. It's about human dignity. Or, as Vonnegut says, it's about "a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use."

I see the same things emerging in the computing realm. Really, we don't need you to come over and help with X, ill just get off-the-shelf commoditized do-hickey and we'll be all set. I'd like to think the same won't be said for developers in the future.

This is very close to my feelings about the swathe of AI tools being released. The ability to write an essay, create unique art, spit out a SQL script, write a pithy limerick... all these things are being cheapened somewhat.

It's like every time hundreds of millions of humans figure out how to do a creative thing to a given mediocre standard, the rest of us figure out how to either give global broadcast reach so that the work of one can satisfy millions and raise the bar that way (large amphitheaters, printing press, public transit, tv, telephone, internet), or teach a robot how to accomplish the same task (sewing, precise assembly labor, automobiles vs horses, GPT, maybe eventually self-driving cars or vending-machine cooked to order fast food).

If I talked about putting all of the telephone sanitizers on a spaceship that might be a reference those of a certain age might be able to grok. :)

I agree with you on everything except the SQL scripts. A world where absolutely nobody has to master SQL or regular expressions is a small step closer to paradise.

I'm not sure I follow, how is listening to music performed by another human live different from watching another human performing a sexy act live ?

The analog to actually having sex would be playing with the band on the stage.

Fair point.

The reason I don’t think only playing with the band counts is: in a hunter gather tribe 70,000 years ago, did everyone sing all of the songs all of the time? Or did some people just listen, at least some of the time?

Practically speaking I think it must have been the latter.

Of course there are lots of unnatural aspects in live music still, like too many people, too loud, etc. But recorded music is wholly unnatural, like pornography is.

I get how it could be seen as "natural", but I'm not sure to see value in that definition. From that token, most of human culture is unnnatural, but honestly it doesn't bother me much.

I'm glad we have books, even as it's not as natural as oral transmission. I love photography, I'm so glad we have chemical food that requires such a brewing process to come to fruition, and I have no desire to go back to a hunter gatherer society, I like civilization in general. And pornography is sure part of it.

> Practically speaking I think it must have been the latter.

This assumes music was made as a performance. Music can be (and i argue probably mostly was) people jamming together. Musician and audience are blurred in this scenario.

Agreed, that's my experience growing up in a family where we regularly sang songs together casually as part of parties. It was less about listening to one performer and more about being part of the performance. Same still happens today with things like choirs - people are in it for singing with others, not for the eventual public performance. It's a very social activity.

It seems like you're drawing an arbitrary line in the sand to determine what things are natural versus what things are unnatural. Furthermore, it seems like you think by definition, unnatural is negative.

By your logic, writing things down is also unnatural and we should've kept with the oral tradition only.

Natural is stepping on a piece of metal, contracting tetanus, and dying without appropriate medical treatment.

That's the spirit, porn is like hospitals. :D

Highly recommend the book "This is your brain on music", as it explores this question (among other interesting things).

According to the author, having separate words for singing and dancing is a relatively new phenomenon in linguistics, and the concept of a performer and an audience as a distinct separation is also relatively recent. He likens it to conversation - sure in any given instance there may be people more or less involved in the dialog of a conversation, but we would all think it very strange if someone said "I only listen to conversations, I don't talk in them" in the way someone today might say "I only listen to music, I don't sing/play/dance".

It's safe to say that the impact on one's emotional and mental state is vastly different. This is a wider discussion of porn vs music, not necessarily OF vs recorded music though.

The natural way of things is to die at 30 of dysentery- I’m glad we are past that

I don't know, quality of modern life degrades after 30 for many of us. After living with chronic diseases for a decade or two, I kinda envy the hunter-gatherers.

Die quickly at 30, with 10 children and some grandchildren even. Sounds like mission accomplished to me.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

There is plenty of live streaming porn as well. Not to mention live sex shows.

People go to concerts to socialize with the crowd, not with the artist.

Maybe a parasocial with the crowd then. Small venues are better for social life but bigger venues create more revenue. So we get less social life.

People build connections whatever they do, we have had phone sex for a long time. Now you need a camera and take some clothes off to do it. It is obvious that the people who manage to earn a lot streaming are mass producing content. There are ones who strive for a social connection and the creators who give that are never going to be big earners. Same as small venues.

> it feels like you're being treated uniquely... But most times you are not.

That's just any customer business.

When you go buy a house it feels like the agent is really looking at your personal circumstances and trying hard to be your friend. When you go cut your hair the staff will remember your name and ask about your day. Your dentist will keep track of your operations, personalize your care and make sure you're in trust and as comfortable as possible.

There's really nothing special about having people you pay be friendly with you.

The first time my dental hygienist asked a small talk question referencing something I said last visit, I was impressed by their memory/vaguely flattered . The second time it happened I was pretty sure they're just writing notes about what to say in my record. Especially when the new hygienist did the same trick :)

I worked in the pizza business before there are some regular customers that you pretty much would call friends. similar to work friends.

Any pub landlord will have regulars

I thought that too about my hair stylist... until I randomly met them at a restaurant and they mentioned very specific details about my life.

I hate it when a dental hygienist small talks. I'm there to get my teeth done not to talk. If I talk, they can't do their job. Personally I have no need for small talk. So I'm just doing it to please them.

Now, the waiter at our office lunch restaurant that we went to like every 2 or 3 weeks knowing exactly what each of us would order and even the ones that alternated between 2 or 3 dishes he'd ask "oh is it the butter chicken or the chicken tikka today?" makes sense and is impressive and appreciated. He didn't do any non essential small talk instead of doing his job either.

On the other hand you have restaurants where you're a table for two and the guy doesn't remember who had which dish when serving in a basically empty restaurant.

Americans are weird. I’ve been going to the same barber for years. He doesn’t know my name, barely says a word and it’s just so comforting.

Which is exactly why you pay them, right?

You may not realize just how lonely a lot of us are.

It’s weird to be friendly?

Funny enough, I follow an OnlyFans creator on Xitter, and they've been complaining that OnlyFans was cracking down on kink/fetish content. I guess OF only wants parasocial slop on their platform!

Well given that OF tried to ban all porn a year or two ago (obviously quickly backpedaling while dodging projectile-spam of rotten fruit) I'm certainly not surprised.

How is that different than the music industry:

> Taylor has always cultivated a parasocial relationship with her fans, and her success is in no small part due to this cultivation. Here are just a few examples besides just her deeply personal and largely autobiographical lyrics:

> 1) Publishing her personal journal pages in the four different versions of the Lover album.

> 2) Inviting fans to her house for Secret Sessions to listen to her albums before release dates.

> 3) This direct quote from the Eras Tour in Tampa: "I'm really loving this tour. It's become my entire personality and I've always loved putting on shows, always loved that connection... Knowing you have felt the same way... I need you guys very much for my well-being."

> 4) The Fearless TV announcement. "This was the musical era in which so many inside jokes were created between us, so many hugs exchanged and hands touched, so many unbreakable bonds formed, so before I say anything else, let me just say that it was a real honor to get to be a teenager alongside you..."

> 5) Leaving secret messages in the liner notes of her physical CDs and the eventual TS culture of Easter Eggs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/13zlbi9/paraso...

> Not knowing your life, it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available.

Wow, What a great analogy. That really is almost the same except not with music but sexual attraction.

  >  the content they're paying for really the same as you think is available for free,

Btw, you misinterpreted the OP

If OnlyFans is really paying 80% of gross to creators, it seems that any kind of "regular professional status" would be worse for them, at least for the top 10%.

> The first step to alleviate these specific situations could be to stop marginalizing this kind of content and give them a regular professional status, instead of systematicly pigeon hole it

I dislike arguments made in this vein, it's sortof a way to intellectually dismiss someone's point without addressing it.

I share the grandparent poster's concern. Parasocial relationships feed us in a certain way, but do not nourish.

Don't get me wrong; I'd rather have OnlyFans than pimps. But that's not the point.

I'm not sure what's to address about parent's point, in that it's already a focus of law enforcement, there will be widely popular polical campaigns to gather people with these inclinations, and it's the standard rethoric of most western societies.

I don't see the CrossFit like dogma of "if it's not working just do more of it" as beneficial in this topic.

I also don't like looking at a service like OF and only focusing on the extremes.

You can think of it as content, but its parasocial none the less.

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