Hacker News Reader

Comment by narcindin | Hacker News Reader

We call them DJ's and many are quite famous.

DJs are rated on their ability to read the dancefloor and get people to dance.

Yes, well, that sounds exactly like the skillset of a meme creator in a slightly different form factor.

Most arguments against gen-AI are bad arguments - you can (and should) admit this even if you (like me) don't respect gen-AI.

I haven't stated anything about meme creators using AI, I just pointed out a DJ's skill isn't based on randomly playing songs.

I think a lot of people mean "Wedding DJ" or "Radio DJ".

However there is a whole small subculture around this. A friend would go hunting for records to sample in Charity shops for old vinyls (this was pre-ebay). This apparently is known a "Digging" and lot of Music Producers, DJs etc would do this to find samples for their sets/albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6aQgZFrVKE

Similar you have people using tracker software on old Amigas / Ataris to play sets.

e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkTQ-15jGD0&list=RDCkTQ-15jG...

Oh. Why? I didn't see anybody arguing that DJing was random or unskilled.

Do you honestly believe that DJs, particularly the very famous ones, just play CDs?

"What do DJs actually do?" https://youtube.com/shorts/9WqICdFQqkE

I think many of them don't even do that live anymore, as the entire set has been mixed upfront in order to preprogram visual/light/pyro effects. :-)

Discussions about "DJs" are difficult because there's a WIDE range of skills behind what we call a DJ.

Yes, some have zero skill and will basically just show up with a pre-determined Spotify playlist. They won't even have mixing/transitions between songs.

Some are in the middle and will be able to do basic transitions between songs (ie, just simple beat matching) and know how to carry a vibe.

At the far end of the spectrum are actual composers that are effectively making new mixes of songs on the fly.

And so you have the problem where someone says "Being a DJ takes a lot of skill" because they're thinking of the last category, while the person hearing that message replies with "How does it take skill to just press Play?" because they're thinking of the first.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com